Feed by Mira Grant promised us zombies and delivered a political thriller, and our book club had FEELINGS about that. Dan and Leah bring a full courtroom vibe to Newsflesh Book 1: praising its ambitious post-apocalyptic world where society survives by way of constant biosecurity surveillance, Romero-rules-as-cultural-canon, and bloggers covering a presidential campaign instead of mainstream journalists. The double meaning of “the feed” opens up rich questions about media trust, who gets to claim objectivity, and what we owe each other when the truth is literally life or death.
But the jury is hung. Between 608 pages of procedural detail, repeated exposition, and a zombie threat that feels more bureaucratically managed than terrifying, Feed didn't fully land for everyone at the table. We dig into representation (disability, body diversity, race, queerness), why a beloved and foundational book can still frustrate readers, and what feels urgently resonant right now: the way “safety” becomes a justification for checkpoints, surveillance, and the normalization of controlled movement.
Links & Contact Info
Mira Grant (pen name of Seanan McGuire)
- Website: miragrant.com | seananmcguire.com
- Bluesky: @seananmcguire.bsky.social
Alice B. Sullivan (zombie author whose love of Newsflesh helped inspire her own fiction)
- Website: alicebsullivan.com
- Instagram: @zombieauthor_alicebsullivan
Zombie Book Club Links
- Join us on on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/ZombieBookClub
- Join the Brain Muncher’s Zombie Collective: https://discord.gg/rn3nPDa4CB
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- Zombie Book Club Voicemail: (614) 699-0006
- Zombie Book Club Email: ZombieBookClubPodcast@gmail.com