Feed (Newsflesh, #1)

by Mira Grant

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

This book absolutely floored me. Feed was on my TBR for a long time, and traditionally speaking, I don't go in for zombie books. But Feed really isn't a "zombie book", per se. It's a book about a political campaign and a conspiracy in a world after the zombie apocalypse. So anyone going into this book looking for a heavy reliance on the walking dead will be disappointed. Zombies play an important part, but zombies aren't the story.

We follow three strong characters through the story who are all about getting the news on a presidential hopeful, and insisting on telling the truth. There's assassination attempts and zombie outbreaks and scares as the Kellis-Amberlee virus takes members of the caravan. The research is great here - the science moves well and feels possible. The way the world has rebuilt itself - in organized quarantine rather than gore and survival - also feels real. We look too often for chaos in zombie dystopias, but the calm organization in this one was a bit refreshing.

The ending was brilliantly written and made me really mad. I'll definitely be picking up the rest of the Newsflesh trilogy and more of Mira Grant's work. I'm impressed.

This book will appeal to fans of a more subtle zombie story, fans of books where the characters will go to whatever end to uncover the story, and fans of sibling stories.