Feed by Mira Grant

Title:   Feed

Author:  Mira Grant

Pages: 608

Genre: Horror

Source:  Netgalley 

In 2014, two experimental viruses—a genetically engineered flu strain designed by Dr. Alexander Kellis, intended to act as a cure for the common cold, and a cancer-killing strain of Marburg, known as "Marburg Amberlee"—escaped the lab and combined to form a single airborne pathogen that swept around the world in a matter of days. It cured cancer. It stopped a thousand cold and flu viruses in their tracks.

It raised the dead.

Millions died in the chaos that followed. The summer of 2014 was dubbed "The Rising," and only the lessons learned from a thousand zombie movies allowed mankind to survive. Even then, the world was changed forever. The mainstream media fell, Internet news acquired an undeniable new legitimacy, and the CDC rose to a new level of power.

Set twenty years after the Rising, the Newsflesh trilogy follows a team of bloggers, led by Georgia and Shaun Mason, as they search for the brutal truths behind the infection. Danger, deceit, and betrayal lurk around every corner, as does the hardest question of them all:

When will you rise?  [via GoodReads]

Mira Grant (a pseudonym for Seanan McGuire) has written about two of my favorite things... blogging and zombies.  Put them together and you have a winner - at least with me.  In Feed, Bloggers are seen almost as heroes.  If it weren't for them and their blog posts humanity would have had a lot more casualties during "The Rising".  Thanks to their posts giving pointers on how to kill a zombie humanity survived.  

It's been 20 years since the initial "Rising" and, bloggers/sister and brother team, Georgia and Shawn Mason along with their sidekick and all-knowing technological guru Buffy, have been selected to follow Senator Ryman throughout his presidential campaign.  As part of the Senator's press team, their mission is to bring the truth to the people.  To those people who remain indoors most of the time (obviously as part of their survival tactics), to see and learn of the man that may one day be their President.   They were hoping that their honest reporting might get them new followers and increase their blog ratings... they were definitely not thinking that their lives might be in danger - zombies being the least of their problems.

This book was excellent!  At a little over 600 pages it was a little intimidating at first and although it did have a slow start (there was a lot of explaining taking place in the beginning) about 100 or so pages in when conspiracies start flying, it really picks up.  I had a tough time putting it down actually.  I must confess that what initially made me want to read the book were the zombies, but I found that I was more captivated by the characters - Georgia, Shawn, Buffy, their blogs, the Senator, his campaign and the iminent danger caused by humans than I was by the actual brain munchers.

Told mostly in the first person through Georgia Mason's perspective and scattered blog entries (including Shawn and  Buffy's) you get a full scope of what's going through each of their minds.  Using these methods you are really able to connect with these characters.  Ms. Grant has a sense of humor since you can see it shine brightly in her characters.  You can also tell she did her research since there are a lot of pop culture references, George Romero idolizing... I'm sure many zombie flicks were watched in the making.

Now if you're looking for a zombie book full of blood and guts... this is definitely not the one.  The zombies are more like background noise.  You know they are there, you are even scared of what you might find just around the next corner, but they are not at the forefront of the story.  This story is about the characters, about a world that was changed by this zombie epidemic, a world left scarred but that survived nonetheless.  

I loved it!  There was action, adventure, betrayal,  political intrigue, even weapons of mass destruction... and through it all the possibility of becoming a zombie's main dish.  Needless to say, I have no complaints about this one.  I've been ranting and raving to anyone that will stop and listen.  So yes, read it!

My Rating: