[3] Reid said that while working on the screenplay for the film adaptation of his previous novel, Foe, an idea for a new story came to mind.

"[1] Six Cedars is very different from the place Reid visited, but he said he hopes We Spread will make people more aware of the elderly in society.

She said: This book deserved something both beautiful and haunting for its cover, just like Iain’s writing ... Our editor emphasized the importance of feeling the words and roots spreading.

I wanted someone to pick this up and think, ‘Is something nefarious going on, or am I just imagining it?’ It needed to toe the line between creepy and elegant, and as the design process went on it became clear that a relatively simple, type-driven cover was the best way to achieve that.

[4]Reid was very impressed with the cover and remarked: Whatever hazy possibilities or speculations I had running through my mind were immediately (and willingly) dashed after seeing Chelsea’s striking design.

"[5] Writing in the Toronto Star, Steven W. Beattie said the fragmented, sparse text of We Spread mirrors Penny's surrealist and disjointed style of painting, while the book's large chunks of white space are analogous to her memory loss and confusion.

[2] Beattie opined that "on a thematic level, the overlap between surrealism and the discontinuity of creeping dementia is nicely subtle and understated.

[6] Wiersema said Penny's "fragility and uncertainty" makes the narrative unstable, which is emphasized by Reid's use of poetry-like line breaks.

While it is never clear whether what Penny is experiencing is because of her declining faculties, or if there really is something strange about the house, Wiersema stated that We Spread is not a mystery to be solved, it is an experience in itself.

[6] He added that this is "a powerful approach to storytelling, and a courageous one: to commit to ambiguity requires a leap of faith on the part of the reader, and a trust in the writer.

Besides Penny, the other characters "function more as props", and speak "ominous[ly]" to "hammer home the point that things aren’t quite right in the facility".

[7] The review stated, "the novel has the tone of a horror movie directed by someone desperately afraid the audience is going to miss the point.