Feed by Mira Grant (The Newsflesh Trilogy: Book 1)

4/10

The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.

Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives - the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will get out, even if it kills them.

The zombie and post-apocalyptic genres have grown a lot. The days of a first Resident Evil bringing about shockwaves of surprised novelty and following that some good, some pretty bad zombie amusement have long past. Every now and then another writer or moviemaker has a go at the old ‘undead’-genre, with varying results.

This story did surprise me because I expected a ‘fight-for-your-lives’ action based thriller with lots of un-dead having a go at the main character, ‘Feed’, does speak to your imagination. I did get surprised though because after the first great couple of pages, the whole action part dropped for about 120 pages.

This book doesn't has the fight to survive theme as a main ingredient. It has modern media, political intrigue and some semi-scientific info as the essence. Does she pull it off was my big question.

Fiction largely depends on reality to succeed in my opinion. If a story is just too ridiculous to make sense, then I drop. I believe that the art of writing fiction with realistic characters, dialogue, surroundings, environments is something few truly master. Which results in a lot of mediocre books and a few that shine every year.

So after picking this story apart I could conclude these things: The characters were very good. Georgia, Shaun and Rick really came alive on these pages. Even Buffy reminded me of someone I know. But something that bothered me immensely was the idea of an intensive political campaign, internet and infrastructure in a world decimated by a zombie plague. Who’s there to do the maintenance on everything, and bring in the crops out of a zombie-free field?

Perhaps because of the load of zombie novels I've read, or the amounts of horror movies I've seen are cause but I couldn't cope with the idea. I understand the importance of information and the truth to satisfy the lonely, sheltered American, but having extensive amounts of people just focussing on something not primal for survival... too far-fetched.

So well, the setting. I guess you like it when you’re a fanatic blogger or news-addict yourself, otherwise if you’re a zombie-movie fan not.

The plot, well…..I guess it was obvious. I’ll not spoil, but I can say you’ll not be too surprised at the end. There is one detail I enjoyed immensely at the end, but I’ll not spoil that either.

So in all, Grant is an excellent writer. The flow of this story was good, the way it was written seems almost easy but it was pretty intelligently done. Trying something new is always to be respected.

But this story was simply not for me.