Feed (Newsflesh, #1)

by Mira Grant

[clementine]

2015: THIS BOOK IS JUST AS AWESOME AS IT WAS TWO AND A HALF YEATS AGO.

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Whew, I finally finished this book. I'm not sure why it took me so long to get through it (aside from the usual "real life came up"), but it did! A week compared to my usual 2-3 days is... a really long time.

So, negative points first. There was a lot of info dumping employed here, which made some sections pretty difficult to slog through. Like, sections that should have been exciting were punctuated with several pages of information. The information was all important, and it just showed Mira Grant's incredible attention to detail, but it wasn't delivered in the best way. For that reason, I really can't give it a full five stars, because it did make certain sections of the book PAINFUL and broke up an otherwise really awesome story. Pacing problems can kill your book, people!

Generally, though, I thought Feed was a very strong book. I don't devour zombie apoc literature at nearly the rate I do dystopian (although I suppose you could say that about just about any genre - my dystopian consumption rates are pretty incredible), so I don't consider myself particularly well-versed in the genre, but I do think it would be difficult to find a zombie novel that's as well thought out as Feed. The worldbuilding is incredible, and Mira Grant's extensive research really shows through in the thorough, believable Kellis-Amberlee virus and the way it's impacted the world in the year 2040.

The characterization was damn near perfect. Georgia was an excellent heroine - sometimes I feel like the whole "strong, sassy female" thing, while neat in theory, comes across as forced and archetypal (so, you know, not really any better than the "innocent, naive, pathetic girl" archetype), but Georgia was just plain awesome. I have to say, though, I think I liked Shaun best. The combination of Georgia's description of him and his own narration created a full picture of him, and man did I like that picture. I thought some of the characters were a bit too one-dimensional (the Mason parents, for example - I know we're told by their kids that they're awful attention whores, but I never fully got that vibe from their actions/words so I'd like to see more from them), but generally there was a really nice and diverse cast of characters. Steve in particular was quite awesome.

I loved that the zombies weren't exactly the main point of the book - in a lot of the zombie literature I've read, it's all about survival. While obviously that was a focus of Feed, I loved the fact that the zombie-infested world was really the well-integrated backdrop to a political thriller with three bloggers (! so awesome) navigating the murky waters of the upcoming presidential election.

I was expecting an exciting, well-developed plot out of Feed; what I was not expecting was how moved I was. The whole thing was pretty much a smart, sarcastic, generally fast-paced zombie thriller (which I loved!) up until Buffy's death, which was bad enough. That marked the point where things got real, and where it became clear to me that Grant was not opposed to killing off characters who she let us get attached to. What really came as a shock to me, and, I'm sure, everyone, was Georgia's death. I didn't believe it until it really happened. Grant did such a good job of setting it up so that you'd NEVER think it would happen, and although when she described the prick in her bicep, I knew in my heart it was over, it was really tough to believe. I think a lot of this is due to the first-person past-tense narration style, which would lead the vast majority of readers into a false sense of security, but - wow. It really happened. And the emotional aftermath from that made me feel a lot of things.

Now, I hate to say this because I'm one of those pretentious book purists who is very critical of movies based on books and anxious about them GETTING EVERYTHING WRONG, but I totally think Feed would make an excellent movie. It's smart, it's exciting, and its two main characters are intensely likeable and awesome. I would watch the hell out of it.