Parasite (Parasitology, #1)

by Mira Grant

[celinenyx]

Mira Grant's Newsflesh Trilogy featuring fearless bloggers and zombies instantly catapulted her into being one of my favourite writers. Parasite is the first book in her new series called Parasitology.

Twenty-year-old Sally had a car accident that made her legally brain-dead. Then she wakes up as a clean slate, having no memory of the girl she used to be. SymboGen, the company that provides genetically modified tapeworms to keep the population healthy, decides to keep close tabs on her. When people start getting the mysterious sleepwalker disease, Sal wants answers. However, once you start on the path towards truth, there is no way back.

Ms Grant has the amazing ability to create worlds I can't help but want to know more about. In the Newsflesh Trilogy it was a harsh world overrun with zombies, in Parasite it's a disaster scenario in the near future that could be real. The story is set in 2024, and basically the world is as it is now - with one tiny difference in health care. Because we wanted our world to be as sterile as possible, our bodies only got more and more sensitive to allergens and illnesses. SymboGen created the Intestinal Bodyguard by combining parasite DNA with human DNA that excrete the antibodies we need.

What I love about Parasite is how realistic it is. We're close to curing cancer - who knows what we can do in ten years time? Not sufficiently tested medication gets on the market more often than we would like to think about.

I really liked Sal as a main character. Even though she's technically only six (since she can't count the years before her accident) she knows how to take care of herself, and she doesn't let people walk over her. She has a steady boyfriend, Nathan, that happens to be a parasitologist. For once, a book that isn't about falling in love, but about being in a relationship! The romance aspect is very subtle and on the background of the story, and doesn't take away from the main focus - conspiracies and mysteries.

Mira Grant's books tend to be slow-burning epic kind of stories; I feel this is the same with Parasitology. She takes her time to set the story, to give us all the crumbs before going on. And once her stories really get going, shit is going to hit the fan. I can't wait to see how Parasitology continues, I have the feeling she has plenty of tricks up her sleeve.