Readalong: Feed by Mira Grant, Books III-IV & Final Review

Feed by Mira Grant

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This is the second installment of my feedback on a book chosen for this month's readalong by my friend Grace. Feed is the first novel in a trilogy about a team of bloggers tasked with reporting the news in a zombie post-apocalyptic world trying to rebuild. There's lots of sabotage, some deliciously gory zombie scenes, and even some awkward family tension.

There is a major spoiler several paragraphs down. Consider yourself warned.

I take back all my complaints about the drawn-out, sluggish first portion of the novel, which you can read here. Okay, so I can’t take them back, because that still stands, but the amount of action, character development, and tugging of heartstrings thereafter completely makes up for the previously declared lack.

I’m really hoping Steve plays a bigger role in the next two books in the trilogy. Grant doesn’t seem to spend a lot of time fleshing out his character (nice word choice, right?), but I just have a feeling we haven’t seen the last of him. He’s been through so much in this book with his security detail partners, and a great asset to Shaun and the After the End Times team.


***MASSIVE SPOILER ALERT.***


I don’t know that I can really put into words how much George’s death shook me. I really identified with her, and I can’t remember the last time I felt so in tune with a character in a book. The way she died was so incredibly painful and awful to read, but I felt it was flawlessly written, and in my case, got the desired reaction, I imagine. The notes at the end of the novel mention that Grant said she “cried like a baby” after she wrote that scene, as well, and reading that made me feel a little better, knowing that it affected her so deeply as well.

Overall, I'm really glad I gave this book a chance and am excited to read the next two in the trilogy- though likely not until I make a dent in these stacks of other books.

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See Jennifer's review here: Book Den
See Grace's review here: Feeding My Book Addiction

Readalong: Feed by Mira Grant, Books I-II

Grace at Feeding My Book Addiction is doing another readalong this month-a horror novel to offset the sappy mush that is Valentine's Day.

From miragrant.com: In 2014, two experimental viruses—a genetically engineered flu strain designed by Dr. Alexander Kellis, intended to act as a cure for the common cold, and a cancer-killing strain of Marburg, known as "Marburg Amberlee"—escaped the lab and combined to form a single airborne pathogen that swept around the world in a matter of days. It cured cancer. It stopped a thousand cold and flu viruses in their tracks.

It raised the dead.

Millions died in the chaos that followed. The summer of 2014 was dubbed "The Rising," and only the lessons learned from a thousand zombie movies allowed mankind to survive. Even then, the world was changed forever. The mainstream media fell, Internet news acquired an undeniable new legitimacy, and the CDC rose to a new level of power.

Set twenty years after the Rising, the Newsflesh trilogy follows a team of bloggers, led by Georgia and Shaun Mason, as they search for the brutal truths behind the infection. Danger, deceit, and betrayal lurk around every corner, as does the hardest question of them all:

When will you rise?

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Warning: Spoilers!

I was exceptionally excited to read this book, as I am a huge fan of anything zombie--books, video games, internet memes, pretending to be one to scare my co-workers. This first installment in the Newsflesh trilogy has been a little disappointing so far. The information dump necessary to set the scene seemed a little bland and dry, but I will say I'm exceptionally intrigued by Georgia's brusqueness and Shaun's laissez-faire attitude. Buffy's character fades into the background for me. Perhaps this is intentional, and in the second half of the book she is the unexpected heroine. Grant's nod to zombie culture icons like George A. Romero, arguably the "father" of zombie apocalypse movies definitely put a smile on my face, and I love to hate the Masons, Georgia and Shaun's adoptive parents. The amount of "affection" shown by the parents directly correlates to the foreseeable increase in ratings that the parents can obtain with public displays of family togetherness. Not quite Toddlers & Tiaras-bad, but still...

I think (hope) the second half of the novel will be much better than the first, and the two subsequent novels will only improve the story line. I can't wait to find out who's behind the sabotage attempts on Senator Ryman's presidential campaign. The obvious answer would be David Tate, but that seems too predictable, and Grant has definitely surprised me already with some of the plot twists. It was very difficult to stop reading after the second book when the news is revealed to Georgia and the reader about the outbreak at the Ryman horse ranch.

Grant also subtly works in some moral dilemmas, such as the hotly-debated Mason's Law. I definitely found myself thinking about which side I would support. I definitely am a bleeding heart, especially when it comes to animals, but the constant unknown having large animals around all the time would be incredibly nerve-wracking. Which side do you think you'd support?

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Other Posts:

Alice @ Tales of an Intrepid Pantster

Grace @ Feeding My Book Addiction

Jennifer @ The Book Den

Readalong: 11/22/63 by Stephen King, Parts 4-6 & Overall Review

11/22/63 by Stephen King

My rating: 5 of 5 stars



First off, spoiler alert in this post! Shoo, if you haven't read this yet.

Also, I'd like to apologize that this entry is a few days late. To refresh your memory, I read this as part of a readalong, hosted by my friend Grace. I wish I could place the blame solely on my busy life, but that's not entirely true. A few things have happened of note, namely that I'm house-sitting for my parents and I started a new job today, but my only real reason is procrastination. As it stands, I feel I've already gotten fuzzy on most of the intricacies of the novel, but here goes.

I don't really know where to start. Stephen King truly is a master of the written word. Historical fiction with time travel? I was so hesitant to get excited about this book because I don't really enjoy the horror genre all that much. I'm a sissy, especially when it comes to freak phenomena or the supernatural, unless it's zombies. The world needs more zombies (I think). It's a rarity I will talk up a book to people outside my "reading circle", but this is definitely one of those worthy pieces.

One of the things I was most looking forward to as mentioned in my post about Parts 1-3 was discovering the significance of the Green/Yellow/Black Card Man. This is not revealed until very late in the novel, and boy, was it a doozy. I was not at all expecting to find that these guardians of time (Ack, it was so difficult to resist calling them Time Lords) bear the brunt of each visit to the past in the form of multiple "strings" of time containing each alternate sequence of time. The new installment of the Card Man Jake meets explains that the intense mental strain caused by keeping all these "strings" straight causes extreme cognitive deterioration, and the colored cards act as a sort of barometer for mental health.

I think I was more than a little disappointed that Jake couldn't find a way to have Sadie in the end, but I was certainly impressed by his determination to sacrifice his own happiness for the greater good. I think King's inclusion of the description of Jake researching Sadie's clash with her ex-husband and his subsequent visit to see her old-woman present-day self lent the perfect amount of closure to the reader, and validation for Jake that he made the right choice. I discovered while Googling that King released an alternate ending on his website. I'll let you read it for yourself (and feel free to post your thoughts on this, please!) but I think I prefer the actual ending, hands down.

Also, King's website for the book has two options to view the site: in 1963 form, or in 2011 form. Check them both out at http://112263book.com/.






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Readalong: 11/22/63 by Stephen King, Parts 1-3

My friend Grace over at Feeding My Book Addiction set up a readalong for Stephen King's latest novel, 11/22/63. I am incredibly grateful for Grace's influence when it comes to books, much more than she suspects, I'm sure, but that's a post for another day. This first post contains my ramblings and reactions to the first three of six parts to the novel. Head here for a plot synopsis if you haven't read or are not currently reading. My apologies if this post is rambling or disjointed- I've got an early flight in the morning and wanted to get this written before. So it will also be short.

First off, I want to say that I've never been a personal fan of Stephen King's works. I've read the majority of them, and I've said in the past that I respect the quality and exquisite craftsmanship of his novels and the reach of his influence. He is truly talented, but I never really truly felt like I connected with any of his pieces. I'm reminded that this man is not just a popular writer by any means (and experienced a feeling I can describe only as giddy) upon discovering his correct usage of "effect" as a verb and a casually thrown in "simulacrum".

There are several things that I kept mulling over or questioning as I read through the first three parts. I'm very sure that King doesn't idly throw in Al's cautionary words to Jake regarding anachronisms like cell phones and recently minted coins. I'm really hoping this is merely foreshadowing a clash later in the book where a "future" possession falls into the wrong hands, like someone obtaining Epping's list of game scores. We'll see how that turns out. Oddly enough, right after I finished that section of the novel, I attempted to buy a soda from the vending machine and got frustrated because it kept spitting my dime out. Upon closer inspection, it was a 1964 silver dime, and led to an afternoon lost in a daydream about a time-traveler to the future (our present) wondering why his old money doesn't work anywhere. I was mildly amused by this coincidence.

I'm also very intrigued by the Card Man, and hope that the colors of his cards bear some real significance by the end of the book. The change in color to black when Epping discovers him dying made me wonder if there was some proportional relationship to the level of difficulty Epping will face during that trip back in time, like his very own threat level meter. Thoughts? What do you envision the significance of the card colors to be?

So far, the character I'm most taken with, understandably, is Miz Mimi. Her sass, brass, and class evoke a multitude of feelings: jealousy, envy, adoration, and the obvious intense sadness. The attitude with which she handles her prognosis and faces the end of her life with determination and an almost blasé mindset makes her instantly likeable. The humor-infused barbs she trades with Jake and her keen scrutiny and analysis of his character make me want to be a little bit tougher myself.