I loved the world. I loved the concept for the book. Some of the book was flat out amazing. Some of it was very contrived. I am a little torn on picking up the next book becuase what I loved I really loved but what I didn't I really didn't. The 2nd book could easily tip one direction or the other. ( )

While I was reading this book, it was a 3, then a 4, then a 3, then a 4, then a 4, then a 4, then WHAAAAAT? a 5. Such good build-up.

There's a lot about this book that I adore. It takes the zombie apocalypse in a non-apocalyptic direction. As with real life catastrophes and issues, humanity just works the changes into the daily routine until the new behaviors become normal. I also like that it's a nice genre mashup of political thriller and zombie book. Much to my delight, it is romance-free. I appreciate that agnostics, atheists, and Christians alike are portrayed as good people and as bad people.

Most of all, I love that it surprised me.

I'm giving it 4 stars instead of 5 because only the end was 5 stars, but it was definitely a solid 4 for most of the book. ( )

Feed by Mira Grant is not a book for me, but that doesn't mean you won't love it!

I was sold on this book when I heard it was about zombies. For some reason, zombies and horror has been a big part of my reading lately (with the pandemic going on... it makes zero sense since I want love and fluffy, but whatever. Brains are weird like that). I had been given a great recommendation of this book too, so I was saddened that this book was more of a political novel than an epic zombie apocalypse book.

This book is really well written and I'll give Mira lots of credit for the amazing structure of her writing. Unfortunately, I just don't like politics in my fiction. It always bores me and makes me lose focus, so I wasn't the ideal reader for this book.

Because of that minor issue, I became way more critical of this book than I should have been. The ending itself infuriated me (I don't like that type of ending as a reader, so my bad...). I also found some of the characters to be quite strange and unreliable and thus didn't want to read about them.

The writing style wasn't my thing, but I know other people will love it. I just didn't vibe well with Mira's writing and I found myself zoning out and putting the book down a lot. I almost DNF-ed it, but I gave it a fair shot. It just took me a very long time.

Overall, I can appreciate this book but man was it boring for me as a reader. That being said, I typically go for romance and murder mysteries, so it's not exactly a surprise if you follow my reviews.

One out of five stars. ( )

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 book is not what I thought it would be! I think the blurb on the back should contain some hint or big fat warning that the first 300 pages is a terminally boring exploration of US politics and the inner works of a blogging website set to a zombie backdrop. If you like US politics great (this is no House of Cards), but if you don’t.. Wow, it was a slog. What kept me going was being told by a few people that it would eventually get really good.. and it did get pretty awesome.. but after 300 pages when the promised conspiracy finally kicks in (and I was possible desensitised to its faults)! This is one you have to really plough through to get to the good stuff.

I like that Mira Grant has tried to do something different with the zombie idea and I think origins of the virus is just believable enough. What I did struggle to find plausible is the idea of bloggers taking over the universe and becoming big celebrities! Apparently nobody ever leaves their homes and stays glued to screens reading what these hipsters write. I suspended my disbelieve though.

The characters I also had difficulty with. They aren’t my type of people and the writing style I did irk me. George is the main protagonist along with her “twin” adopted brother Shaun. It might be the way I read them, but I found them both painfully hipster and deeply irritating. I don’t like it when - especially female - characters are made out to not care about their appearance but then constantly mention how they don’t care about their appearance. You clearly do if you keep going on about it (in first person narrative). I know she had to wear the sunglasses because of her eye condition but that and the wearing black don’t dissuade me from the hipster vision of her I have in my head. Shaun is meant to be equally cool but more reckless and wild, to foil her more responsibly serious personality. He is famous as an “Irwin” for “poking zombies with sticks” whereas she is a serious news reporter (The whole Irwin, Newsie and Fictional designations for bloggers annoying the heck out of me too but I won’t want to write too long of a negative rant because I did enjoy this book in the end!). Grant does work hard to demonstrate his characters personalities.. they just aren’t personalities that I like.

The elephant in the room is how uncomfortably co-dependant their relationship is! This icked me out for the entire book. They are obsessed with each other! They - as grown adults - would still want to share a bedroom if their parents let them. Instead they have rooms with adjoining doors. Grant tries to address this as not being THAT weird in the context of the zombie outbreak where people die all the time, and that with their strange cold parents they only have each other.. but it still is pretty flipping weird. They aren’t actually blood related either which adds another level of WTF to it. Teen romance protagonists aren’t as obsessed with each other as these two are. There is loving your brother and then there is whatever the hell this is…

I found the writing quite repetitive. Phrases and ideas are repeated a lot.. whether this is the fault of George or Mira Grant I’m not sure but it bothered me after a while. As is the amount of Coke (capital C) that George drinks and we are told she is drinking.. I’d estimate at least every 5 pages she has a can of bloody Coke in her hand (how is it still being manufactured in these quantities?).

All that negative stuff out the way after the 300 pages of politics things do get good. REALLY good. The last 200 pages I actually didn’t want to put down. It’s action packed, suspenseful and has good surprises! It’s just a shame it was so far into the book. The ending leaves things wide open for a sequel that I think (and hope) I may actually prefer so I will be grabbing that off my bookshelf soon. ( )