Review: Feed by Mira Grant

Title: Feed
Author: Mira Grant
Pages: 572
Series: Newsflesh #1
Genre: Dystopia, Zombies, Science Fiction
Publication Date: May 1st, 2010
Rating: C
Challenge: Calico Reaction's Book Club - October Challenge

From Goodreads:
The year was 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beat 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, Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives-the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.

I had many small problems with this book a couple bigger ones. The small ones included various inconsistencies which probably didn't matter to a lot of people except me. The book takes place around 25 years in the future and 20 years after two viruses mutated and created zombies and killed 20% of the world's population. I found that a lot of the world pushed my willing suspension of disbelief too far. For example, even if 87% of the population stays indoors because of the threat of the outside world, a lot of things from our world today still exist: Starbucks, campaign rallies, paparazzi and other daily life things. I felt that the world didn't change enough, other than the added zombies which only make a few real appearances.

A major problem for me was the pacing itself. The book was slowed down by a lot of nothing; info dumps, needless scenes and descriptions. I'm definitely someone who loves action and there definitely wasn't enough of it to keep me interested. It didn't help that often a lot of the action that was going on, the main character, Georgia, would halt the scene by inserting things about how good this might be for her blog, etc. It seemed like a very passive experience through the POV of the main character.

There are some redeeming qualities about Feed. The writing itself was good and I felt Grant had some good ideas but was brought down by the enormous amounts of information and blog/political stuff going on. The reasons for the zombie virus emerging was interesting and clever.

Overall, I was disappointed with Feed but perhaps my expectations were too high. It could be a great book for people interested in an original story, but maybe fans of zombies might not like it since zombies don't make a lot of appearances. I may be checking out the sequel to see where Grant takes the story.