I don’t know how I feel about this. It dragged a lot for such a short book. I loved I’m Thinking of Ending Things and Foe. This one not so much. The mystery wasn’t much of a mystery but it did make you think about what it might be like as you get older.

Penny is left alone after the death of her long time partner. Surrounded by his things and the memories they made together she goes through her daily routine until she has an accident. Penny is unable to take care of herself after the fall and is moved to an assisted living facility. She is informed these arrangements were made years prior by her partner. Penny does not remember this arrangement.

Penny acclimates to her new surroundings despite the various strange occurrences. She becomes friends with a resident who was a former math teacher. They bond over shared experiences and Penny becomes so comfortable with her new friend she decides to dust off her paint brushes and paint his portrait. They make a pact to watch each others backs.

Penny’s memory is not what it used to be. She increasingly has gaps in her memory and can’t figure out if it’s a normal part of aging or if something more is going on. Penny is labeled paranoid as she believes she’s being watched and has no concept of time. As the story winds to a close you being to wonder as the reader is Penny going through the normal stages of aging or is something more sinister happening?

We Spread is available September 27, 2022.

Thank you to Netgalley and Gallery Books for this arc in exchange for my honest review.

a haunting and surprisingly beautiful exploration of age and what it means to die in peace…it’s best to go into this relatively blind but if you enjoyed Reid’s other books (especially Foe) you’ll probably like this one as well!

Penny, an aging artist who has been living on her own for years, finds it getting harder to keep track of things and do for herself. After taking a bad fall, her landlord Mike takes her to a place called Six Cedars Residence. There she meets Shelley who tells her that she and her partner picked Six Cedars together several years ago for the time when it was no longer viable for them to continue to live at home. Penny remembers nothing about it, but figures Shelley would have no reason to lie.

She settles into her new rooms, meets the other three residents, and Jack, a young man who helps Shelley run the place. There is a daily routine that she becomes accustomed to, but the longer she is there, the more things just don't seem right. Are her questions and fears due to her aging mind, or is there something more devious taking place?

Reid captures a myriad of issues associated with aging (loss of personal agency, mental and physical decline, isolation, anxiety, depression, loss of independence, societal invisibility, and a loss of voice among them) and blends them into a finely plotted and executed dark tale. An excellant read!

My thanks to Gallery/Scout Press for allowing me to read an e-ARC of this novel via NetGalley. It is scheduled for publication 9/27/22. All opinions expressed in this review are my own and are freely given.

Iain Reid does it again with introducing isolation in to We Spread just like he did with his previous two novels. He takes the concept of aging and makes it incredibly claustrophobic.
The main character Penny finds herself in an exclusive nursing facility thriving in her new environment. Soon she becomes suspicious of the other residents and suspecting that things are not as they seem. She loses time and memories, (one of my biggest fears and one of the reasons I take lots of pictures)
Reid’s story telling weaves social commentary in short compelling chapters. Some topics hit close to home so I felt more attached to the characters.

If you’re a fan of physiological suspense, horror fiction this one is for you.


Thank you NetGalley / Scout Press for an e-ARC

Iain Reid will always impress me with his writing, his imagination, and his unique crafting of stories. They're made up of multiple threads woven together to make the most fascinating books that are difficult to put down and easy to get lost in.

We Spread is no different. The page count is just over 300 but it doesn't feel like that at all. Reid doesn't water down his words with scene setting or an overabundance of descriptions, so what you're left with are short sections that move the story along at a rapid pace.

There's always some sort of lesson or theme in each of Reid's books, which I think are left open to interpretation and for the reader to pick out. For me, it was the monotony of adulthood and getting stuck in the endless loop of work, home, bed, repeat. This is the thing that makes us old, that forces us to lose sight of the world and forget things over time. It's not just the passing of years. If you're not making new and lasting memories, the ones you have will slowly fade away and leave you with...nothing.

Reading this book and attaching onto that concept really messed with me. It also made me realize that I need to do different things throughout my days so that I don't get stagnant. I've read both of Reid's previous two novels, but for some reason this one affected me a bit differently. He captured the idea of loneliness, of paranoia, and the fear of aging so brilliantly that it felt more human, more honest, than the other two.

Iain Reid's books require more than one read in order to fully digest everything. Once you know the twists, reading through a second time is a very different experience. I can't wait to let We Spread settle in my stomach before going in for another taste.

Written in the quirky style Reid is known for, We Spread follows Penny as she traverses life both before and inside life at an assisted living home. But Penny is losing time, or at least, others are telling her she is. But she's not quite sure it's due to aging or even the dreaded Alzheimer's. While she is making friends amongst the other few residents, something is happening at Six Cedars, and she wants to get to the bottom of it.

Reid captures Penny perfectly. From being scared to the eery atmosphere of unknowing, we take a leisurely, sometimes frightening walk in Penny's shoes. One of the biggest problems facing the elderly is utter isolation, where people sometimes face days, weeks, or months entirely alone. Without companionship or human touch, it's a heartbreaking place to be. Reid captures that loneliness so well in Penny, who alternates between enjoying being pampered and thinking it's too much. Readers are in for a treat with this one. Thank you, Gallery Books, for sending this along.

Between this book and I’m Thinking of Ending Things, Iain Reid has proven that he has a great ability to make me feel uncomfortable and claustrophobic. I think this is also the first time I’ve read a horror book through perspective of a very elderly woman so that was a cool new experience.

We Spread follows Penny, a 92-year-old artist who is living in an apartment surrounded by the remnants of her and her deceased partner’s life together. As her health declines, Penny is transported to a long-term care facility, which she supposedly picked out with her life partner before he passed. “Supposedly” because she does not remember this at all, but as she gets settled into the facility, she quickly comes out of her shell and realizes why they would have chosen this particular facility.

Penny even begins painting and socializing again. She’s finally getting the care that was so long neglected after her partner’s death. She’s no longer slowly withering away. But shortly after arriving, Penny starts to lose her grip on time in the facility as they never go outdoors. All the days start to blend together and there is so much Penny can’t remember. She starts to wonder if it’s really her old age or if there’s something more sinister going on.

Honestly, I’m a fan of Iain Reid. I know a there were a lot of mixed feelings about ITOET, but I was absolutely transfixed from start to end of that book. I loved how weird and quirky the writing was, how uncomfortable the conversations were. I even loved the ending.

While this book pulled me in similarly and certainly held my attention throughout, this book is significantly more philosophical and leans heavily on vagueness rather than absurdity to build tension. I finished the book days ago and I’m still not sure what to make of it. I found it to be a suffocating vision of growing old, but somehow endearing at the same time.

That being said, this leans a little too far into the ambiguity to the extent that I don’t fully get the ending even after thinking about it for a while. Looking at other reviews, it seems that a lot of other readers felt similarly, but the haunting prose of the book was enough to make up for the, “wait, what” ending. Unfortunately, while I think Reid is a stellar writer, this one didn’t quite do it for me outside of being a realistic and uncomfortable viewpoint of the paranoia and loneliness of aging.

Thanks to NetGalley and Gallery/Scout Press for this e-ARC in exchange for my honest review.

Best-selling author Iain Reid’s newest, “We Spread,” is a riveting, disturbing examination of the isolation and decrepitude of old age. Some believe that death, and our foreknowledge of it, are the worst part of the human experience, but Reid’s latest novel shows us that there could be worse things.

Penny is an elderly woman living alone in a large city. Her long-time partner is dead. She goes for days or weeks without speaking to another human being and doesn’t seem to have any family. There is nothing about her existence that she enjoys.

The first part of the novel is quite difficult to read. Penny’s first person narration emphasizes her miserable marking of time without love or companionship. Even her cat has died. Then weird things begin happening.

She begins hearing voices coming from the next apartment, which is unoccupied. One day, standing at the window she sees a mysterious stranger staring up at her from the street. After she suffers a fall in her apartment, her landlord packs her up and deposits her at Six Cedars, an assisted living residence.

However, strange things continue to happen once she is at Six Cedars. There are only four residents. The only staff are Shelley, the director, and Jack, an assistant. At first, Penny is happy to find that she sleeps soundly at night and that her appetite has returned. However, when she’s been there just four days, she is told she has been there for three years.

And there are mysterious gaps in her memory. She wakes from naps she doesn’t remember lying down for. She looks out a window briefly to find that hours have passed. Her slippers fit fine one day but are too small the next and too large the day after that.

Penny suspects that Shelley is up to something nefarious. Her conversations with Jack convince her of it. Shelley tells Penny that everyone wants more time. More time to live, to work. However, Penny comes to realize that immortality comes at a price, one that is perhaps too high.

Although Penny is suspicious of Shelley and mourns the loss of her memories, she does find human connection that renews her energy and appreciation of life. Hilbert, another resident, becomes a particular friend to Penny. She quickly comes to care for him and tries to protect him.

Hilbert explains to her about Pando, as aspen tree colony that is actually one organism with a massive, connected root system. Pando, Latin for “I spread,” becomes the primary metaphor of the novel. It’s suggested that Shelley, a former biologist, is trying to prove that a similar interconnectedness among people will give them infinite time on Earth. Penny concludes that interconnectedness is what gives our lives meaning and purpose but that infinite time is too much.

Penny’s narration and limited point of view ask the reader to wonder if Shelley is up to no good, or if Penny is merely suffering from dementia. The novel’s ending gives no clear answers. However, this psychological thriller, out Sept. 27, will certainly leave the reader thinking about how we live our lives, especially how we end them, and how much we should rely on our own perceptions. Certainly not light reading, the novel is rewarding for those who appreciate an unreliable narrator and an ambiguous ending.

WOW WHAT A RIDE. Let me start off by saying I have worked with the elderly population for the past 7 years so I was instantly hooked by this book where we get the POV from an elderly woman. Living alone, it’s becoming increasingly difficult for her to take care of herself. She ends up moving into an assisted living facility and the story gets progressively crazier, more weird, and unsettling. We as the reader have no idea if this is all our main characters cognitive decline or if something more sinister is going on. I won’t sit here and pretend like I have even the slightest clue of what a lot of the themes in this story were or even pretend that I understand some of the ending. BUTTTTT this was just so fast paced, interesting, and made me tear up at certain points. If someone would like to dissect this book for me and send me their thoughts please do lol. I think this has done a wonderful job at exploring the process of aging and human connection.

“The tragedy of life isn’t that the end comes. That’s the gift. Without an end, there’s nothing. There’s no meaning. Do you see? A moment isn’t a moment. A moment is an eternity. A moment should mean something. It should mean everything.”

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for gifting me this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was my first experience reading anything by Reid and I feel like I have been missing out on some great storytelling. I devoured this short book in a matter of a few hours. I could not put it down. Reid's writing is simultaneously easy and complex. No wasted words. To call this atmospheric is a gross understatement. Reading this book reminded me of that feeling I had when I first read "The Yellow Wallpaper." Something was lurking, creeping right underneath the surface, clawing at me to where I began to question my own sanity.

I would not classify this a horror, but I would also say there are enough subtle elements of dread and apprehension to get the heart racing. Pondering what it means to age is not exactly NOT horrifying...

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC.

Name of Book: We Spread
Author: Iain Reid
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
Genre: Thriller, Horror for Beginners
Pub Date: September 27, 2022
My Rating: 2.5

Eight-nine year old Penny, an artist has been healthy and happy living at home but after an accident has been place in ‘Six Cedars” a high end care home.
The residents seem a bit odd and soon strange things start to happen.

Hmm I did read [book: I’m Thinking Things] but it was only okay and really wasn’t for me.
Since I am a little old lady who doesn’t like to consider herself old, I thought this might me interesting. Hmmm

Want to thank NetGalley and Gallery/Scout Press for this early eGalley.
Publishing Release Date scheduled for September 27, 2022

Penny is getting older. She's gradually falling into the rhythm of aging. & after years of living with her partner & then on her own, she finds herself spending her days inside a long-term care residence. That's when things get worse. Time starts slipping. Memories grow fuzzy. Over the span of just a few days (weeks? months? years?), these effects grow more & more severe. It's the work of old age, it must be. Or perhaps it's the work of something far more sinister.
~
~
~
I love Iain Reid's approach to storytelling. On the surface, it's simple, it's easy to read, but there's a complexity to it that makes his books feel light yet dense at the same time.
~
Now enter, WE SPREAD; I want to call it a horror novel due to the underlying dread - crawling, creeping, inescapable dread - but this book is really more of an introspective character study bathed in gallons of existentialism. The horrific aspects aren't in your face, they're subtle, looming just over your shoulder & in your peripherals.
~
The focus of the story is Penny & her struggles: with aging, with memory, with adjusting to her new life in Six Cedars. It's a quiet story, but Reid knows just how to work the levers and pulleys behind the scenes, cranking the wires of tension & the coils of mystery tighter & tighter & tighter. Within this smoke & mirrors act, he mines as much ambiguity as he can & molds it into sharp shadow shapes. Like a Rorschach of constant anxiety fueled by the unknown & what it can manifest.
~
Despite the short length, WE SPREAD is a colossal iceberg of a novel. There's far, far more beneath the inky surface, beginning on the page & ending in the deep, dark corners of your own mind. It's a novel that allows for an ocean's worth of exploration in just water droplets of story, & it proves why Iain Reid is such an important voice in contemporary storytelling.
~
Thank you to NetGalley for an eARC copy of this book. I already can't wait to read it again.

I devoured this book in a day, I was drawn in immediately and couldn’t put it down. In a way, I do think that’s the best way to read it since it sucks you in and draws you into the madness of the main character and her life. However, I felt that there were too many red herrings and loose ends to make this a cohesive piece. I get that ambiguity is very much Reid’s bag, and I am all for the discomforting, unclear ending that makes you question just what was real, but I generally felt confused and unsatisfied at the end of this novel. I needed just a little bit more, it felt like I was running up a spiral staircase only to reach a wall.

That said, the writing is wonderful, atmospheric I’ll certainly be thinking about it for a while and discussing it with anyone I can, so it’s definitely successful lthere.

NOPE...not for me! I had such high hopes for this book and the first 20% or so really hit home as I live alone and can identify with the main character, Penny. But the rest of the book gets weird and runs in different directions that makes it difficult to figure out what is happening. In fact, you never really get answers. Didn't care for it and won't recommend it.

This is the third novel by Iain Reid I have read and each one is original, creepy and thought provoking. As an older woman, this book about aging and the process of letting go of who you once were is both terrifying and interesting. This book can be taken at face value or as a metaphor for societies need for individuals to be productive and also the things that can be taken away from us as we age. Pat is an artist who lived for many years with her artist partner. After he dies, she finds herself lonely and trying to get by eating canned soup and living a quiet life. One day she has a bad fall and before she is even recovered she is hustled into a cab by her landlord and taken to a residential care facility in the country.

The landlord tells Penny she and her partner made arrangements to come to this care home but Penny cannot remember doing so and since they were city people she can't imagine them choosing a place buried deep in the woods. She also isn't consulted about which of her belongings to bring to this home. The home which is on a bluff surrounded by tress has only three other residents besides Penny. It is run by Shelley a creepy. cold woman and Jerry a nice orderly. Once Penny arrives she becomes quickly disoriented. She has a strict schedule of eating and attending meetings and is required to paint again, something she had long given up. She is told each resident much do something productive, one plays violin, one conjugates French verbs, one makes math equations. Only Penny senses something is terribly wrong with this place. Are we only important when we are productive? Should personal choice ever be taken away? Can we force senior citizens to live in a way we want them to instead of the way they want to? These are the questions posed in this very unique book and I felt a strong connection to Penny and her intelligent way of looking at the world. Thank you to NetGalley for a free copy of this book in exchange for a honest review.

Another excellent novel from Iain Reid. I love how he weaves such deep and thoughtful themes into his books which also contain traces of the strange and horrifying -- but never so much that they subsume or overwhelm the message, and this is particularly skillfully handled here. "We Spread" is an excellent story addressing our fears of ageing and mortality. These subjects are treated sensitively, even when the events in the story are abstract. The story is ultimately truly touching and resonant.

There's so much to say about this book. Iain Reid is a genius and always finds a way to capture how unsettling some certain situations can be, especially when mind games are in the cards. I really want to re-read this book because of things I may have missed in the earlier parts. Iain Reid knows how to hook and audience and does it extremely well in this story. I had so many questions and felt so many emotions while reading Penny's story, something that normally doesn't happen to me. I would definitely recommend checking this one out.

Thank you NetGalley and Gallery/Scout Press for this free arc in exchange for my honest review.

An unusual and arresting view of growing old. Not quite horror, but not a light read either. It sags in parts and struggles to keep the reader interested.

Penny has lived alone for a long time but after a recent fall, Mike, her landlord brings her to Six Cedars, a long-term care facility. It has all been arranged her informs her by her former partner to make things easier for her once she can no longer live alone.

At first, she is happy here. She is eating and sleeping well, something she did not do when she lived alone. She is making friends and enjoying human contact.

Then things begin to not seem so copacetic to her. Things are off. She is told she has been there for some time, but she knows she has only been there for 4 days. Penny can't quite understand what is happening, she is uneasy and suspicious.

Like Penny, readers will be left unsettled wondering what is going on. Residents are encouraged to eat, sleep, keep busy and be productive. Living a long life is important is stressed.

Is what Penny is experiencing the result of aging? Is there something sinister happening at the home?

I enjoyed how the book touched on loneliness, aging, the need for human connection, cognitive decline, memory, and death. As I mentioned, there is a sense of wariness, unease, and tension in the book. Reid masterfully set the stage in We Spread. Beautifully written and thought provoking.

This would make a great book club selection.


Thank you to Gallery Books, Gallery/Scout Press and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All the thoughts and opinions are my own.

I don't really know how I feel about this book. It wasn't bad. liked the writing and the beginning of it, but I felt bored throughout a lot of it. I think it would make a good short film, though.