Review: Feed (Newsflesh 1) by Mira Grant
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.
So if you read my blog often you will know I really don’t care for zombies. The whole eating of brains and infection freaks me out and the thought that labs somewhere could be working on a virus that causes this if some scientist forgets to close the door after he comes into the office really makes me paranoid.
I have to say I devoured this book faster than a virus infected zombie finishes his meal of brains. I was in awe of the world building set in the not so distant future and the fact that a lot of the story took place in the Bay Area where I happen to live gave it an added bonus, for I am a visual reader and it’s easier to imagine places you have been.
The characters were written fantastically, the different viruses how they reacted, the different ways people reanimated. The fanatic religious element, betrayals, the mystery and the story line had me hooked. I am dying to get my hands on the next book. I need to know what happens next, and in a good way not in a “ARGH open ending way”.
The book cover shows an RSS icon and I was wondering why? It made no sense to me until I opened the book. When the original outbreak of the virus happened the news agencies were playing it off as college kids joking around. Only the bloggers of the world had the means to tell the truth. The bloggers reports along with the lessons learned in George Romero’s movies is pretty much what kept people alive. Who ever thought George Romero would be a national hero? That was an epic bonus to the book.
I am going to add a few quotes from the book here, and this novel has the most awesome website for a book I have seen this year. The Feed Book.com
pg. 96“Do you remember the guy who tried to kill George Romero with Zombie Pit Bulls?”
“That’s an urban myth Buffy. It’s been disproven about ninety times”.
pg. 192 “I like having sufficient lung capacity to run away from the living dead,” I replied deadpan. “I’m serious, cigarettes won’t give you cancer but they cause emphysema, and I have no desire to get eaten by a zombie just because I was trying to look cool.”
If you like Carrie Ryan books, George Romero movies, or zombies in general you have to grab a copy of Feed.
Review: The Heart is Not a Size by Beth Kephart
From Goodreads: Georgia knows what it means to keep secrets. She knows how to ignore things. She knows that some things are better left unsaid. …Or are they?
When Georgia and her best friend, Riley, travel along with nine other suburban Pennsylvania kids to Anapra, a squatters’ village in the heat-flattened border city of Juarez, Mexico, secrets seem to percolate and threaten both a friendship and a life. Certainties unravel. Reality changes. And Georgia is left to figure out who she is outside the world she’s always known.
Beth Kephart paints a world filled with emotion, longing, and the hot Mexican sun.
I will be forever indebted to @myfriendamy at My Friend Amy’s Blog for putting together this impromptu blog tour of this book. I am so in love with Beth Kephart and am moving on to House of Dance as soon as I am done writing this review.
I cannot say enough about Kephart’s character development. So much depth in so few pages. It is almost too much to handle. You see the Mexican plains and the children in their brightly colored clothing. You can feel the despair and the realization that not everyone has it as good as us. Riley and Georgia are amazing characters and if not fictional would have grown up to change the world in some major way.
This book was chalk full of so many amazing and demanding prose I am for the first time going to quote some of my favorite passages from a book here.
Panic, I’m telling you, begins in the heart. Panic is big buzzard wings banging wretched and trapped against the bones of your ribs, knocking your windpipe loose, swiping your logic. Pg. 42
“So you are taking pictures for prosperity?” Kev said. “For posterity,” I said. Dad laughed. Now I turned teh camera on Mom and Kev. She’s smiling in the photograph. Kev’s looking half surprised. Pg.76
“It’s weird,” I said. “I know. You wouldn’t think it just to see us. She being so petite. Me like the Jolly Green Giant.” “The Heart is not a size,” Sophie said after looking between Riley’s face and mine and saying nothing for a long time.Pg.233
I cannot urge you enough to read this thought provoking and stimulating novel. I promise it is one you will not be able to put down. I leave you with Beth Kephart reading a passage from her story.
