House of Rot

House of Rot by Danger Slater was a 125 pages of nightmare fuel, and I had to open a window while reading to relieve the claustrophobia. Any book that can cause a visceral reaction like that is worth reading.

The tricky thing about House of Rot, though, is that amongst the pages of description of the green fungal mold taking over the Denovas' new apartment (with their brand-new-can't-really-afford-memory-foam-mattress), there are gems like

• "Black guys walking down the street, minding their own business" included in a list of emergencies the police deal with

• Something anyone who grew up in or below lower-middle class knows, "...they still clamored for more. For the lower-middle class, there could be no greater sin."

It would be easy to dismiss House of Rot as just being a gross combination of body and fungal horror, but there is a lot more there about finding hope in ugliness, about fear of the future, and about the hard choices we have to make.

Read for the #100HorrorMoviesIn92Days April Book Club