Parasite (Parasitology, #1)

by Mira Grant

[Nessa Luna]

Read this review, and many more on my blog October Tune!

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This has not changed my opinion on the book in any way.

I chose to read this book, because first of all the cover looked nice. And then I read the summary, and thought it might be a nice book to read. The only problem was that I would either have to read it on my computer, or my phone (because I don't own a Kindle, but I do have the app on my phone, or Adobe Digital Editions on my laptop). Eventually, I chose to read it on my phone, because that would mean that I could read it while I was traveling, and lying in bed, without having my heavy laptop with me.

The book starts off with a piece of text from somewhere in the middle of the book, which is something I sometimes like, and sometimes don’t. In this case, I liked it, though it made me think the book would be kinda action packed (or well, at least as thrilling as that piece was). It wasn’t really that action packed in my opinion, but it was still interesting.

The first half, we’re introduced to the main characters; Sal/Sally Mitchell, who miraculously survives a massive car-crash. Her family, mum, dad, and sister Joyce. Sal’s boyfriend Nathan Kim; the people Sal works with at the animal shelter, the people at the hospital where Nathan works, the people from SymboGen. Nothing much happens, except for some cases of ‘sleepwalking sickness’ as they call it.

Every chapter starts with either a quote from a book, an unpublished autobiography or an interview, which I liked at first, but I started to get a bit annoyed with it in the end, and though the information in those pieces would probably be of importance for the next chapter, I just quickly skimmed through it so I could read the story again. The passages from the book were all so alike, that I had the feeling I was reading the same part over and over again.

The whole tapeworm situation made me think of the Torchwood book ‘Slow Decay’, in which people take diet pills, which actually have a little alien inside; that alien eats everything the person eats, making the person able to lose a lot of weight in a short amount of time. But of course, the alien starts asking for more, and eventually the people start eating so much, that they even start eating animals, people, and themselves. That book made me feel very nauseous, because I just really do not like cannibalism.

In this book, the only part that actually made me feel sick was Tansy talking about blowing other people’s kneecaps off.

I had kind off predicted how the book would end somewhere in the middle of the story, but that didn’t keep me from getting surprised at some points, and I literally said ‘WHAT’ out loud a couple of times while reading. The many medical terms and hard words that were used made me confused sometimes, because even though some of them were explained the first time they were used, by the time I read the word a second time, I would have forgotten the meaning completely. But that’s just because I don’t remember words like that easily.

Out of all the characters, I think I liked Sal, Nathan, and Tansy (though sometimes she could be really violent), the most. I liked the relationship that Sal and Nathan have, and I just LOVED Beverly. Though I am not very fond of big dogs, I would have liked to have a Beverly at my side in a situation like this. Or just any other animal, but I would rather have a Beverly.

I really enjoyed this book, a lot, and I am certainly going to read the next one. Not just because this book kinda ends in a cliff-hanger (or well, it just ends with a ‘to be continued…’ which I really do not like), I just really liked the story! It was well written; no mistakes and no hard words that weren’t explained (as far as I remember). I am going to give a try to the other books the writer has written, though they are (also) about zombies (I don’t really call the sleepwalkers zombies though, but some people might). I am not overly fond of zombies, but I might just give it a try!