Friday, June 21, 2013
Anyone who knows me knows that I love anything to do with zombies. But I've already talked in length about my love for zombies in my Warm Bodies Review. So, when I went on vacation in April, you can imagine that I was looking for a good zombie story to enjoy while sitting by the pool. And I can confidently tell you that I found it.
The Newsflesh trilogy is comprised of three books (duh): Feed, Deadline, and Blackout. All of the books follow bloggers who work under adoptive siblings, Shaun and Georgia Mason. They live in a post apocalyptic future where zombies are real, and bloggers have become the main source of news. Shaun is an Irwin (named after Steve Irwin), which means he likes to go out in the field and poke undead with a stick and see what happens. Georgia is a Newsie, which means she aspires to be like Christian Bale (not really, but go with it.) The trilogy definitely falls into the zombie genre, but is also a political thriller of sorts.
I absolutely loved this series. I tore through all three books very quickly. Whenever I finished one, I immediately picked up the next, because I needed to know what was going to happen next! Mira Grant does a phenomenal job with world building and character development. And the story is absolutely amazing. Grant does a perfect job of melding together two different genres, in zombie/horror and political thriller. I think that the series really hinges on the world building that she does, but I don't think anything suffered from that. I will admit that, in the first few chapters of Feed, I found that I didn't particularly care for many of the characters, but as time passed, I realized that I actually liked and was rooting for these people.
Feed reminded me a lot of The Hunger Games, but the biggest difference was that I didn't absolutely hate the main character. Just like The Hunger Games, I think that the second book in the series was slightly stronger. It feels like Grant really found her footing and started to really delve into the huge political thriller that she set up in the first book. Many of the minor characters who were introduced in the first book get much bigger roles in Deadline, some even becoming main characters.
Unlike the Hunger Games trilogy, the Newsflesh series has a great end. While not as strong as Deadline, I think that Blackout was a phenomenal end to the series. Grant did a great job of tying everything up in a perfect climax that felt incredibly satisfying. The only complaint I really have about Blackout (albeit minor) is that it just didn’t feel the same as Feed and Deadline before it. Blackout removed itself from the zombie-ness of it’s predecessors and delved more into the political conspiracy plot line. I’m not complaining, because Blackout was an excellent read, but it just felt a little off. It took me awhile to even realize exactly how it was different, but once I did, I couldn’t unnotice it.
I have a bit of an issue with the third book that I think is a bit of a reflection on the whole series. I won't go into any spoilers here, because I actually want people to read the series, because it's actually quite good, but I think you should be warned. There is something in the books that is alluded towards very vaguely a lot, but it's something that (at least with me) you don't really want to believe, so you just kind of shrug it off for a majority of the books...but then you find out that it's actually true towards the middle of the third book. So, if you are reading the first book and are like "No, I don't like that" then you definitely don't want to read the third one. You have been warned.
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The story arch that we get to see Shaun Mason go on through this trilogy is absolutely breathtaking, and the world is unforgettable. While Grant isn’t a literary genius, she is great at weaving together plot points to make a cohesive story with fun characters and a scarily realistic future world where zombies exist. Anyone who enjoys good YA fiction should definitely pick this series up, but be warned, the books are a bit hefty at about 500 pages each.
