Feed takes place 26 years after this rising. Daily life has changed forever; people are no longer carefree, they must watch their surrounding as at every step. Some things never change, one of them being politicians who will manipulate any situation to benefit themselves.
One major societal change, is that bloggers, currently a fringe media, has moved to the forefront of reporting. You want to know the truth about what's happening now, you turn to the bloggers. In Feed, sibling bloggers, Georgia and Shawn, have earned high ratings for their blogging and are constantly in search of even higher ratings. Their chance at the big times could come with the upcoming presidential campaign.
This book has a very slow start, taking over 100 pages to set the plot and introduce the characters and explain the virus. I would have stopped reading if it had been the selection for my next book club meeting. Fortunately it did pick up in the next chapter. After that, it became a good book well worth reading.
My favourite line in the book comes from one of Georgia's blog posts, "don't play with dead things". Sums up the approach for staying alive in this new world.
In a world turned up side down by the virus, I would expect people to become more caring toward each other. Georgia and Shawn were adopted by their parents when they were quite young. The parents had lost their child in the early days of the rising. It's clearly obvious that the parents motivation for the adoption was not just their parental instincts, rather they were also looking for ratings for their blogs.
I can live with parents with slightly underhanded motivation, but politicians with devious plans. That I despise. Too bad I can't get into details on that, as I don't want to spoil the story.
Feed is the first book in the Newsflesh Trilogy. The next books are Deadline and Blackout. There are also three short stories/novellas that tell about the time of the rising.
Thanks to author Mira Grant for use of the cover image.
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