| Book Review: Feed by Mira Grant |
[May. 12th, 2010|05:25 am]
Nori
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So, for those of you who are deaf, blind and completely lack any foreknowledge of my life? I love Seanan McGuire. I love her on days that end in -y, I love her on rainy days, and sunny days and days when I hate most of the friggin world. Hell, I even love her on days I can't get her songs out of my head (Fly Little Bird will sing me to my DEATH, Seanan! I both love and hate you for it)! I loved Rosemary and Rue and I'm loving A Local Habitation (I'll get to why I haven't finished it in 5... 4... 3...)
But this isn't about heartfelt entries. Not about songs. Not about her 3 CDs (which I got in the mail for winning a prize in her icontest). Not about Rosemary and Rue and A Local Habitation. Not even about Seanan McGuire.
What's that? What's that you say?
Now now. Take a deep breath. I want to introduce you to someone. Her name is Mira Grant. Mira Grant wrote a fabulous book. It's called FEED and it's the first in a trilogy of books all about Zombies. Well, wait. It's about more than Zombies. The tagline is "The good news: we survived. The bad news: so did they." This book is about living life with zombies all around you, as a constant threat. But even more than THAT, it's a book about life in a world changed by Kellis-Amberlee (that's the infection that caused the Rising). Life where news comes from bloggers and there's a presidential campaign taking place. Life where Georgia and Shaun Mason are on their new job as official bloggers for Senator Peter Ryman, one of the campaigners.
But I'm getting ahead of myself, you say. Why am I discussing Seanan McGuire in a review about a book by Mira Grant? Because Seanan and Mira are one and the same! Over-saturation of the market was a real possibility with Seanan's October Daye novels coming out fast and furious and FEED is in a completely different genre. No fae here! While both sets of books will be found in the Sci-Fi/Fantasy section of my local B&N, I can see how confusion could happen with both series being written under Seanan's own name.
But back to this review. I'm a fan, if you all don't know, of zombies. Almost as big a fan of them as I am of Seanan, in fact. But don't let me sway you just on that alone. I can't read every book about zombies. It has to be smart, a little funny sometimes, and it helps if the characters are at least a little likable. Also? I like things being INTERESTING. So when I say that FEED is one of my new favorite zombie books? Understand what I mean. This book is fast-paced, funny, wonderful, awful (in good ways!), and a complete roller coaster ride. It's nearly 600 pages, and it never felt overdone or drawn out. It never felt like it was too much fluff and not enough substance. In fact, when it was over, I pouted that I was done. 600 pages wasn't enough! That says a lot right there. The only other books I've felt that way about were the Harry Potter books, and I (interestingly enough) had the same reaction I had to HP with FEED. When certain things happened, I did this whole "I HATE YOU, I LOVE YOU... I HATE YOU AGAIN" thing, nearly putting it up on twitter and everywhere else in the vain hope that Seanan would see it and either laugh or understand completely what section I was in. I did manage to hold back.
When I say this book is a roller coaster ride, I'm not kidding. Between relief when people escape death, to sadness when they don't; with every testing kit they do to see if the virus amplification has started in their own bodies; with every lighthearted comment (that is completely serious) from Georgia to her brother that she's eventually going to be an only child, you are ripped from one emotion to the next until you feel almost raw with it. You want these people to survive. You want the story to continue. You want it to stop, so everyone's safe. But no one is safe in a world full of Kellis-Amberlee, and you're a fool if you think they are.
I'm not interested in politics. Not at all, and yet I found myself intrigued by the politics of FEED. I cringed and cheered, I felt like a part of the process and I sat back and waited for the shit to hit the fan. Sure, the book was about zombies. But it was so much more. Sure, the book was about politics. But it was so much more. Sure, the book was about bloggers and systems and running out of time and siblings that love each other more than life and conspiracies, and any mammals over 40 pounds being infected and, and, and. But it was So. Much. More.
Read it. It's available now in the US (Amazon, B&N) and in the UK it goes on sale in shops on the 3rd of June (Laura checked, because she wants to read it!)
Alive or dead, the truth won't rest.
Rise up while you can. |
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