After the traumatic birth of their child leaves Ana paralyzed, Ana and Reid win an affordable housing lottery for an apartment in New York City’s famous Deptford Building, and they jump at the opportunity for a fresh start. The apartment seems like the perfect place to raise their daughter, Charlie, and Reid settles in fairly quickly, but Ana can’t shake the feeling that something isn’t right. Charlie’s behavior has changed, the neighbors are beyond weird, and then there are the strange bitemarks on Charlie’s skin. Reid is quick to excuse these things but Ana isn’t so sure. Just what kind of building is the Deptford really?
First line: We don’t belong here.
Nestlings is truly creepy, something I was personally pretty grateful for considering my last horror read didn’t feel especially spooky. I went in blind, so I had no idea what the horror aspect was, and I spent about half the book guessing, which was a lot of fun. I guessed correctly, by the way (though honestly, once I got to the part where guessing was actually possible, it was pretty obvious). I love that Cassidy didn’t go with the typical tropes so even once I had figured it out, I was still surprised by various characteristics and rules of the Big Bad (which I’m not mentioning in case someone else wants to go in blind, but it’s easy enough to look up).
I love how complicated Ana was. She struggled with bitterness over her parapalegia and resentment of her daughter in addition to the normal postpartum stuff. After all, she wouldn’t be paralyzed if she hadn’t had Charlie. The constant fight in her mind between loving and hating her baby, and then the guilt she felt afterward, the worry she wouldnt and couldn’t be a good mother, was heartbreaking. Ana struggled with Reid as well, but in my opinion, anyone would. Reid was a colossal ass. Once upon a time, before this book began, he may have been a good guy, but not anymore. He didn’t feel like a complex character, he just felt like an incredibly selfish jerk that only does things that will serve him. He was suffering mentally, just as Ana was, but the ways in which they handled it were so different. Sometimes I did feel like he had a right to be the way he was, or that it made sense, but I was constantly angry at him and even had to remind myself once that he isn’t a real person.
There were a few things that were brought up or events that took place that confused me. I understood what was going on, but I didn’t really know why it was going on. It didn’t feel like filler, exactly, but it didn’t feel necessary either. One example: when they move into the building, Ana realized the view from Charlie’s bedroom was different than it should be, but couldn’t figure out how. There was a will she/won’t she figure it out built up, and then she finally figured it out but it wasn’t really a big deal and then it was never mentioned again. That and a few other things had me scratching my head, but the story was good enough that it was easy to shrug them off.
The formatting of the book was very pleasing to me, so I want to mention it too. Short chapters were broken down into small, numbered chunks, and paragraphs were small. I’ve never complained about paragraph or chapter length before but I liked this very much. Nestlings takes place during the pandemic and in a note at the end, Cassidy explains why. He wanted to “capture the incredibly strange period of time we were living through in 2021 (and ’22)” where people wanted the pandemic to be over, but it wasn’t quite. Some pretended it was. Some couldn’t. It was just a very odd, nebulous time. I think he did a good job of capturing that uncomfortable feeling of the unknown.
Nestlings is a story of grief. It’s a story of the complexity of motherhood. It’s about feeling like you don’t belong . And it’s about an ancient evil that predates crosses 😉
Little Vermo Reviews 