From the Bookshelf of Apocalypse Whenever…

Feed (Newsflesh, #1)

Mira Grant

Start date: April 1, 2011

Finish date: May 1, 2011

Discussion: AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

Discussion leader: Gertie

Why we're reading this: In 2014, two experimental viruses—a genetically engineered flu strain designed by Dr. Alexander Kellis, i…more
[close] 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:

Find A Copy At

Libraries

Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 346 topics — 20,939 comments total

AW BOOK CLUB (spoilers)

* What is a good book for AW discussion? (Nominations pool)
By Gertie · 65 posts · 218 views

last updated Oct 18, 2025 05:31PM

* AW Book Club: what we've read
By Gertie · 16 posts · 1825 views

last updated Dec 10, 2019 09:01AM

showing 10 of 37 topics view all »

What Members Thought

Nov 01, 2013 Joe rated it really liked it

This book constantly surprised me - I almost gave up on it, every 30 pages or so, and yet, every time I was at the point of hurling it across the room in fury, author Mira Grant came up with another unexpected plot twist, and I gave her another chance.
Having said that, despite having all the trappings of postapocalyptic zombie horror, this is not a book about zombies. They're almost incidental to the storyline, an inconvenience, much like jet-lag, or sunburn, or overpriced coffee. It is a book, This book constantly surprised me - I almost gave up on it, every 30 pages or so, and yet, every time I was at the point of hurling it across the room in fury, author Mira Grant came up with another unexpected plot twist, and I gave her another chance.
Having said that, despite having all the trappings of postapocalyptic zombie horror, this is not a book about zombies. They're almost incidental to the storyline, an inconvenience, much like jet-lag, or sunburn, or overpriced coffee. It is a book, more or less, about journalism, and freedom of the press, and for that reason has been much compared to Stieg Larsson's Millennium trilogy. For my part, although I can see the similarity, the connection didn't really stand up. Possibly that's because Larsson made his journalist a middle-aged man whereas Grant made hers a teenage girl, but otherwise the two are essentially interchangeable - government conspiracies, social misfits, and back-room deals across all levels of the social strata.

A writer whose work I would say this is similar to is Margaret Atwood, particularly her MaddAddam trilogy. Mira Grant applies the same techniques as Atwood, although almost using them in the opposite way - whereas in Margaret Atwood's future reality, everything has a sort of life, and a kind of animism pervades her busy human interaction with all these entities, in Mira Grant's world, it is as though nothing has life, and even the human characters barely have agency. Despite this opposition of worldviews, both writers have created characters that interact with reality as an extension of them. Margaret Atwood's characters know their world, because it is alive, and they are alive, and they can thus empathize with it. Mira Grant's characters know their world, because it has function and utility, and contributes to their function and utility, and therefore they can incorporate its function into their activity. Personally, I prefer Margaret Atwood's soaring vistas to Mira Grant's dusty, grimy cityscapes, but each has its place - they showcase each other's strengths.

Finally, the other writer that comes to mind on reading this story is Australian novelist John Marsden, whose Tomorrow, When the War Began books transformed young adult literature in Australia when they were published. John Marsden, who started his story in the 1990s, supplies the characterization and urgency of setting that dominates this story. Though he was writing about teenagers whose country is attacked by a foreign power and who are driven into hiding, making only occasional guerilla raids for supplies or to disrupt the occupying troops, his characters see the world the same way as the protagonists of Mira Grant's story - the same paranoia pervades both. The only different is, whereas John Marsden's work presents an ensemble of characters, each with different things to contribute to the struggle, Mira Grant's is essentially a one-man-show - Georgia Mason, with the infrequent interruption of her brother or the outside world, tells her story and presents the news, and hers is the only voice we are given. ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Feb 10, 2020 Angie rated it it was amazing

Shelves: audio-books, great-reading-challenge, dystopia, geek-out-book-club, bookclub, first-in-series, pandemic, apocalypse-now, zombies, 2020-books

Geek Out! Book Club meets tonight! Will update after the discussion.

1 like · Like · see review

Jan 07, 2012 Katie Kenig rated it it was amazing

Shelves: horror, apocolyptic, suspense, favorites, zombies

I'm kinda fascinated by the zombie genre in general, but this particular series is a little different from most. Instead of focusing on the zombie apocolypse, this book begins twenty five plus years after it occured. Life has pretty much gone back to normal. Except, of course, for the virus that everyone carries around dormant in their cells, and which turns them into the walking dead once they bite it. Or once something bites them, as the case may be.

George and her brother Shaun are bloggers, p ...more

Like · see review

Sep 25, 2013 Ellisa Barr rated it liked it

I read (listened to) this book a couple of years ago and although I liked it, I can't recommend to friends and family due to language. Interesting book though, it really made me think. ...more

Like · see review

Jul 07, 2012 O'Rissa rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: sci-fi, fiction, around-the-world-challenge, horror-fantasy, zombies-vampires-paranormal

I liked the concept of the book, the detail that went into it was great. I felt the grammar was a bit awkward, but that could just be me. Also, all the exchanges between George and Shaun seemed much friendlier than normal for siblings, but in the post zombie-apocalyptic world the brother-sister dynamic could be much, much different when you are always at risk of being infected with a virus that renders you undead.

Like · see review

Mar 16, 2011 Ashley FL rated it it was ok

Read like a "Maximum Ride" book to me, with all the same problems. I found these main characters boring and, to be honest, kind of dumb. I didn't buy into their whole "News is the only thing that's important" schtick. The Zombie world itself wasn't very fleshed (hee) out.

If it weren't a group read for a group I'm in, I would have dropped it after a hundred pages. As it was, I slogged through the remaining 500 pages, but I'm not sure it was worth it. ...more

Like · see review