Feed

I really liked Feed, once the story progressed past the first 200 pages. I love a well rounded world and this one definitely delivered. However, much of the politics prevented me from reading this as fast as I usually do. Once the story progressed past the 200 page point, i had a VERY hard time putting the book down. And... I cried at the end. shakes fist at Miss Grant Looking forward to seeing how this series progresses.

Holy shit! That book - just - what? The book's narrator and one of the main character was Georgia Mason. Emphasis on the was, there. Not many authors kill off the narrator and main character, Mira Grant went there. I'm glad she did. I don't think I'm going to be able to get this book out of my head for weeks.

A summary? Georgia Mason and her brother, Shaun Mason are bloggers, drafted by a presidential candidate to follow his campaign in zombie-filled America. They get exclusives and hits on their sites rise until they are the number one site in the world, then the shit hits the fan, terrorism, espionage, all that fun stuff.

Surprisingly, I liked how this story was all based around a presidential campaign. I didn't even realise it was a book about a presidential campaign when I started reading and rolled my eyes when I did find out. Mira Grant manages to make it interesting and understandable for someone who's not an American and for someone who isn't the biggest fan of politics.

Mira Grant's description was brilliant and the action was fast-paced and had me completely engrossed in the book. As I write this, I'm still in that after-book shock you can go into as you try and process all the things you've just read.

I debated buying the next one, and read more about Shaun Mason, the brother, dealing with his sister's death. For now, I've decided against it. Georgia Mason was the main character and I liked her for it. Whilst her brother is a strong character, he doesn't seem to quite be the same. I might read the next book eventually, just not yet. I have to get over this one first.

3 1/2 stars

Even though I occasionally experiment with horror, it's not my genre of choice, especially if it's the gory type that has body parts strewn everywhere. So I don't go near books that proclaim “ZOMBIES INSIDE” and almost overlooked this one when a copy showed up in my mailbox as a review copy. Then I noticed that Mira Grant was the same as Seanan McGuire, whose October Daye series has become a must-read for me. That made me curious enough to read the opening paragraph, which had the same light, humorous narration as the author's other books.

After this, I was considering trying it, but I moved it to definite when Seanan McGuire mentioned it was more political science fiction than horror. After reading it, I'd definitely agree - it's not scary or full of graphic descriptions of blood spurting everywhere. Although there are jokes made about brains getting eaten, I was thankful there were no actual occurrences of this nature. As far as being grossed out goes, it was fairly mild - there was nothing that was described in such detail that it turned my stomach and I've read plenty of fantasy books containing parts that were far more disgusting than anything in this book.

That's not to say there is no sense of danger or excitement...

Full Review

This paragraph is a good example of why I couldn't finish this book:

“I'm not sure I believe in ghosts, but I swear we won't do anything to disturb any spirits that might be resting there.” I put down the camera she'd handed me and shook my head as I opened the van closet and pulled out the rest of my field gear. I always keep a few pairs of thick denim jeans on hand, the kind with steel fibers woven into the fabric. ‘Be prepared' isn't just the Boy Scouts' marching song anymore. “Zombies are enough. I don't need to add poltergeists to the ranks of ‘things that want to kill me.'“

The sentence about being prepared - why is it there? It adds absolutely nothing to the paragraph and completely disrupts the flow of the story. I take that back, it does add something - it adds snark. And these snarky little sentences are crammed into every paragraph possible. It was completely off-putting in terms of tone and character likability, and killed what could have been an interesting book.

This is basically fan-fiction without someone else's interesting characters to fall back on. The dialogue is an experiment in telling an entire story through cliches and quips that would make a CSI writer embarrassed. (Phrases like “Do you need me to draw you a map?” and “Captain Vomit” are said without irony and with the intent of being condescendingly clever.) I hated the characters, they were flat, blatant author avatars and annoyingly immature (I kept forgetting they were supposed to be adults and not 13 years old). There are a few interesting ideas, but they tend to turn into simplistic political soapboxes.

If I had to hear one more time about the chick's messed up eyes or her brother poking things with sticks or all of the ditzy girl's cameras or an in depth description of every blood test they had to take or blatantly obvious or blatantly stupid line of dialogue that a character “deadpanned” or...well, what I'm getting at is that the narration was more than a bit repetitive.

I wanted to like this book, I thought the idea adding politics to the zombie scene could be really interesting. After all, that's what science fiction does best–adds some distance between the subject and the audience so current “hot button” issues can be examined with less bias. But it has to be logical first. I mean, I couldn't get past the whole “We've matured past the death penalty, you'd have to be an idiot to think otherwise.” Yes, the prisoner would reanimate, but he would do so in a controlled environment where he could be immediately dealt with or brought to a research lab. Somehow, in this illogical world, it's more humane to let the prisoner die naturally in jail where he will reanimate and kill fellow prisoners (I'm not inferring this, it is specifically stated). It was only a minor point in the book, but the perfect example for how most of the politics felt–the author had some specific point she wanted to make ahead of time, so she molded her society to justify said point. It wasn't genuine or logical or anything that would have naturally developed out of a zombie infested world.

And I was never sold on the world. I could buy bloggers becoming respected newsmen, if all the bloggers portrayed didn't exemplify every stereotype currently making the blogging community a joke–they were all immature, outspokenly opinionated, and obsessed with fan fiction.

Personally, I like when authors try to use legitimate science to create their worlds–but this felt like she just googled a few things, found some official sounding words, and called it science. I mean, the whole premise is that the common cold (presumably all the millions of constantly changing strains) and cancer (again, all the different and incredibly varied types of cancer)are both magically cured AT THE EXACT SAME MOMENT. And, as we all know, scientific progress is scary, so then zombies pop up...or something...I admittedly got a bit lost at that point. I mean, zombie stories don't need an in depth scientific origin story (I don't remember there being one in the Romero movies our heroine can't stop mentioning)–origins help, but if you're going to add one, it had better be believable.

And the “twist ending” is only surprising in that it somehow manages to be both illogical and obvious.

Very disappointing.

The writing is simply bad. Grant wanted to play with the sexual tension between the main characters (adopted bro and sis) and failed to walk the line. The result is not smart but discordant. Not to mention that Sean's character is pretty wooden/tropey in general (tbf, part of the blame here lies with the audiobook narrator, who gave him a grade school bully sneer). The plot twist was ‘foreshadowed' with floodlights and a marching band. Many turns of phrase were used repeatedly and boringly. The politics and message of the book never rose above CNN level ‘analysis'—seriously, the book takes national politics at face value. It's difficult to think of something which would make me take you less seriously except, well, the main message of the book, which is that Truth exists out there as something journalists can go and discover when no one else (even those being paid to secure a hazard zone 20 years into an apocalypse) can. Not to mention that the action scenes are pretty weak. There are no hordes, there's no looting/survival, there's maybe 2 hand to hand encounters with zeds, and no cool weapons. I mean come on, she introduced fire trucks with flamethrower/pesticide hoses and we didn't get to see them used??

Also sad that Berkeley cameo'd as its least inspired and most obvious form, replete with villainous Repubs. We are NOT more paranoid than Nowhere, NV, and we have way less guns. The highways are already clogged to hell as it is. The bay area would be toast.

I finished the book because I need to get rolling on my goal, but perhaps that was the wrong move.

I only picked up Feed because I found out that it was written pseudononymously by a fantasy author whose short stories I've found very stirring. I should have known that my personal apathy towards zombie tales would overcome good writing and good storytelling. I think it's because I somehow consider zombies to be comedic fodder.

The only other thing that I could possibly complain about in Feed was the idea that bloggers would still be some newfangled illegitimate newsies thirty years in the future. I know I'm ahead of the curve, but blogs are old-hat to me. I get 99% of my news from Twitter and blogs, so how could bloggers fail to be mainstream that far into the future? Maybe that's one of the problems of writing near future fiction. By the time the book reaches the masses, your predictions for the future are actually already old news.

But, enough about me and my foibles.

If it weren't for me getting in the way of my own enjoyment, Feed was a neat story with a pretty cool take on the zombie origins. I think my favorite parts were the sections in between chapters where George and the other “After the End Times” crew had mini-articles. The tone and musings were really cool. And the twist that isn't a twist, that was great. I am not spoiling a damn thing, but that was great. I probably should have seen it coming, but I didn't and it got me but good.

Basically, if you like zombie stuff, this is one of the better zombie stories I've read. That said, I don't read much zombie fiction, so my opinion is probably useless. Sorry.

(I'd read some discussion of an incestuous relationship between the siblings, and I gotta say I didn't see that at all. George, especially, struck me as “merely” asexual.)

I don't know if I can sufficiently describe what this book is about or how deeply it affected me but I guess I can try.

Feed is about a post-apocalyptic America where a virus broke out and decimated the world's population and changed the way people lived forever. This book is set years and years after the fact where living with the possibility of a zombie outbreak is as normal as any other daily task. The readers take the point of view of Georgia and Shaun Mason. They are bloggers who get the chance of a lifetime to follow the campaign of Senator Pete Ryman who is vying for the highest position in America, President of the United States.

I can't tell you more without ruining the book. But this is more than a well thought out zombie novel. This is political espionage, this friendship, this is a dedication to the news so strong that it changes lives. Mira Grant accomplished one of the greatest last 1/3's of a book I've ever read. She successfully had me crying for a good majority of the ending.

I loved this book and I dare you to read this book and not think the same. This isn't your average zombie thriller. This is something better than that. This is something smarter than that.

Prepare to be wowed.

AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHH Ok so this was a LOT!!!! I can now Definitely say I'm in the Mira Grant fan club!!!!! Her writing style was absolutely PHENOMENAL!!!! I LOVED her sense of humour!!!!! It was a little hard for me to get into at first, but that's mostly because of the finer details about journalism. I personally have never been interested in journalism, so it took me a little bit to get into it. The humour and the relationship between the characters Definitely made it easier though!!!! And it was just written so beautifully!!!! If you like zombies and humour I can Not recommend this enough!!!!!!

The overall storyline of this book was not what I was expecting, and I didn't find it very interesting (though I see how it gets the characters in a lot of different situations and drives the plot forward). I find the idea of a zombie apocalypse that isn't actually the apocalypse intriguing. I really enjoyed the main character too. Overall this was a fun book with some boring bits and obvious parts, though 3 or so chapters near the end are 5-star-worthy all by themselves. I just didn't realize I was going to read a book about a presidential election, and that whole premise was a snooze, mainly because I'm in full-swing political fatigue in my real life. I wish there would've been more info about the reveal and follow-up with all of the accusations, but at least the character aspect was handled extremely well. An obituary that was written by the main character was also incredibly well done. The author writes very compelling emotions.

This is a spoiler-free review
Read on In The Sheets

For starters, I'm most certainly reading Mira Grant's work out of order. I just recently completed Into the Drowning Deep, the review of which you can find on In The Sheets or the Goodreads page for the book. I adored it and wanted to read more by her, so went out and grabbed the Newsflesh trilogy.

I absolutely loved this concept, but I did not get into it the way I got into Drowning Deep, though they're totally different ideas and cannot be compared.

Feed takes place 25 years after a Zombie outbreak. Everyone is infected and will turn eventually, but society has learned to live with it. It's a day and age where the most trusted journalists are bloggers, and we're following a couple of them from a site selected to get exclusive access to the latest presidential campaign. 

This is not your typical zombie horror book and you'll be disappointed if you go into it with that expectation. What Mira Grant has done here is imagined, in a very realistic way, what the world would like like decades after an outbreak and how humanity would cope with it. There's a tremendous amount of world building that's done incredibly well and the technologies she's imagined are just advanced enough and subtle enough to feel entirely plausible and believable.

While the writing is impeccable, I had just recently read some of her latest work and could tell that her writing, and dialogue especially, had grown a lot since Feed. I also had some problems with the narration of the first 90% of the book that would give major spoilers away if I said any more, but it was otherwise a lot of fun with some really cool characters. I honestly had a blast reading it.

This is my first zombie book.

Our story opens where countless stories have ended in the last twenty-six years: with an idiot - in this case, my brother Shaun - deciding it would be a good idea to go out and poke a zombie with a stick to see what happens.

lot

Governor Tate is a man who cares so much about freedom that he's willing to give it to you at gunpoint. He's a man who cares so deeply about our schools that he supports shutting down public education in favor of vouchers distributed only to schools with with government safety certifications.

Do your research. Do your homework. Learn what this man would do to our country in the name of preserving a brand of freedom that is as  destructive as it is impossible to secure. Know your enemy.

That's what freedom really means.

“You said the only way things could've gotten as bad as they did was if people were willing to take the first easy answer they could find and cling to it, rather than doing anything as complicated as actually thinking.”

“And you said that was human nature and I should be thankful we're smarter than they are,” Shaun said. “And then you hit me.”

Our ancestors dreamed of a world without boundaries, while we dream new boundaries to put around our homes, our children, and ourselves. We limit our potential day after day in the name of a safety that we refuse to ever achieve. We took a world that was huge with possibility, and we made it as small as we could.

Listened to this one in the car. Good reader - really brought the characters to life. I'd like to give it 3 1/2 stars... I just didn't like it enough to give it four, but it's better than a 3. There were parts of this book that I found pretty gripping - other bits made me roll my eyes. I don't think I'll dash on to part 2. It's a book about reporters and bloggers and election coverage... with the backdrop of taking place many years after the Zombie apocalypse (or whatever you want to call it). The Zombie backdrop is interesting, and well done.

I didn't think this was a 5 star book until about halfway through.

The zombie story is entertaining, as zombie stories usually are. The reason for the zombification is believable, and also says something about the people involved. Also, this book is a little different from other zombie books: a lot of people don't get the virus. It's not an post-apocalyptic novel in that sense, then. There are plenty of folks still alive. There's a President and Vice President of the United States. People still have jobs, houses, daily lives. They just have this terrifying reality to deal with. And I liked that.

What I really enjoyed about this novel is the politics. I learned a lot about journalism and what is truly meant by ‘free speech.'