Book Review: Ghost Train to New Orleans by Mur Lafferty

Summary

Zoe Norris managed to survive her first job as editor for The Shambling Guide to New York City, a travel guide for Coterie-- vampires, zombies, sprites, gods, and all other manner of supernatural creatures. Despite being a human, she's good at her job and does manage to hold her own with creatures that see her mostly as food. Now, she and her team are heading out of town to start researching their next project: a travel guide for New Orleans.

But things aren't great. Zoe's adventures in New York have revealed her to be a City Talker, a rare sort of human Coterie. Now, she has a secret, and people are out for City Talkers' blood. Her blood.

There's a reason City Talkers are rare. Is Zoe about to become food? All she wants is to write a book!

That's my summary. Here's the one I pulled from http://murverse.com/

Zoe Norris writes travel guides for the undead. And she’s good at it too — her new-found ability to talk to cities seems to help. After the success of The Shambling Guide to New York City, Zoe and her team are sent to New Orleans to write the sequel.

Work isn’t all that brings Zoe to the Big Easy. The only person who can save her boyfriend from zombism is rumored to live in the city’s swamps, but Zoe’s out of her element in the wilderness. With her supernatural colleagues waiting to see her fail, and rumors of a new threat hunting city talkers, can Zoe stay alive long enough to finish her next book?

For this author's Context and Style sections, see my reviews for The Shambling Guide for New York City and The Afterlife Series)

My Thoughts

I listened to the podcast version of this book, just to put that out there. I liked this book, but it felt... underfinished. I never got a real serious sense of urgency at any point during it, even when things were at their worst for Zoe. I'm wondering if that may be in part because even though Lafferty narrated, and I do like her voice and her writing podcast, I don't really get much emotion out of her when she narrates. I don't recall having this issue when I listened to The Shambling Guide to New York City, but then it has been some time since I listened to it. I do, though, know that this lack of real risk has been an issue with other stories of hers I've read.

Even so, there's a lot of good stuff going on here. I love her interpretation of Coterie and how things work for the undead and supernatural. The locales promised in this series may not be exotic, but it's seeing the world through very different eyes, and I love that.

Would I Recommend This Book? Yeah, give it a go! Personally, I think the reader may be served better actually reading it over listening to the podcast, but that's my opinion only. I give Ghost Train to New Orleans a useless-after-midnight 3 of 5 stars.

For more information on the author, visit http://murverse.com/

Book Review: Wool Omnibus (Wool #1-#5) by Hugh Howey

Summary

The sherriff of the Silo, Holston, has spent the last three years missing his wife. She was determined to see the outside. It couldn't be as bad as the pictures said, could it? Now, finally at wit's end, Holston has asked to leave the Silo, sure they'll meet on the outside.

With Holston outside the Silo, it's time to replace him. A mechanical, Juliette, is the surprising nomination, but before she can ascend the many levels to the top of the Silo, the people's lives get thrown into turmoil. The mayor is dead, and the next in line is Bernard, the smarmy IT director who never wanted Juliette as sherriff anyway.

Now Juliette finds herself facing the threat of going outside the Silo. Is she going to find Holston out there, or is the world just as deadly as everyone has always thought?

That's my summary. Here's the one I pulled from www.hughhowey.com/books/wool/

This is the story of mankind clawing for survival, of mankind on the edge. The world outside has grown unkind, the view of it limited, talk of it forbidden. But there are always those who hope, who dream. These are the dangerous people, the residents who infect others with their optimism. Their punishment is simple. They are given the very thing they profess to want: They are allowed outside.

Context

With all the threats of human destruction and terrorism, and knowing that we've gone so far as to drop atomic bombs on one another before, it's interesting to think what backup plans humanity could develop to live for just one more generation. Howey addresses this with his Silo, a self-contained underground city complete with farms, mechanics, cafeterias, and government. Even better, he's chosen to set Wool at a time when people have been in the Silo for so long that it isn't new. It's the way life is. There wasn't life outside the Silo. Rare people wonder about the world outside. It's a brilliant setting, and Howey addresses a lot of the questions both we as outsiders and the characters living it have.

Style

Howey has a very clear, almost simplistic style that really sets the stage for his work. Words serve the story, and he gives neither too much nor too little in description. He does excel at dialogue. The characters are very real and speak that way. Through their words and thoughts, he really gets the reader into his characters' heads, driving their actions. There was no need for him to make up a lot of strange machines or anything for his claustrophobic setting. It kept there from being a gap between what modern readers could relate to and what his characters consider everyday objects. This sort of thing could have easily gotten too strange and confusing. Howey avoided the potential for a trap of foreign creations.

My Thoughts

I was completely sucked into the setting and how people lived in this place. Uppers, Middies, and the Deep Down are different locations with different populations. Being one massive structure still creates divisions between people. There's economy and class, and it shows in how people perceive and interact with one another.

Sadly, Wool wasn't able to keep my intrigue once the newness wore off. The Omnibus is 5 individual stories that are linked, and it was about halfway through the fourth one that my interest really flagged. I did have to drag myself through the last third or so of the book, and I was glad once it was over. I did like how everything ended, so don't think there was a disappointing resolution. I just lost interest, and the book never seemed to want to pull it back. I think it might have been because the action started to split between a few different pods of characters, and there were too many of them that I just didn't really care about. The story did need it, but it didn't draw me in like it could have.

Would I Recommend This Book? Yes and no. I loved the setting Howey created, and the characters were true to human nature. It's a fantastic premise he's got, and there are tons of stories he can tell here. I adored a fair few of the characters (and hated a few that are worthy of it), but it wasn't enough to keep my interest high throughout. The writing, though, is excellent, and because of that, I give Wool Omnibus a heat-taped 4 of 5 stars.

For more information on the author, visit http://www.hughhowey.com/

Book Review Double Whammy: Edgelanders and Sorrow's Peak by Jennifer Melzer

Edgelanders  

Summary

Lorelei's fiance planned to kill her, so she ran. Fleeing for her life, Lorelei, sheltered princess, had no hope. She's lost and alone, far from the home she never got to leave before.

Then the U'lfer found her, a race of wolf-men exiled to a tiny strip of land by Lorelei's father. Mad Finn the Reckless rescued her, only to face exile for his mad actions. Now, banished to the frozen wastes of Rimian, Finn and Lorelei have to stay alive. What's worse, the U'lfer's seers prophecied that Lorelei would be the savior of the dying U'lfer race, and Lorelei is, in fact, half U'lfer herself.

Torn between a past she never knew she had and a future she doesn't want, Lorelei has the weight of an entire race on her shoulders, and a god she doesn't worship pushing her along. Not to mention the devotion of Finn, whose heart she can feel beating with her own.

This was not what she expected the world to be like.

That's my summary. Here's the one I pulled from http://jennifermelzer.com/books/serpent-of-time/edgelanders/

When Princess Lorelei of Leithe overhears her fiancé’s plot to murder her on the way to their wedding, she does the only smart thing: she runs.

Into the Edgelands, the savage, woodland home of the legendary U’lfer, a race of fierce wolves who walk as men, she knows she is as good as dead, but she would rather be torn apart by werewolves than die by Trystay’s hand.

A young U’lfer warrior named Finn catches her scent on the wind and finds himself possessed by an unnatural desire to shield and protect her from that which hunts her. From the moment he first sees her, Finn knows she is his. He feels her heartbeat, knows her soul as well as he knows his own, and he will do anything, even suffer exile from the Edgelands to be with her.

But there is more to Lorelei than meets the eye. She is like Finn; there is U’lfer blood in her veins, a beast beneath her skin she never knew was there. The answers she seeks lie south, in the frozen tundra of Rimian, where a village of people just like her have been waiting for Lorelei to come and save them since before she was even born.

Context

Edgelanders is a little hard to nail down, because it isn't the sort of "standard" fantasy that people tend to think of. It's not the sort of English knights/Medieval period, and it's not the orcs/goblins/Tolkein-ish world.

That. Is. Wonderful. Edgelanders sits on its own, breaking the mold for setting. Personally, I see a lot of Gaelic and Norse influence here... more Norse than Gaelic, I think, though, and it's a great mix. the naming conventions differ from what I'm accustomed to seeing in fantasy fiction, and it lends itself to a rich world that's unlike anything I've seen before. Oh, there are elves and trolls, but they're done differently from the Tolkein elves and trolls that they're entirely different races in their own. In fact, the elves have a different sort of name for themselves, Alviarii, though they are still informally called elves.

It's a refreshingly different setting Melzer has created for her world, and there is a lot of greatness to explore. It does make there a little bit of a learning curve for those who, like me, get sort of "stuck" in the more common Western European fantasy-type worlds, but it's a welcome enough change that I didn't mind the unfamiliarity.

Style

Melzer's writing style and my personal reading style have a little bit of a gap between them. It felt to me like she should read quickly, but I felt like the book dragged along for me, and I couldn't read for long periods of time before my eyes started glossing over. It's not a matter of subject of it being boring or overcomplex. Honestly, I don't know why there was that sort of disjoint that made this book hard to finish for me. It took me much longer to finish Edgelanders than it should have, though, and that's a little unsettling.

My Thoughts

I liked Edgelanders quite a bit, but it's one of those books that, for me, had a lot of little nagging problems that detracted from my enjoyment of it. Little things, like there being too many names of characters and places that were similar. Drekne, Deken, and Dunvarak; Rimian, Rivenn, Rognar, Ruwena, Rhiorna, and Roggi; Lorelei, Logren, and Leithe. In some ways, it just felt like Melzer got stuck on a few letters, and they all got used at the expense of other letters. It made keeping track of people and places a little difficult, but not much.

There was a lot of repetition of ideas. Almost any time we had Finn's point-of-view, he was always mooning and harping over how afraid he was that Lorelei would shun him or never accept him as a mate... only days after they met. I understand that it was a driving force for him, but I got a little sick of these sorts of things always popping up in his thoughts. I think if some of that repetition had been toned down across all the characters, it would have made the book flow faster (for me, at least) and smoothed things out, but that's a personal aesthetic.

Throughout much of the book, I felt like there was something lacking, and it was during the epilogue (which was, in my opinion, the most intriguing part of the book) that I realized what it was: there was no real clear personification of an antagonist. It wasn't until the epilogue that I saw Trystay again, and holy cow, did his presence make a huge difference in the urgency of the plot! Frankly, it brings up my hopes that book two of this series will be better, which isn't to say this book was bad. To me, it felt like a prologue... one really long prologue to the real story.

Would I Recommend This Book? I'm actually going to hold off on recommending it or not until I read the next book. If it leads in the way I think it will, then yeah, I'd say read it, but I don't feel comfortable making that call right now. This book is well-written, though I did have some personal preference problems with it. I hope the next book brings the intrigue of the story up to fill the world like it should. I will, though, give Edgelanders a foreseen 3 of 5 stars.

Sorrow's Peak

Summary

Fate is calling to Lorelei. Finally safe from her murderous fiance, she's learned that reawakening the wolf-spirits of the U'lfer is up to her. There is a task she must undertake, waking and destroying the Serpent of Time to end the vicious repetitive cycle of time the world has been in. As has happened uncounted times, Lorelei sets out with Finn and Brendolowyn. Her heart is still torn between the two men, and they're at one another's throats. Is this bickering over her the cause of their constant failure and time's repetition? Will they be able to break the cycle once and for all?

Fate says only two of them will return. Who will be coming back with Lorelei?

That's my summary. Here's the one I pulled from http://jennifermelzer.com/books/serpent-of-time/sorrows-peak/

Once a princess of Leithe, Lorelei was exiled from her homeland and led to the city of Dunvarak in the tundra of Rimian. The people of Dunvarak call her Light of Madra, and nearly every one of them has a story about the white hand of light who saved them from death during the War of Silence.

She is their savior, and being a savior is no small task.

Charged with retrieving the fractured horns of the U’lfer god, Llorveth, from a long-dead dragon’s treasure hoard in the belly of Great Sorrow’s Peak, the half-bred U’lfer believe with the horns in hand they will finally be able to embrace the dormant wolf, and rise to stand beside their full-blooded brethren in the coming war with men.

But there is more to Lorelei’s plight than simply retrieving the mystical horns of a silent god. She and her companions, Finn, an U’lfer warrior she shares a mate bond with, and a half-Alvarii mage named Brendolowyn, have made this journey before, and unless they can figure out where they went wrong in past cycles, time threatens to repeat itself for eternity.

My Thoughts

Sorrow's Peak picks up right where Edgelanders left off, so it's a pleasant, pretty  much nonexistent segue into the continuing story. I was treated immediately to more of the character I really want to know more about, Trystay, but it was brief. And I didn't get to see him again until the epilogue, but he is an antagonist, so I suppose it's not surprising. He's not even really the main conflict in this novel, but it is good to see what he's up to.

My intrigue with Trystay doesn't mean I'm not interested in our protagonist team. Lorelei is evolving, though I'd like to see her grow more quickly. She seems so resistant to change, but not intentionally. In some ways, the world is pushing her along, and she's helpless to stop it. It does sometimes make her come across as whiny, and I want to slap her sometimes, but it's hard to hate her. She's not my favorite protagonist ever, but her chemistry with her teammates makes up for a lot of frustration I have at her. I think if the book were more exclusively in her POV, I wouldn't be able to stand it.

Bren and Finn make the story in a lot of ways. Their bickering, their turmoil, seems more real than Lorelei's does, at least to me. Finn's continued pining after Lorelei, along with Bren's, get annoying. A lot. But it does have a little more purpose now, as they're really set against each other with the whole "only two will return" thing. This really comes to a crux with Bren, and I enjoyed the tension there.

Then there's the side plot, which is headed by my favorite character, Vilnjar. I want more of him. I love that his story arc has diverged from the main story, and I'm eager to see what becomes of him in book three. Yes, I'm curious to see what becomes of everyone, but his story arc appeals to me more than the main one does. That's just personal preference and has nothing to do with the writing quality or plot quality. That is purely opinion.

Would I Recommend This Book? Sure! While I'm not a die-hard fan of many of these characters, and the plot doesn't particularly resonate with me, this is a well-written and well-developed world and novel, and I believe there is something in here for most readers. It is a little on the solemn side, and maybe that's where my taste gets upset. I will be back for the next book, though. I give Sorrow's Peak an underground 4 of 5 stars.

For more information on the author, visit http://jennifermelzer.com/

Book Review: The Lost Prince by Julie Kagawa

Summary

Ethan Chase can see the fae, and that's been the cause of a lot of problems. He's constantly in trouble, even when he isn't the cause of it. Now, here he is, yet again at another school, trying to make something good out of his life. If he just keeps everyone at arm's length, he can ride out the rest of his school year, and then he'll be free.

But there's one kid at school who is half-faerie. Now, he's gone missing, and there's something strange going on. With a rather pushy school reporter demanding to accompany him, Ethan has to wander into the Nevernever to solve the kidnapping, and there's one person he's going to have to face after all these years:

His half-sister Meghan, the Iron Queen.

That's my summary. Here's the one I pulled from http://juliekagawa.com/

Ethan thought he had protected himself from his older sister’s world—the land of Faery. His previous time in the Iron Realm left him with nothing but fear and disgust for the world Meghan Chase has made her home, a land of myth and talking cats, of magic and seductive enemies. But when destiny comes for Ethan, there is no escape from a danger long, long forgotten.

Until the fey he avoids at all costs—including his reputation—begin to disappear, and Ethan is attacked. Now he must change the rules to protect his family. To save a girl he never thought he’d dare to fall for.

Context

The Lost Prince is another of those novels set right here, right now, and it's a perfect setting for Kagawa's material. It's all well and good to have magic and faeries in clearly fantastical settings or time periods, but right now? They don't "click" with our world, so Ethan's already got things going against him. Stories like this, and like the Harry Potter series, where there's a whole other world we know nothing about coinciding with ours, always makes me feel like I'm missing something. In a good way. It makes me watch my peripheral vision, to wonder if the movement in the corner of my eye is really something "normal" or not.

Style

Kagawa has a clear sense of her characters' behaviors and thoughts. This is especially evident in Ethan and Kenzie, the two main characters we see. Since this book is in first person, we get a deep understanding of what's going on in Ethan's head and why he behaves as he does. He recognizes that some of the things he does are dumb or bad ideas, but he also knows why he has to do them, and we're right along for the ride.

There are other books in this series, and Kagawa does a decent job ingratiating new readers to what's going on in the fae side of things. Still, it's not a perfect execution there. I'm not saying she needed to add a whole crash course infodump of faerie lore into the novel, but there are some assumptions made that the reader knows about the Seelie and Unseelie Courts and some other details about dealing with the fae. It would make for a bit of a learning curve with readers without much exposure to the concepts. I feel like there could have been a little more-- let's call it a tutorial-- of fae. Not much, but some.

My Thoughts

I loved the concept behind The Lost Prince. I really liked a lot of the characters, and I'm always up for messing with faeries.

I didn't enjoy The Lost Prince as much as I'd hoped I would. On a personal level, I didn't click with Ethan, though I understood him very well. There was a lot of wandering in the book, a lot of scene changes and more importantly, scenery changes that I could have done without. In my opinion, there were too many locales we ended up dealing with, and it left me feeling stretched and lopsided. Once we were into the Nevernever, there was just too much going on, having to go here for this and there for that. And a lot of these changes happened far too quickly to get my bearing. I felt like the last two-thirds of the book or so lacked an anchor. That may have been a conscious decision, purposefully done on Kagawa's part. The Nevernever is a very different world from ours, and it's supposed to be foreign and uncomfortable and strange, but it left too much of an unpleasant taste in my mouth for me to want to read more of this series.

There were some great plot twists and reveals (one of which I guessed, to my joy) that really did make things more relatable and interesting, but it wasn't enough for me to draw me back into the story. I may look into Kagawa again in the future, but probably not for the Iron Fey series.

Would I Recommend This Book? If you're a fan of the fae, yes! This book tailors to some fairly specific tastes. While I do think anyone could enjoy it, it left me feeling too unbalanced to want to continue with the series. Kagawa has a solid writing style and has clearly done her homework, but this book just wasn't for me. I give The Lost Prince a half-breed 3 of 5 stars.

For more information on the author, visit http://juliekagawa.com/

Mini-Book Review: Mimes by Paul E. Cooley

Mimes is a quick read that makes silence into something chilling. I wouldn't necessarily call this novelette scary or terrifying, but it definitely gave me goosebumps. The main character, Joseph, is fairy unobtrusive, so that it would be easy to project myself into his shoes. Normally, I would say that his sort of "everyman-ness" would detract form the story, but this wasn't a long enough read for it to be an issue. There was just enough information, action, and personality in him to keep things moving and interesting. Honestly, I think it is the other real character we are involved with, Harvey, that shows the character development I know Cooley for.

As for the story itself, I enjoyed it all in one sitting and got shivers at the end. I did have the desire to see it expanded, if not into a full novel, then into something longer. It's not bad at this short length, but I wanted more development of plot, if not necessarily in character. I believe Mimes could be expanded into a thoroughly chilling novella, at least. Is it worth a read? Absolutely! The ending alone makes me cringe in a delicious way when I think about it, and that alone makes it worth the effort to consume Cooley's words.

Is it Cooley's best work? No. But it's a nice little treat. I give Mimes a silent 4 of 5 stars.

The Black by Paul E. Cooley

Summary

A drilling team has just struck an oil deposit with the purest oil anyone has ever uncovered. The crew cannot believe the fortune that this strike will bring with minimal refining. But there's something not right about this oil. It bubbles without reason. It eats through cloth and worse, flesh.

And it seems to be after every last one of them.

That's my summary. Here's the one I pulled from http://shadowpublications.com/the-black/

Under 30,000 feet of water, the exploration rig Leaguer has discovered an oil field larger than Saudi Arabia, with oil so sweet and pure, nations would go to war for the rights to it. But as the team starts drilling exploration well after exploration well in their race to claim the sweet crude, a deep rumbling beneath the ocean floor shakes them all to their core. Something has been living in the oil and it’s about to give birth to the greatest threat humanity has ever seen.

Context

The Black is modern, present-day thrilling horror in the best way. I don't recall hearing a specific date or year at any point during the book (I listened to the author's podcast recording of the novel), but I didn't need a specific year. It's clearly set here and now, and I could easily imagine the events of this novel occurring at this very moment. Yeah, right now. Right as you're reading this. Like, now.

There are parts of the narrative that rely on modern technology... I guess it's good that it's set in the now.

Style

I adore Cooley's writing style. He's clear and concise, and even if I weren't listening to a recording, this is the sort of story I would want told to me. This would be a great book to read to others, with lights dimmed or around a campfire on a multi-night camping trip. This is what gives me chills, and it's ideal to have it told to you or to tell to someone else.

My Thoughts

It's clear from the get-go that Cooley did his research in making this book happen. I have to applaud him on the depth of what he learned to make this book accurate and plausible. Even so, with all the technical crap going on, I wasn't lost, nor did I feel talked down to. Things that needed to be explained were, but not in a way that detracted from the narrative. The characters were human and believable, though a number of them did sort of run together for me, but they were mainly secondary characters anyway. The main figures were clear-cut in who they were and how they spoke, thought, and acted.

The plot was excellent. I was intrigued from the onset and couldn't wait to see how things panned out. I got chills more than once, and even more often than that, I was mind-boggled at how insane Cooley's mind must be. The whole situation, the precarious positions he puts his characters in... they're awesome and awful. But things never got overly graphic. He lets your imagination do a lot of the grunt work, and that made the whole experience better for me. Now if this were a miniseries or movie, oh the gore and graphic disgustingness we would see.

I do have to say, though, if they did The Black in smell-o-vision, you'd be smelling a lot of bacon.

Would I Recommend This Book? Definitely! The Black is not a jump-scare-filled, out to make you squirm kind of thriller. This is a mindtrick, sort of, a nail-biter that will leave you wanting more and wondering how the heck your guys are going to get out of it. It's well-written and intriguing from the beginning to the end. i give The Black a corrosive 5 of 5 stars.

For more information on the author, visit http://shadowpublications.com/

Book Review: Feed by Mira Grant

Summary

Even after a virus caused zombies to become real, humans haven't changed all that much. The American government is still running much the same way as it did, and that means a new presidential election is aout to start. For independent blogging journalists Georgia and Shaun Mason, this could be their big break in the ratings. They have just been selected to join the campaign caravan of Republican candidate Peter Ryman. Now, they have connections, they have inside information, and they have access to the biggest news stories of the year.

The only problem is everywhere they travel, outbreaks of zombies pop up. These aren't random uprisings. These are staged. And it's only a matter of time before the infected catch up to them. Who's behind these sudden bursts of infection? Is the scoop worth the risk?

That's my summary. Here's the one I pulled from http://miragrant.com/feed.php

Shaun and Georgia are orphans of the Rising, the cataclysmic event which left the world reeling in the aftermath of the zombie uprising. Adopted by the Masons and raised in the strange world of the post-Rising media, they've spent their lives chasing the next big story, the one that will allow them to break into the big leagues once and for all. Now, in Senator Peter Ryman's run for the Presidency of the United States, they've finally found it.

All they have to do is survive until the election.

In a world filled with the constant threat of both the living and the living dead, it will be all that Shaun and Georgia can do to keep themselves in one piece. Accompanied by the rest of their blogging team, Senator Ryman's staff, and a whole lot of caffeine, they might succeed...or they might finally answer the big question of their post-Rising world: When will you rise?

Context 

In Grant's setting for Feed, the Rising occurred in 2014. It's now 2040, long enough for a generation of adults who have never known a world without zombies to be taking center stage in world affairs. So with Feed, Grant has set the "zombie apocalypse" right at our feet and taken things forward from there. She's not assuming it won't or can't happen right now. She's forcing us to deal with it, and that makes for a great setting. Seriously, with zombies being such a trend right now, it's great to see an author take on the issue of how we, as a people prepared for the Rising since it's such a fad, will actually react when faced with the living-impaired.

Turns out, we're doing pretty well.

Style

Grant's writing style is sophisticated and clear, with distinct differences in the few writing and POV switches between characters. Blog posts from a few characters have their own voices, and that carries over into the variety of speaking styles of her characters. She's put a great deal of detail into the writing, which is only proper considering the news-reporting truth-telling subject matter of this book.

Overall, Feed was written very well.

My Thoughts

Yeah, yeah, I know. Here I am, a self-proclaimed disdainer of zombies, reading another zombie book. Hey, I do like to stretch myself and explore genres and subject matters I'm not overly fond of. Tastes can change.

I wasn't overly impressed with this book. Don't get me wrong, the writing is excellent, the structure and events are great, and I did like the characters. But in my opinion, based on my own interests and aesthetic, Feed just wasn't quite worth the sum of its parts. It is NOT a bad book. It just didn't grasp me the way some others have. I spoke to a friend who had also read it (he didn't finish it), and I summed it up as this:

The book entertained me, but it didn't engage me.

I felt one step too far back from the action. I loved the narrator, Georgia. I loved Shaun. I loved Buffy and Steve. But I was never one of them. I didn't belong with the crew. I think another holdback for me on this was that it is politically centered, with the campaign, and I don't care for politics much (if at all).

I think the tastes for this book are a little more narrow than some, which isn't bad. There is a great audience for this book. I just wasn't part of it.

Would I Recommend This Book? Personally, no. On the whole, no. If you're interested in zombies, journalism, or politics, yes. Just know that this book is fairly long compared to some others (the audio version is about 15 hours), so it is a bit of a time investment to read. I think it's worth a tackle, if you want to give it a shot. In light of how wonderfully it is crafted, I give Feed a repeatedly-tested 4 of 5 stars.

For more information on the author, visit http://miragrant.com/index.php