Feed (Newsflesh, #1)

by Mira Grant

[cornerfolds]

I was very underwhelmed by this book. For starters, it is marketed as a zombie book, when in fact, it's a political conspiracy book with some zombies thrown in. It was entirely not what I was expecting.

The writing in this book was painful at times, and extremely repetitive. The world building is force fed to the reader via Georgia rather than shown through events. I will say that the zombie concept that Grant has come up with seems entirely original and was interesting. But I will also say that again, we are force fed the zombie virus situation throughout the book. It seemed like every five minutes I was hearing about a blood test, which model it was, where the needles stuck, and about the blinking lights that finally settled on green. I get it! I got it after the first few pages, actually.

Another repetitive aspect that drove me crazy was Georgia's health issue - Retinal Kellis-Amberlee. Basically, the zombie virus concentrated in her eyes. We constantly hear about her sunglasses, how her eyes hurt in the light, her migraines, contacts, and how every time she enters a building she runs into problems with security. Once again, I got it after the first few times.


The characters in general just weren't very likeable to me. Georgia seemed kind of arrogant and goes out of her way NOT to fit in with everyone else. She constantly talks about her desire to tell the Truth (yes, with a "T") and nothing but the Truth. Though she associates herself with the "newsies" (a branch of bloggers who report only facts without opinion), every blog post we hear from her is nothing but opinion, even going so far as to state which candidate should win the presidential election.

Shaun just seemed like an idiot. If I had to hear about him "poking things with sticks" one more time, I was at risk of giving up altogether. But I pushed through. Shaun is what is called an Irwin - a blogger who goes out into dangerous areas to get footage of himself doing stupid things. Oh, and Irwins are named after Steve Irwin (there was even something about a Steve-o award), as if people in 2040 will remember who Steve Irwin was.

Buffy was another idiot, just for different reasons. I'm not really sure why they don't have books (Kindle, maybe?) in the year 2040, when they have earring cameras and hotels with private elevators, but for whatever reason, they rely on fictionals (bloggers who write fiction, shockingly) to get their fix. Buffy seems to whine and complain a lot throughout the book and is the ultimate demise of everyone.

I didn't love any of them. I actually thought they were all maybe 18 years old, only to find out from reviews that they were actually around 24. They were completely juvenile, unrealistically so. No one in real life makes a (supposedly) witty comment at the end of every sentence. And no one would call their brother an idiot when she thought he was about to die.

Speaking of brother/sister relationships, this one was a little weird. I love my brother and all, but I don't share a bed with him and I can stand to be away from him for more than five minutes. I've also never let my love for my brother interfere with my dating experience.

My last unfortunate comment is that I have never before read a book and not cared at all when a character died. I did not care in the least when characters in this book died. I think that fact alone speaks volumes about this book.


Notes on the Audiobook:
Audiobook narration is extremely hit or miss, and this one was a definite miss. Paula Christensen's voice was annoying, her voice rising at the end of each sentence, almost like a sports announcer. Jesse Bernstein's voice wasn't nearly as bad, but BOTH need to work on their British accents. I have never been to England, but I've had English friends and I watch TV - I could have done a better job. Paula's accent sounded like a strange combo of Australian and British, and Jesse's sounded like Samoan mixed with British and American. Both were really weird.

This review can also be found at Cornerfolds.com.