Reid and Ana have had a tough year. They spent all their savings on fertility treatments. When Ana goes into labor, she is recommended a C-section, but doesn’t want to go that route. As a result, she is injured during the birth, and now she is a paraplegic. Although her husband had prepared to be caretaker to a newborn, resultingly he’s the caretaker of his wife, too, who uses a wheelchair.
Nestlings, by Nat Cassidy, opens with our little family checking out a luxury apartment in New York City. They’ve won a lottery the building offers on some of their apartments, a way to allow lower-income families a home at a reasonable price. Although the apartment is loads of floors up (no one seems certain how many), the point is Ana knows it’s not the first floor, which is important for her safety. They almost turn down the offer when something compels her to say yes.
Nestlings is a creepy book, but a lot of the meat is how this family reacts to change: baby Charlie is going to be one soon, Ana is not improving despite physical therapy, Reid hates his job at a law firm and has been unofficially been demoted to office secretary, money is running out but ordering food through apps seems easier, and we know that Reid’s mother has died and Ana’s is in a facility. In fact, Ana’s mom provides an internal negative stream of thoughts in Ana’s every decision, criticizing the new mother and humiliating her. Basically, they have no support system, Ana is an emotional mess, and Reid feels responsible for everything.
Really, this novel is about how hard things can get and how we respond. When someone is taken to the brink, when they look at their baby and wish she wasn’t born because then life would be different, that’s when Ana and Reid butt up against the edge of hopelessness and insanity. But all this isn’t even the fantastical horror in Nestlings. Something is wrong with the people who work in the building. The other tenants seem too famous, too familiar with people from the long-ago past, and then there are the little bug bites on the baby. There is a lot of that “What’s gonna happen??” dread in Cassidy’s novel, and he doesn’t let up.
Even better, Cassidy’s writing is funny at times, giving you a reprieve and reminding you that these characters are like us (well, they feel distinctly like elder Millennials). For baby Charlie’s first birthday party, other adults with children are invited to the apartment. Reid, who wishes he were a professional musician instead of an office guy, plays a song he wrote for his daughter. When he’s finished:
“Little Eliot, excited by Reid’s song, had declared over the din of adults and children that he wanted to do a birthday dance for Charlie. The adults all stopped to watch as Eliot spasmed and gyrated like a tiny pagan currying favor with an easily pleased deity.”
While we get Reid’s point of view at times, this is really Ana’s story. Author Nat Cassidy captures his female protagonist’s essence clearly, never struggling to write the opposite gender. Furthermore, the ways in which Ana’s wheelchair changes her life is never conveniently forgotten. And then there is the Judaism aspect; Reid and Ana are non-practicing Jews who grew up in the synagogue, meaning they know the traditions, important symbols, and phrases in Hebrew. This part is relevant when Reid tries to battle the evil that is their apartment building that has come for his family.
Overall, I loved this novel and found it wholly original. It absolutely did not end how I thought it would, but what readers will likely conclude is that there are many ways to be a mother, and not all of them are what you might expect. Lastly, I’m grateful that Cassidy included an afterward explaining how and why he wrote Nestlings, which summarized his 2021 experience of losing multiple family members and pets and his wife becoming unable to move due to a condition doctors could not figure out for a long time. He’s also Jewish. To write an accurate portrayal of a disabled person, he used sensitivity readers and YouTube videos of influencers who video about their lives and how their wheelchairs play a part. Amazingly, much of Nestlings sounds like his experience with an added horror element.
Grab the Lapels 
That’s a super creepy cover!
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I’m not even totally sure what it is on the front!
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Well, again, you haven’t convinced me to like or read Horror. And a professional being treated as a secretary in a job he can’t afford to leave, would be horror enough, without the creepy apartment building.
Also, I’ve gone off Afterwords. A story either stands on its own or it doesn’t and I find the writer’s journey and motives totally uninteresting – in that context; and yet I will happily read literary biographies and memoirs.
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Hahahaha, you’re right, working a shit job IS horror, indeed.
You know what’s interesting is most of the book club (there are about 20 people who come) said they didn’t like or want to read the afterward, and they feel that way in general. I said that one of the reasons I got into creative writing was less about the writing and more about the people. I love talking in a workshop about our stories, but I also like meeting writers and learning about who they are, why they write, and why they wrote what they did. Perhaps this is why once I was done with MFA I didn’t write much anymore.
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That cover is creepy! I think pregnancy and childbirth is so ripe for horror. And then the aftermath of how it can physically change you. I don’t think I’ll read this but I am curious about the creepy apartment!
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I hadn’t realized that at least the first 6 months of 2025 are all going to be child horror at this particular book club I went to. We started with Suffer the Children by Crag DiLouie, then they read Baby Teeth by Zoje Stage (which I’ve read twice before, so I didn’t go), and now this. Next is the Midwich Cuckoos, which is the basis for Village of the Damned.
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Is that a deliberate choice? I know a lot of people find child horror particularly difficult, even if they enjoy horror in general.
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I believe someone in the group convinced the leader of the group to choose this theme, yes.
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Wow, this sounds incredibly well done! Lots of moving parts here, but still very believable? Lots of different elements of horror too – there are so many things that ‘scare’ us for different reasons in this plot. overwork, disability, potential of poverty, mental illness, etc.
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Honestly, I could see you enjoying this book, Anne. I know you dip your toes in horror, and you mentioned you know Craig DiLouie’s work.
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yes, very true. I find horror a fun break to other serious reading actually, even though sometimes it scares me lol
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Well I’m glad there was some humor in there, because it sounds way too tense for this stressed out lady!
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I’m sorry you’re stressed out. Being stressed is why I keep reading the Allison Brennan books. I’ve hit the point where my throat keeps involuntarily closing and I have an itchy stress rash on my leg…. AND I’m having the time of my life.
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I am halfway through this book and it is FANTASTIC! The creeping dread is perfectly paced and I love how the building itself is a character in the story, not just the setting. I can’t wait to see where this is going…..
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I loved this one, and I was surprised that some of the book club members I was with didn’t appreciate it as much. I definitely feel like you can’t just read this one shallowly. You have to look at the big picture, at systems of oppression, and metaphor, of course.
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the only Cassidy book i have yet to read
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And it’s such a good one! A new novel comes out soon from Cassidy, I believe.
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Really???? i hadn’t heard that
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Yep! 2025’s When the Wolf Comes Home.
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oh i thought you meant another new one lol. i actually love When The Wolf Come Home. its an amazing read
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