FEED

"The good news: we survived. The bad news: so did they."

 

 

 

FEED

Written by Mira Grant

ISBN: 978-0316081054

Available as a paperback, audio book, and e-book.

Five stars.

*

FEED opens in 2034, twenty years after the zombie apocalypse. The world has gone on. Most places are so dangerous that average people are afraid to step outside their homes, and journalists now need to have firearm licenses and hazard training. Online blogs have become more relevant than the "real" news, which lost all credibility by badly documenting the zombie outbreak, resulting in many preventable deaths.

Enter Georgia ("George") and Shaun Mason, sibling bloggers determined to bring the truth to America. When they become the first bloggers invited to cover a presidential campaign, they think they're on their way to professional status. Unfortunately, someone doesn't want them reporting, someone who will kill anyone to get the Masons off the campaign trail. George and Shawn are determined to see their job through to the end, but as friends die, zombie attacks increase, and politics grow murkier and nastier, they realize they're not just covering a presidential campaign. They're on the trail of the biggest government secret of all: who created the zombies?

FEED is zombie horror, but it's also political intrigue.  The zombies are the mindless hoards of Romero movies, and they appear when humans smart and soulless enough to use them as weapons of assassination point them at an enemy. Thus, zombie scenes are mostly action with George and Shaun doing a lot of shooting and strategizing. The rest of the book takes place on the campaign trail, keeping up with the ugly world of politics–which, the siblings discover, is much more dangerous than just poking at the undead. Balancing these two sides of the story keeps FEED gripping to its last pages.

The characters are equally interesting. George and Shaun are not idealistic, kind-hearted altruists. Though mostly likable, they can be rude, cynical, and antisocial. They made FEED much more interesting than novels about the cardboard cutouts that often star in commercial lit.

My only complaint is that the mystery of who's trying to kill George and Shawn is almost insultingly easy to solve. I am the type of person who is stumped by Encyclopedia Brown mysteries, and even I got this a few pages in. You will not be surprised to find out who the bad guy is, because pretty much the moment you meet him, you know it's him.

Except for that one detail, FEED is what mass-market commercial fiction strives to be above all things: entertaining. It has intrigue, action, family bonds, blogging, and zombies. What else is there?

*

Review by Elizabeth Reuter