Deadline (Newsflesh #2)

Deadline by Mira Grant
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

3.5 stars

It's been difficult to formulate coherent thoughts after finishing this book yesterday. There's a tangle of things I liked and things I didn't like. Sometimes these things even overlap and I both liked them and didn't at the same time. How odd.
The one sure thing is that I liked this book a little less than Feed . First of all because this book had me less emotionally involved than its predecessor and secondly, because of some elements in the plot which did not convince me fully.

It is very difficult to write a review without giving away major spoilers for Feed, so I think that if you haven't read it, you should just stop reading this now, do yourself a favor and go get yourself a copy. It's worth it, I promise, even if you're not a zombie lover.

************************



************************


MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD!!!



*******************



******************


The story picks up one year after the tragic events which led to Georgia's death. Shaun has become the head of After the End Times management but is still undeniably mourning for his sister and might be well on the way to losing his sanity. He's a broken man. Not only does she talk in his head but she appears to him, giving him a piece of her mind. And we all know how bossy Georgia was - I would have lost my mind, too.
Things get complicated when, at the AET headquarters' doorstep, appears Kelly, a CDC scientist we met in Feed and who is supposed to be dead to the world. She brings with her disconcerting news about the suspicious mortality rate of people with reservoir conditions of KA - namely, people like Georgia.
Through a series of startling discoveries, the guys start to unveil a humongous intrigue that goes well beyond Georgia's death and the events of the Rhyman campaign and who are doomed, once again, to change their lives forever - if they are going to survive at all.

The first main feeling after reading a Mira Grant's book for me is to feel like a total idiot. Not because of the sobbing or because the books are intense - which they are - but because I just feel totally ignorant and with a headache. When reading, I feel like I am always a step behind, both with the info provided and with the plot, never quite catching what is actually going on until it's clearly explained by one of the characters and sometimes... not even then. My random thoughts would be: WHAT??? but...HOW???? WHY? *pulls hair and starts flipping pages back*
You might be smarter than me and keep up perfectly with everything and link everything to sentences written 100 pages earlier but I didn't and boy, did I get a headache. It was like doing Sudoku for me. I'm a lost cause.
Also if you, like me, thought that you were done with the infodump after Feed, think again. This time, the virologist in you will be delighted by the amount of info on Kellis-Amberlee that you will have to digest. Very educative. Very detailed.
It is because of this level of detail that the whole cloning matter stands out like a sore thumb.
I really, really wish Grant had dedicated a bit more time to explain how cloning works. Aside from the fact that it is illegal in this futuristic world as well as in ours, how do they get to grow an adult person in a year? How come the clone retains the memories of the person it's been cloned from, how is that possible?? The body is new but the mind is the same?? The soul migrates? Didn't it say that the "original" holds the copyright on the soul? (and that's BS by the way but I won't even go into that).

The other main gripe I had about the plot are the two totally pointless suicide missions the guys took to the CDCs. I didn't see rhyme nor reason in these two events, especially the first. It felt like they were just doing stupid things, no plan, just to drive around and then go back to Maggie's place - which also brings out the question of how nobody ever thought about looking for them there. Because in their blogs they said they were somewhere else? That's all?

I also said, in the beginning of this review, that I was less emotionally involved with this book. Feed caught me unaware and left me desolated. I felt so sorry for what happened, it's incontestable Grant knows what she is doing when she wants to make you feel like sh*t. This time around though, apart from one dreadful revelation fairly early in the book that Georgia could have been saved, I was left rather... politely interested, that's all. Not even the end stunned me.

Finally, and this annoyed me to NO end, if in the next book I will find more references to a) coffee, b) the acidic sweetness of Coke and c) that bloody motorcycle, I might as well start screaming. Enough said, you know what I am talking about if you've read the book.

These are basically the reason why I hacked off 1 and 1/2 star from the rating. Truth is, I liked the book close to very much and you bet that I am going to read Blackout when it comes out next year. Actually next June can't come soon enough. I invested so much of my brain cells in these series that I HAVE to see what happens. I consider this middle book a transition and I am eager to see what Grant is going to concoct for the final installment.

A must-read if you enjoyed Feed.






View all my reviews