Search - Feed (Newsflesh, Bk 1)

I'm not very good at writing reviews. Why? Because I don't like big words, suck at grammar, and frankly, I just want everyone to trust me when I say "read the book" without explanation. Nevertheless, I know that I must put forth more effort than begging you to read this book.

Mira Grant aka Seanan McGuire created a world that sucked me in every minute I was reading it. I thought the beginning of the book was long, and boring. But without it, the last 400 pages would have not been what it was, a truly magnificant book!

I can't stop thinking about this book. Everything that happened, George and Shuan, and their relationship, the ending (you'll either love it or hate it), the politics, the action, oh yeah, and the Zombies.

Will I read the next book ?

I, without a shadow of doubt, will hit the pre-order button as soon as the second book becomes available!

This book blew my mind. I'm picky with my stars, and this is my first five-star book of 2010 (out of 40). It's a book about zombies, sure, but the zombies are almost overshadowed at times by political intrigue and newsroom-esque drama.

I love the future Grant has created: The zombie apocalypse came, and the world neither ended nor was saved. The world has had to learn to live with the "infected," and blog culture has come to dominate society--bloggers report the news, create the news, and serve as the world's primary source of entertainment.

I enjoyed the novel from start to finish, but what really blew my mind was a certain event that happens about 3/4 of the way through the book, which made me sit up and take notice of this author--she's not afraid to take risks with her fiction, and I really admire her for that.

I'm supremely excited about the prospect of a sequel.

I enjoyed this book much more than I expected. I'm not a zombie-book fan, so I was even more doubtful. But the author did a great job of making the zombie aspect fit so well into the story. Very believable.

Overall, I would say this is a story about love and loyalty. And how people define themselves in the face of impossible choices.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a mystery/thriller with strong characters and some twists and turns along the way.

I went into this book mostly blind. I was honestly a bit surprised when I kept seeing “Feed” in my Goodreads updates and Blogger feed. The only “Feed” I knew about was a 2005 atrocity of a film about a force feeding fetish and I wrongly assumed this was the novelization. How the hell had a book like that become so popular? But since everyone seemed to be reading it I stuck on my Ipod like the lemming I am. And, yes I know there is something terribly wrong with me.

By the time I got around to listening to the audio I had figured out it was about zombies and that made so much more sense! The world wasn't going weird on me after all. I’m going to try my best to be brief about the plot and avoid spoilers because there is so much that can be spoiled here and everyone's read it by now anyway. It’s the year 2039. Back in 2013 scientists managed to cure cancer and the common cold but something went terribly wrong and mutations happened that caused a zombie outbreak that killed off a third of the population. Now any living creature over 40 pounds can potentially turn into a brain-dead walking corpse that only “lives” to spread the disease. The world is dangerous and very different. But it’s still corrupt and not-so-shockingly zombies aren't always the biggest danger.

Feed follows bloggers George (Georgia) and her brother Shaun along with their expert team as they report on the news and various goings-on in their blogs and live feeds. George lives for the news while Shaun is more of a reckless, zombie taunting type. Their parents are mostly non-existent in their lives and they pretty much can only depend on each other and have a tight brother-sister bond.

“Maybe it’s geeky for a girl my age to admit she still loves her brother. I don’t care. I love him and one day I’ll bury him and until then I’m going to be grateful that I’m allowed to watch him talk.”

Ouch and damn. How could I not keep reading and not root for them even when boring politics threatened to overtake the entire story?

After an exciting beginning that’s pretty much what happened for a good chunk of the story. George and her team are offered the chance to follow around a presidential hopeful and don’t turn it down. It means ratings people! And ratings are what count. What follows is often unexpected and sometimes a wee bit tedious if you’re not a fan of the ins and outs of blogging, politics and corruption BUT the characters truly made it worth reading. The world and character building is very, very good and there is enough snark and sarcasm to make up for the slower bits. This isn’t a hardcore zombie novel with a lot of zombie action but I fear many of the scenes will haunt me for quite some time. It’s rough and it’s heartbreaking and that’s all I’m going to say.

This audio version was read by Paula Christensen and Jesse Bernstein. Paula Christensen narrates the majority of the book and does a terrific job with all of the characters, including the males. Parts of the story is direct blog readings and Jesse Bernstein voices the shorter snippets, mostly from Shaun’s direct point of view. His voice gives Shaun the perfect devil may care attitude that worked really well. Both narrators sound youthful but never too young and their reading always sounds natural. They both enhanced the story and added emotion just where it was needed, never over-doing it.

Feed is not sexy, romantic or even a typical zombie book but it tore me up and made me feel a myriad of emotions when most books leave me cold. Yeah, it was complicated and over-long but I’ll be reading the sequel because somewhere along the way I grew to truly care about these characters.

Wow. I really loved reading this one. This is the story of a trio of young bloggers following a presidential candidate in the mid-21st century, in a world that has been unevenly overrun by zombies. That world has made for some serious changes in the way people live. Liberties have been curtailed in drastic fashion, crowds become extremely frightening, and network connectedness is crucial.

There was an abundance of literary action, along with a stab at how informal reportage and politics mix, and the increasing relevance of instant reporting of the blog crowd. The characters seemed deep to me, and they undergo significant change throughout the novel.

But one of the things that really struck me was how spot-on the envisioning of the mid-21st century was. I’ve read a number of novels set a few decades in the future, and none of them feels as “right” as this one does. Maybe that’s simply because Feed was written quite recently, and trends seem to have solidified a bit more than was obvious in the 90s, but still. Disregarding the whole zombie apocalypse issue, this really felt like the world that sits in our future and which I’ll get to inhabit as an octogenarian. (Uploading my mind into the iCloud never appealed to me anyway.)

I’m really looking forward to the next books in this trilogy!

5 of 5 stars.

Awesome book! Grant blew me away with the ending, but I give her props for doing something I never expected.

The only thing I can criticize is the almost-but-not-quite incestuous relationship between Georgia and Shaun (they were not blood related, but still). The fact that Grant added some of these elements, but never properly addressed them grated on my nerves. It was like the pink elephant in the room.

Other than that, I loved this novel! Getting Deadline asap!