Hi friends, happy Monday, I hope you’re all doing well! Today I’m posting my review of Iain Reid’s novel, We Spread.

This was long-listed for Canada Reads 2023

We Spread by: Iain Reid: Penny has lived in the same apartment for decades, the person she spent her life with, passed and she’s been alone for years. After a spill, she’s sent to live in a very small assisted-living centre. At first, she loves it; she’s around people her own age, eating well and sleeping well, but soon, she starts to question if there more nefarious things going on. This novel was so thought provoking and really opened the reader’s mind up to a world they had only a vague sense about. This novel takes place inside the mind of an old person with dementia. It was amazing how well Reid was at getting into this mindset and writing about old age and memory loss. It’s never actually told to us, but over the course of the novel, it’s suspected, but the way Reid genre-bends this novel, you’re left questioning if that’s really what you’re reading or is this something supernatural; it was so creative, well done and original. It’s best going in with no knowledge of what this is about because it leaves the suspense super high as you learn things along with the main character. The reader had no idea what they were going to get going into this novel. As the plot continued, we were left in the dark and every time you thought you’d get to understand what was happening, Reid would pull the reader back and you’re back at the start going, what is happening? Also, the way this was written in sharp short paragraphs, really helped in the suspense and thrill of the plot. The way this ended felt very ambiguous because the reader felt really confused as to what actually went down. The reader liked that this didn’t give an explanation or reason to the ending because they felt that would have ruined the novel as a whole, and the impact that this then had on the reader. The ending made the reader think and go back to really realize what was going on. The way Reid led the reader on throughout the novel about the supernatural in this was so good because we’re trying to figure it out as Penny is figuring everything out. This also felt really poignant to read as well as you start to understand what’s going on because this heavily deals with getting older and the passage of time and it hits the gut in a way you don’t expect it to, even in a younger reader. All the characters, even the main one, felt developed, but we also felt like we didn’t get to know them because the story was more about the plot than it was about the characters and that worked well for the context of this novel. For such a short book, this really left a mark and the reader couldn’t recommend this more.