Her life is falling apart… like, literally.

PLOT SUMMARY:

Being a sugar baby isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. After a failed art career and a failed relationship, Baby has lost her way. She’s adrift in the post-Y2K, pre-Facebook world and stuck in her Florida hometown, selling stolen goods online and working as a sugar baby. Even though she’s hustling hard, there’s still never enough money to pay the bills, and her long-suffering roommate is ready to put her out on the streets. One night after a bad date with her sugar daddy, Baby is assaulted by a mysterious woman in a parking lot. The attack leaves her disoriented and exhausted, so Baby takes to her bed to lie there and rot, like, for real. With every passing day, Baby’s looks and health decline in strange and horrific ways. Soon, it becomes apparent that the strange woman who assaulted her had something to do with her declining state. Baby needs to find her attacker, reclaim her life and her beauty, and get her shit together once and for all. But at what cost?

Bed Rot Baby is a pink horror meditation of self-discovery through self-destruction, and the real cost of self-image, self-esteem, and beauty.

GRADE: A

REVIEW:

Bed Rot Baby is a strange, stylish little gem, eerie, satirical, and surprisingly tender. Wendy Dalrymple offers a fresh and unsettling take on themes of immortality and beauty, exploring what happens when the desire to stay young and untouched by time turns obsessive.

Rather than leaning on the usual tropes, Dalrymple injects the story with biting social commentary and dark humor. The idea of eternal youth is twisted into something claustrophobic, even grotesque, and the result is a story that feels both modern and mythic. It’s a clever reflection on sugar baby culture, the commodification of beauty, and the way society rewards women for staying small, still, and pretty forever.

The writing is sharp and compact, the tone shifting between dreamy and disturbing in all the right ways. It’s not a long read, but it lingers.

If you’re into offbeat horror with something to say, especially about the cost of being “perfect” forever Bed Rot Baby is well worth your time.

*Thank you so much to NetGalley & Quill & Crow Publishing House for a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

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