2012: #35 – Deadline (Mira Grant)

Title: Deadline
Author: Mira Grant
Series: Newsflesh Trilogy #02
Format: Audio
Audiobook length:  15 hrs 06 min
Approx. Word Count: 156,000 (2012 total – 2,855,314)
Release Date: June 01, 2011
Publisher: Orbit
Categories: horror
Source: personal copy
Rating: 4.5 out of 5

Back of the book:

Shaun Mason is a man without a mission. Not even running the news organization he built with his sister has the same urgency as it used to. Playing with dead things just doesn’t seem as fun when you’ve lost as much as he has.

But when a CDC researcher fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun has a newfound interest in life. Because she brings news-he may have put down the monster who attacked them, but the conspiracy is far from dead.

Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun.

My thoughts:

I wasn’t sure how I was going to like this book. After all, George was the best character in the first book, and she’s dead! Would I feel the same way about Shaun?

Turns out I didn’t have to worry, because George is still a very large part of this book, if only in Shaun’s head. Rather than being focused on national news events, such as the presidential campaign, this book is focused on the disease that causes the zombies. Turns out, things aren’t quite as they appear, and George’s death may have been orchestrated by more than just one crazy politician.

The events of the first book left everyone in this one more than a little shell-shocked, and the trauma affects many of their actions. I liked that this book gave us a little more of an idea of what things are like in the rest of the country, away from the big cities, when you’re not surrounded by security and RVs.

One of the more interesting aspects of this series is the author’s imagined evolution of bloggers and blogging, where they become the real truth tellers of society. I think it’s become an even more compelling vision in light of what has been accomplished (good and bad) with social media in the last couple of years.

There were big doings at the end of this book, and a major cliff-hanger. I’ll definitely be reading the third.

Available from: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | IndieBound | WorldCat

Other reviews:

• ” It’s definitely interesting enough that it makes me wonder how Grant is going to follow up on the the plotline she introduces near the end of this book, but if the action doesn’t pick up at peak levels in Book Three, I’m not sure I would be so willing to invest in it.” — Geeks of Doom
• “In between terror and grief, I found solace in the incomparable relationships of the characters.” — Reading is the Ultimate Aphrodisiac
• “The first was my favorite so far but as a sequel goes this doesn’t slow down.” — My Seryniti

Past reviews:

2011: Packing for Mars (Mary Roach)
2010: Murder at the Vicarage (Agatha Christie)
2009: The Hunger Games (Suzanne Collins)
2008: A Thousand Splendid Suns (Khaled Hosseini)
2007: Iceberg (Clive Cussler)
2006: Seeing a Large Cat (Elizabeth Peters)
2005: A Secret Splendor (Sandra Brown)