Feed
by Mira Grant

This piece is opinion. Take it as you will.
But get your opinions the hell away from my news.

I love this book.

And I want all of you to read it. Except, if you hate it, I kinda don’t want to know. That’s horrible, right? But that’s how much I love it. I don’t want to hear people ragging on it. Every time I see a review of it posted somewhere, I hesitate before clicking on the link, fearful that it’ll be bad and I won’t be able to deal. I may have issues.

Mira Grant (a.k.a Seanan McGuire) is a good friend and, while I love her other books, Feed was the one I couldn’t wait to own. The one I was dying to place on my bookshelf. From the moment I read the very first beta pages (and it’s only gotten better with each new draft!), I knew she’d sell it someday.

It’s not my book but having essentially watched it evolve from a few cryptic comments in an instant message to a honest-to-God book on sale at your local bookstore, I’m a tad protective of it. Which is exactly why I told Jody I didn’t want to review it. Quite frankly, it’d be impossible for me to assure you I’m capable of looking at it objectively. Instead I’m just going to reiterate my love for it and strongly recommend you check it out for yourself. I’m pretty sure you’ll be standing on my side of the Feed fence before you get to the last page.

In related “Objectivity, what’s that?!” news, I totally flew out to San Francisco just to attend the Feed release party!!

Sadly I’ve had to miss Seanan’s other release parties but there was no way I wouldn’t be at this one. We’ve literally been planning my attendance for months. It was everything I could have hoped. Seanan even read something! (She’s not a fan of this reading thing. I say she better get used to it.)

The party was at the nifty Borderlands Books in downtown San Francisco, complete with cats! It’s an awesome store. We had a bunch of other sugary treats from Cups and Cakes. YUMMY! Oh! And we had brains! Ok, ok, brains cupcakes but, really, isn’t that the same thing? Since the book takes place after the zombie apocalypse (stop judging, it’s good I tell you!), you can’t have a zombie book release party without people eating brains. Pretty sure you’ll find that in a rule book somewhere.

As I said, Seanan read the first chapter of Feed which is pretty damn fun. Later she read again, not from Feed this time but one of her Fighting Pumpkin short stories dealing with the undead. Even more fun. Or, more importantly, funny. The story got lots of laughs and was the perfect way to wind things down. In between her readings she also answered a crap load of questions pertaining to both Feed and writing in general. If I were a better blogger, I’d have written some of these down so I could share them with you. Suffice to say, Seanan did a lot of research for this book and is well-known at the CDC. The vote’s still out on whether this is something to be celebrated or not. But I’m pretty sure it’s a huge honor for Seanan.

If you can’t tell, I had a great time. There’s nothing like celebrating a friend’s success with other friends. And those piles of Seanan’s books on the bookstore counter? Amazing. I’m so incredibly proud of her and happy I there in person to show her.

Oh! And I picked up couple copies of the book that Seanan was nice enough to sign during the party and we’ll be announcing a giveaway for those soon. Plus, those answers I didn’t write down? Turns out we may have a few of them to share with you after all. Check back in a few days for With A Good Book’s interview with Seanan!