Review: FEED by Mira Grant

FEED by Mira Grant

Published: Orbit Books, 2010 (Paperback)

Length: 571 pages

Summary: It is 2024 – twenty years after the Rising which occurred after we managed to cure cancer and the common cold, and, in doing so, created something terrible and new. This infection takes over bodies and destroys minds, replacing everything with the singular command of ‘FEED’.

Georgia and Shaun Mason, twin bloggers from California, have built their careers reporting the news, pure and untainted, to the online world and this year they embark on the biggest story of their lives.

And as the story keeps getting bigger, the danger gets more imminent and Georgia and Shaun start seeing their world through new eyes – zombies are the very least of their worries.

What I Liked: Almost everything. Which is impressive considering I’m a total coward when it comes to anything vaguely zombie related – I can cope with vampires, werewolves and things that go bump in the night but for some reason zombies have me cowering under the duvet refusing to go to sleep for fear of nightmares.

This does not mean that FEED is not a frightening book – far from it – however it is this that makes it such a fantastic read.

FEED is not your typical ‘horror-movie’ style zombie marathon, it is much much deeper than that. Mira Grant has built such a convincing post-zombie-apocalypse world that not once did I have a moment of ‘that’s so stupid’ – something I often find myself thinking during zombie films. Indeed, the zombies almost take a back seat at the same time as being a central feature of the world – they have been a part of everyone’s lives for so long now that they are just an everyday element of life. One that just happens to want to bite you and make you very effectively dead, even if you are still wandering around and groaning.

Mira Grant somehow manages to combine zombies, politics and everything ‘dark’ about human nature and creates a story so fascinating and fast-paced that I was loathed to put it down. Even if I did have to play a game of something nice and fluffy on the DS before I went to bed, just to scare away the zombies!

If I’m completely honest though, the zombies weren’t the scariest element of the book by far. That fell to the sheer brutality of some of the characters in the book. The characters were all brilliant, well rounded, convincing and utterly human – not always in a nice way. To me there is often nothing more frightening than human nature and Mira Grant has captured this so effectively in FEED that the horror of zombies trying to eat you at every turn pales in comparison. Zombies can’t help how they are, it’s an infection they couldn’t prevent – people however – people choose. They make conscious decisions. And not always for the right reasons or with the slightest concern for anyone else involved.

What I Didn’t Like: Nothing really. I could understand some people being a little put off by how long the novel is, though. There is so much packed in, from the scientific background of how the zombies came to be through to how the world has adapted to cope with it’s new inhabitants, and yet I never felt like I was drowning in information or that the story was slowed just so I could learn ‘how it all began’.

Also, if you were to pick up the book expecting an all out zombie-apocalypse gore-fest then you would probably be disappointed. Go watch a movie instead.

Rating: I wasn’t expecting to like this book half as much as I did – like I said, I’m not a zombie person. However, I was surprised to discover that FEED was actually a brilliantly thought out political thriller which just happened to occur in a world where zombies are a part of life. So, despite the nightmares the DS couldn’t quite prevent, I find myself giving FEED 5/5 and am now going to hunt down a release date for book number two…

Review: Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

Published: Scholastic Ltd, 2010 (Paperback)

Length: 416 pages

Summary: Sam and Grace are finally together but their future is far less certain than they believed in Shiver.

Cole, a new wolf, has a past that puts the entire pack at risk, and, with Beck no longer able to take charge, Sam suddenly finds himself with new responsibilities. Responsibilities he doubts he can cope with, especially whilst worrying about Grace who just doesn’t seem herself…

After Grace’s parents take a dislike to Sam, their future together seems bleak unless Grace can find the courage to take a stand against them. This would be easier were Grace not trying to hide a secret from everyone around her, even Sam. A secret that could change everything, or even end it all.

Shiver was a story about finding love at any cost, Linger is a story about fighting for love through everything life throws at you.

What I Liked: I loved Linger even more than I loved Shiver which is quite impressive. On top of everything I said about Shiver this book had even more to offer.

Firstly it cleared up my complaint about Grace’s parents quite neatly and I can now accept their attitude and absence in the first book as a necessity for the final story. An example of complaining about something before it’s finished there, but I wasn’t to know that at the time.

Secondly the introduction of the new wolf, Cole, and Isabel to the narrative mix added brilliantly to the depth of the writing and characters. The relationship between Isabel and Cole helped to define and show a different side to love than that between Sam and Grace and it also brought out elements of the characters that you had never seen before. Sam through Isabel’s eyes for example, and the whole situation through a newcomer thrown in head-first to the deep end.

I loved Cole’s character. He is horrible and flawed, lost, frightened and obnoxious. Everything you would expect him to be which makes him so brilliantly human despite the fact that sometimes he’s furry and has four legs. I think he is possibly the most human character in the books and keeps the story grounded even when the fantasy romance of Sam and Grace threatens to take over.

Grace’s secret is kept beautifully throughout the story too, even though many parts are from her viewpoint you are never certain what is going on because she is denying it to herself as well as everyone else for a lot of the time. This added an uneasy undercurrent to much of the story and resulted in me crying on more than one occasion as the emotions and tension flew around. (Much crying done on a busy train I might add, so I looked like a right idiot snivelling away behind a book.)

What I Didn’t Like: This is where I have an issue because my only complaint in Shiver was cleared up in Linger so I now can’t actually think of anything I didn’t like. Apart from having to wait until Summer 2011 for the final book that is. I really don’t like that at all.

Rating: No beating around the bush with this one. 5/5 no question. A brilliant read, so much so that I forgive Liberty for making me cry in public by lending it to me. (Sometimes I’m sure she only lends/recommends books to me because she knows I will cry and she can laugh at me…)

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This is book two of my September Spectacular Reading Challenge. Two down, three to go! (And yes, to those observant people out there, I have changed my list. I lent one of the books on it to my sister so it is now over a hundred miles away from me, thus quite hard to read…)