The Brood is a book that is impossible to put down, it has a good pacing, mixing more slowish moments with extremely tense ones, which contributes to the book being addictive.

We follow Mary, who is a ruthless lawyer and a character that isn't easy to like, and in a sort of paradox, I liked having her as a main character, it was something refreshing to follow a character that isn't inherently good since the beginning. Mary then is kidnaped by a woman who goes by Girl, and is then put through various scenarios that at first reminded me of Misery, but then they took a turn to something more, and honestly that was one of the things that made this book a good one.

The only things that I think where kind of out of place where the first and last chapter and how they connect with the main plot, I felt they could be integrated in the story in a different way for it to make more sense. But all in all, they still give us insight about Mary.

In the narrative we have themes of womanhood and motherhood entwined with the plot, the images the author used and the metaphors were some of my favorite parts of this story. We also have some body horror and twists after twists, so I won't go into more detail about this because I think it's better to go into it without knowing too much.

I totally recommend this book, but also, check the trigger warnings; there are some scenes that can be disturbing.

This book was quite a strange one. It’s a speculative thriller that makes you wonder what’s real and what isn’t. After Mary, a hot-shot lawyer, leaves her ex-lovers funeral she gets into a car crash and is taken by a stranger named Girl. Girl keeps Mary locked up and tortures her. But somewhere along the way, through the locusts and craziness of it all, they end up fine.

This is a story of two women from very different backgrounds coming together to deal with childhood trauma. They grow and confront their demons from the past.

It was an okay book, but the locust really freaked me out. The writing was pretty good and the characters were well written. I just don’t think this was the book for me.

A super entertaining body/bug horror! The Hills Have Eyes meets Candyman, this one will have your skin crawling as you try to figure out exactly what's going on. You'll feel like you can hear the atmosphere in this one...let's just say I'll never look at cicadas the same way again!

This was a quick and pretty entertaining read. I finished it in just a few days. It’s this weird mix of horror and magical realism that really leans into body horror and nature-based creepiness. Definitely kept my attention.

The story follows Mary, this awful NYC lawyer (as a law school graduate who would rather be held hostage by cicadas than ever actually practice law, the adverse possession talk made me want to throw myself into a vat of acid 😭) who ends up stranded in a forest after fleeing the media circus around her dead mentor. She crashes into a swarm of cicadas and wakes up in a cabin being held by a woman named Girl, who thinks Mary is her mom. From there, it just gets progressively stranger and more intense. There’s this Brood (yes, cicadas, but also… not just cicadas) and Mary slowly gets pulled into something way bigger and weirder than she expected.

I liked how new elements kept getting added throughout the story. Like not necessarily twists, though there were a few, but stuff that kept changing the stakes and made everything feel more urgent. The pacing was okay. I also ended up liking the characters more than I thought I would. I really did just feel bad for Girl the whole time. Mary in particular had some really solid character development. I hated her at first, like truly didn’t care what happened to her, but she did grow on me. That said…

The ending didn’t fully land for me. While I was reading it, it was fine, but looking back, the last few chapters just felt kind of disconnected from the rest of the book. Mary fights so hard the whole time to stay the same terrible person, and then suddenly the Brood does its thing and—boom—she’s different. It felt like a switch got flipped without much build-up, which was kind of frustrating after all that tension.

Overall though, the writing is good, the concept is really original, and I’m glad I read it. I just wish the ending had been handled a little differently or given more time to breathe.

"The Brood" is my first DNF in a hot minute. Sold to me as cosmic horror with bugs. In reality, it's "Misery" but with insect body horror. A bit overwritten, slow, lots of flashbacks. Forced myself to get to 50%. Some parts were good—I love a protagonist who is basically an awful person. The writing needs trimming, but it is strong. Once you get past the first quarter and action speeds up, things improve. But I couldn't help but be distracted by writing choices, pacing problems, and the constant question: why should I care?

This was a pretty good read. Super dark and unsettling. A twist on a few classic horror tropes, which was fun. My issues with it lied with pacing--it was so slow with overly long descriptions that bogged it down. I found myself skimming a lot.

3.5 stars! I already disliked cicadas but this made me absolutely abhor them haha. This was definitely body horror throughout and was one of the first books in a while to genuinely make me squeamish. Mary was so unlikeable throughout the whole book that it made it hard for me to feel bad for what she went through. The fatphobia and self depreciation and weird anti Appalachian rhetoric is what knocked this down for me, but a good body horror book!

I'm not averse to reading a story with an unusual twist, and I do enjoy a cleverly written tale that sets my teeth on edge a little.

This is an interesting, graphic story about a successful, educated woman who is trapped in the middle of nowhere by a strange young woman and subjected to violence in her attempts to escape. This is a gruesome body horror story involving lots of insects (warning!🤮) that will definitely horrify most people. Just a little too graphic for my taste.

I enjoyed the psychological impact on the victim who does her best to rationalize her situation and logically think through how she is going to get herself out and away, at least until she realizes logic may not help her. This protagonist hasn't had the easiest start to life and through grit and determination, she has risen from nothing to where she is now. My biggest disappointment about this book was that the start and end of the story didn't tie in well with the middle portion and the book felt disjointed and didn't move smoothly as a result.

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the opportunity to read and review this book.

The Brood by Rebecca Baum is a dark, unsettling dive into family dysfunction and psychological tension. Baum’s writing keeps you hooked, blending surreal elements with raw, emotional depth. It’s a strange, thought-provoking read that lingers long after you finish. Perfect for readers who enjoy genre-blending stories with a twist.

Many thanks to the publisher and netgalley for the opportunity to read and review this book. One messed up book. Perfect for people who don't have bug paranoia. Unfortunately I am not one of those. Well worth the read if the subject doesn't creep you out.

Finished reading:
The Brood by Rebecca Baum
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⭐⭐⭐⭐,5/5
Pages: 190
Genre: Horror
Release date: October 28th, 2025
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This is an ARC I received from @netgalley which I devoured upon receiving! Thank you very much for this copy!

There are several things I can say about this book. The main thing being, it was disgusting, it was horrific and 100% capable of making you feel sick at multiple points in the book.

There is body horror, psychological horror, torture and violence, and I kid you not, after the first 10 or 20 pages, I was contemplating if this was a book I wanted to continue... I did, and I do not regret it in the least. This book is absolutely amazing and it delivers!

We follow Mary, who is a respected, wealthy lawyer. The story starts with her leaving a funeral of one of the founders of the Lawyer company she works for. After leaving, the paperazi followed her car and she is trying to escape them, resulting in crashing her car and losing consciousness.

She wakes up with a headache and pain racking her body, in a cabin she does not recognize, with a woman who thinks Mary is her mother, and her Mother returned for "The Brood".

Mary, suspecting that the other woman is insane, or sick, tries to explain she is not her mother, but Girl (which is her name) does not want to hear it and keeps her locked up in the cabin. This is where the horror starts for real. She tries to escape multiple times, but every time, Cicadas make it impossible to do so. They either guide her back, attack her, make her kind of delusional,... They find a way to keep her there, and once in the clutches of Girl again, the horror amps up again.

The relationship between The Brood, Girl and "Her in the Cave" is also very peculiar. It was very intriguing to discover how it all intertwined and what is happening.

This book literally gripped me from the first page to the last! The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars, was because of the running away and Mary being caught again, became a bit repetitive. But it is easy to look past it to continue with the story, which gets more and more unhinged with the second!

Absolutely loved this as it falls into the body horror/body transformation genre which is one of my favorites. The author did a great job at writing so that the reader can feel the main characters emotions, especially the fear.
4.5/5

Things I liked about this book: the characters! They were all SO flawed but somehow I was rooting for both Mary and Girl. I also loved the end and was so proud of them both for making such amazing changes to their lives. I enjoyed the mystery that framed the story and was really into understanding Girl’s motivations and the locust organization (if that’s the right thing to call it?)

But for me, I got a bit lost in the middle of the book. Mary’s various attempts to escape/getting locked up started to blur together for me. And I personally didn’t enjoy the bug infestation aspect (though I generally don’t like this horror element and I was intrigued enough in the story to keep going).

Overall, I’m glad I read the Brood and found it compelling the way Mary’s backstory was interwoven with her current struggles. I think this is a book that will stick with me.

I really liked this and I am giving it a solid 3.5 ⭐️. And I won’t round up because I am not giving an A for solid B work. That said, I thought this was a nice blend of elements from Misery, the Metamorphosis, with some Hills Have Eyes and the Descent mixed in there along with several other stories we have admittedly heard before. But, this is still a fun, feminist take on the held captive in the woods/body horror/culty supernatural element worship genre.

I read the book in like 3 days because I just needed to know what was going to happen. And truth be told, body horror isn’t my thing at all — it makes me more queasy than it keeps me in fearful suspense. And there’s quite a bit of it in the book. I also have a strong personal pet peeve for any kind perversion that involves breastfeeding and I actually don’t think that part added to the storyline at all and really didn’t even make any sense. Personally, I would love if artists and writers would stop drawing on that theme for shock value because it is so incredibly upsetting and obscene to me that I have a visceral reaction the moment I sense that things could be going in that direction. Anyway, I skipped those pages.

I also really hate super detailed descriptions of scenery when the author is trying so very hard to make you imagine a space but some of us just cannot imagine physical dimensions in that way, and it ends up being a lot of fluff. The very long description of the cave and all of the different routes that Mary took to try to escape and all of the different directions they entered the cave from was just lost on me. Trying to decipher how this cave was supposed to look took me out of the store quite a bit.

Aside from all that, I think this was a really effective horror novel and an engaging story. I would easily recommend it to anybody who likes this genre and I would also add that I think it was well written. The author is clearly very smart and well researched on the subject of cicada life cycles so the discussions felt authentic aside from the magical realism aspect.

I liked that it ended on a positive note and that the main character was able to benefit from this horrifying experience, even if I thought the ending was sort of far-fetched. I think it was more of a favor to the readers after having endured pages and pages of having the rug pulled from underneath us whenever Mary seemed to have been able to make her escape but was ultimately thwarted. Or having things go from bad to worse when RM showed up.

So yes, we lived through it when Mary was violently dragged down from the pinnacle of wealth, respect, and sophistication to not only place where she thought she had escaped earlier in her life, but straight to the hyper-marginalized intersection of extreme poverty, lack of education, occult worship, antisocial isolation, and a fear of modern society — into the dirt. It was a harrowing experience for all of us. A positive ending was very much needed and I am glad that’s what we got. It also worked to tie in together all the random interludes about Mary’s earlier life. And I admit that if that storyline didn’t wrap itself up and was simply there to demonstrate Mary’s will of character, I probably would’ve found the story less satisfying.

All in all, a solid read.

** and Thank you to NetGalley for an advanced copy.**

Mary Welton, a success-driven lawyer who seems to lack general compassion and emotional availability is unexpectedly met with people and concepts well outside her comfort zone, while at the same time facing buried childhood trauma. After a vehicle accident in a remote area, she is "rescued" by a person in which she refers to as "Girl". Girl is an uneducated and unsocialized grown woman who mistakes Mary for her mother, which immerses her into the life Girl abides by; the life cycle of the cicada. Girl's involvement (and ultimately Mary's), in the birth and life of the cicada brood is hauntingly disturbing and poses challenges and struggles within each character.

Right out of the gate I knew this book was a little different than my "norm", but have recently started enjoying more fantasy books and thought I may find enjoyment in this unique sounding story as well. The book starts off strong with the introduction of Mary, whose way of life leaves you wanting to know more. When Girl was introduced, I knew the book was taking a different turn, but found her character to be fascinating. However, I felt as though the book took a very drastic turn in a shocking and somewhat disturbing manner, which left me reeling a bit. I feel as though a more gradual introduction into the "quirks" of Girl's way of life would have softened the oddities a bit and may have given it a more realistic feel. I also really wanted to know more about the characters themselves, especially in reference to Mary's tragic childhood. I am still not sure how it tied in, but feel it could have been played off more.

Overall, I feel as though the book had a lot of potential, but found myself feeling confused and detached from the characters at times. However, it is very possible someone who is more accustomed to sci-fi genres would enjoy this book more.

Review of The Brood by Rebecca Baum

A beautiful, terrifying hymn to the wilderness—both without and within

In The Brood, Rebecca Baum crafts a dark, surreal plunge into the haunted, humid heart of nature—and womanhood. We follow Mary Whelton, a razor-sharp Manhattan lawyer used to skyscrapers and boardrooms, who finds herself literally and metaphorically dragged into the primordial forest by Girl, a feral and enigmatic captor. What begins as a survival story rapidly becomes something far more mythic and monstrous: a visceral dissection of the female experience told through the lush, terrifying lens of body horror.
Baum’s prose is hypnotic, lush, and bristling with menace. Every page pulses with life—cicadas buzz incessantly, roots twist with intent, and the forest hums with ancient hunger. The style holds the reader in thrall, even when the characters remain opaque or unrelatable. Sympathy isn’t the point. Rather, the novel insists we witness transformation and listen to the unspeakable voice of the wild.
At the core of The Brood is the abject. In line with Julia Kristeva’s theory of abjection, Baum plunges us into a space beyond the symbolic order—a world ruled not by logic or law, but by fluids, flesh, and instinct. Motherhood, reproduction, and the grotesque beauty of female biology are portrayed not as gentle or nurturing, but as sublime and savage mysteries from which modern life has tried—and failed—to distance itself.
Relationships between women, especially between Mary and Girl, are marked by power, violence, fascination, and a strange, undeniable intimacy. Their dynamic is not about solidarity in the traditional sense, but about a deeper reckoning with female inheritance, trauma, and transformation. As Mary’s body begins to betray her, we see her slide into the realm of the Brood—a realm where the natural world reasserts itself, uncaring and all-consuming.
Cicadas are the avatars of this unknowable realm. Revolting yet mesmerizing, they symbolize the raw, unfiltered force of nature that the novel champions: ancient, cyclical, and beyond our control. It is this return to the savage, to the womb of the world, that feels both terrifying and necessary.
The Brood is not an easy read—but it is an essential one. It forces us to confront the things we would rather not think about: our bodies, their decay and function, and our place within a natural world that does not bend to us. In the end, Baum has given us a beautiful, terrifying hymn to the wilderness—both without and within.

This book was fast paced and really addictive. I’m really glad I read it, and I found it hard to put down once I started. I wasn’t expecting any of the twists, and it was brilliantly written. I will be buying a physical copy as soon as I can

This was an ok read for me !!! I liked it I would recommend for those that are looking for a book of this nature

Mary Whelton, a cutthroat NYC lawyer with questionable ethics, crashes her car while fleeing the press and wakes up captive in a remote cabin with a strange woman she only knows as "Girl." What begins as a Misery-like hostage situation quickly turns bizarre when Mary discovers Girl mistakes her for her missing mother and has an unhealthy obsession with a local cicada population and something called "The Brood" which has disturbing (and that's an understatement!!) plans for Mary. Baum's uncomfortably and unpleasantly detailed descriptions of women's bodies - their secretions, transformations, and functions - made this a challenging read that had me physically, squirmingly ill at times. The constant focus on breasts, feeding, and the grotesque manipulation of female biology created a visceral horror whether bugs freak you out or not. I found myself both repulsed and weirdly captivated by the twisted mother-daughter dynamics and the increasingly strange body transformations. A revolting read that I desperately wanted to put down, yet somehow could not.

The Brood is a wild ride; think Misery meets Marino’s The Swarm. I really enjoyed this suspenseful kidnapping / eco-horror story that explores womanhood, specifically our relationships with each other.

Mary Whelton is a wealthy & infamous lawyer who has never let ethics stand in her way. But when she crashes her car far from civilization, she finds herself in a situation she won’t be able to talk her way out of. Taken hostage by a woman known only as “Girl”, Mary soon finds herself in a fight for freedom and survival. But Girl is not the only danger in the woods; deep in the forest, the Cicadas prepare for an unnatural cycle.

I loved how this book balances genre-horror with thoughtful, emotionally resonant themes. I already mentioned the Misery comparison; The Brood seemed to pay homage to the classic kidnapping horror, while still being its own fully unique story. My favorite thing about this book was the exploration of womanhood and women’s relationships with each other, and of course, the scary, scary bugs. I love that cicada horror stories are becoming a thing; I read The Swarm earlier this year, and now The Brood. Cicadas are mysterious insects, and while I never would have thought they worked so well in horror before this spring, I may in fact fear them for life now. The cicadas in The Brood are creepy, but the reason they are present is much worse, and that’s all I’ll say to avoid spoilers.

I would recommend The Brood to readers who love women-centered stories and themes, insect horror, body horror, and plots that take you on a wild ride!

Thank you to NetGalley and Thomas & Mercer for the arc! All thoughts & opinions in the review are my own.