Book Review: Feed by Mira Grant

Feed by Mira Grant
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Feed is the first book in the award winning zombie apocalypse Newsflesh Trilogy by Mira Grant, pseudonym for New York Times bestselling author Seanan McGuire.

Though Feed is basically a near future zombie apocalypse book, it is not really a story about zombies. The zombie apocalypse is just the stage that Mira Grant has set through believable and fantastic worldbulding. This is a story of the evolution of society. This is a biological terror thriller, and a story of humanity both at our best and our worst.

With a seamless twining of cultural, historical and scientific accuracy, in an eerily realistic evolution of society this Science Fiction story depicts an all too real view of human nature. Drawing from all aspects of science, historical events; and current societal trends and issues Grant in true science fiction fashion asks whats next? and what if?

Unlike some thriller, apocalyptic or dystopian stories in Feed Grant avoids the often narrow or flat apocalyptic world by not focusing on any one thing but an intricately woven tapestry with direct connections to society and issues today.
From the loss freedoms of a post 911 world, and the politics of fear. To the changing roles of Network News Media, Bloggers and the internet and the information privacy wars. Throw in a little bit of the threats of corporate and governmental powers, corruption and greed, and the scary stuff that is coming out of true scientific 'advances' today. When you add all of that to a well developed plot, likable developed characters and the obvious research and attention to worldbuilding, you get a great story!

The only flaws I was able to see was that I would have liked to have seen more character growth over time, and a little less info dumping, though the use of blogging and news dumps to accomplish this was done extremely well, and since the main protagonists were news bloggers I am not sure how you can really avoid the show and don't tell.

I highly recommend this book (and series) to anyone looking for an intelligent biological/conspiracy/science thriller or an apocalyptic science fiction.

If you are looking for a standard Zombie Apocalypse or typical horror movie zombies you maybe disappointed, because Feed is much much more than that.

View all my reviews