Every time someone asks me about this book I like to give them this quick little taste: “Feed is a zombie book, but not primarily. It is primarily a political novel, secondarily a mystery novel and THEN it is a post-apocalyptic drama.” However, in finishing the book, I realized it was a lot more than that.

The book follows a brother/sister reporting team hot on the campaign trail of Senator Ryman, a forward thinking presidential candidate that has big plans for the future of plague-ridden America. This duo, so heavily invested in the success of this man, are faced with the cruel reality of jealousy and corruption that is weaved into the fabric of the political game. Georgia, Shaun and their best friend, Buffy, are pushed to wits end in the race to discover the driving force behind the murder and betrayal that has followed their every move. It isn’t until the real culprit is unveiled that the journalists are really driven to expose the group to the world and in doing so they face the dire consequences.

I actually started reading this book about 5 years ago when young and fleeting me often jumped from book to book without ever reaching the last page. This book fell into the pit of a dozen unfinished works and although I’ve forgotten the names of those lost, the premise of this particular book stuck with me.

If I were to give this one a rating it’d be somewhere in the high 8′s or for those of you familiar with Grace Helbig, about 3 and a half Grace faces:

The book itself was filled just with the right amount of action and interpersonal relationships but also a ton of worldbuilding and a satisfying lack of the “exposition guy/girl” commentary all while explaining the environment in a comfortable way. The characters felt very real to me. both Georgia and Shaun were born post-outbreak so their views on the world and on life in general were very appropriate and allowed me as a reader to understand their lack of grief when it came to someone’s passing but also made me realize that there would be a lot of normalcies that I have in my life (like the rarity of open arms in public or the lack of security on houses and public buildings) that they would be appalled by. The reason I didn’t give the book a 10 out of 10 was simply because it was too long. It wasn’t as if all of the information given to me in the 500 or so pages wasn’t relevant to the story, but it could’ve used a bit of a haircut when it came to re-explaining the process of things. The explanation of the history of the zombie plague was one like I’d never read before. It was discussed in a really natural way and by the end I didn’t feel like I was missing any information on the matter. Although the minor characters weren’t given much page time, they were developed in a way that made them either clearly hatable or lovable and all very relevant to the plot.

This book, one of three (the other two I plan on picking up at my local Barnes and Noble any day now), is worth a thorough read or at least a good consideration.

Signing off for now,

Barb aka. imperial-doughnut