Holy shit. Holy shit. I just finished this graphic novel and, friends, I truly do not see myself as someone who gets legitimately rattled easily — books may make me emotional, but rarely do they get under my skin and stay there — but I feel like The Low, Low Woods is going to linger in my bones for a long, long time to come. That's not because it's scary, but because it is horrifying, not in the haunted houses and ghosts sort of way, but in a sinister, nauseating manner that I never saw coming.

There is so little I can say without spoiling the entire thing, so instead, I'll just tell you that Carmen Maria Machado is one of the most brilliant creative minds I've ever seen and I cannot possibly recommend this story highly enough. It carries her signature speculative taste and bleak outlook on the world, despite following characters you can't avoid loving and rooting for (and naturally, it features queer women of color as the main characters, because we can always count on CMM to give us beautiful diversity in her dark little tales) ♥).

All of my appreciation not only to CMM for crafting this story, but to DC and the Hill House Comics team for helping this twisted creation come into being.

Thank you so much to the publisher for providing me with this review copy in exchange for an honest review!

✨ Representation: queer plus-size Latinx main character, queer Black main character, multiple queer and/or POC side characters

✨ Content warnings for: (MAJOR SPOILERS!!!)

Spoiler

violence, death, transphobia, hate crimes, several mentions of sexual assault (all challenged in-text)