Review: Feedback (Newsflesh #4)
Feedback (Newsflesh #4)
By Mira Grant
Published By: Orbit
Publication Date: October 4, 2016
Date Read: June 30, 2021
Genre: Adult – Dystopia
Source: Bought
Format: Audiobook
Pages: 512
From Goodreads:
FEEDBACK is a full-length Newsflesh novel which overlaps the events of New York Times bestseller Mira Grant’s classic Feed and follows a group of reporters covering the Democratic side of the Presidential campaign.
There are two sides to every story…
Mira Grant creates a chilling portrait of an America paralyzed with fear. No street is safe and entire swaths of the country have been abandoned. And only the brave, the determined, or the very stupid, venture out into the wild.
Step inside a world a half-step from our own in this novel of geeks, zombies, politics and social media.
“The disadvantage of being independent is the way you’re never going to have a safety net. All you can do is fly until you fall—and falling is inevitable. Everybody falls, if you give them enough time.”
Feedback isn’t a book that has actually been on my radar for very long. I read the first three books in the Newsflesh series quite a while ago and was certain that it was a trilogy. Technically, it was, as this book kind of goes back in time and follows other characters set parallel to the first book. I only became aware of Feedback maybe about 6-7 months ago when I was chatting with someone about Feed on Instagram and they asked me if I had read this one. I decided to download the audiobook of this one as I’d heard very mixed things about it and wasn’t sure whether I wanted to get the physical copy. I’m actually really glad that I picked it up as I did end up really enjoying it.
Feedback follows Irish blogger, Ash with her team of bloggers who are on the same campaign as our favourite bloggers from the original trilogy, only they are with a different politician. I actually really liked seeing the ‘other side’ with this. We get a little bit of a mention of the Mason’s a couple of times throughout the book but that’s all we get. This is definitely a completely different story, just set at the same time, in the same post-apocalyptic world.
Feedback was an enjoyable read… or listen… the narrator did a fantastic job of capturing the essence of Ash and I loved how she managed to embody everything so well, especially when narrating the blog posts and such. It was a great audio edition and I highly recommend it. The narrator’s inflections and sarcastic tones fit the characters perfectly, and many times I was laughing out loud while driving home from work. Anyone looking in my car window would have thought I was some sort of mad woman.
One thing I really enjoyed about Feedback was how inclusive it was. We had out main narrator, Ash, who is a Irish lesbian who is married to her best male friend (in order to be able to work in the US) while in love with someone else. Then we had one of the bloggers Matt, being gender fluid and referred to as ‘they’. The author (and narrator) did a fantastic job of normalising this and even exploring the issue of people not being accepting enough of it. It was a fantastic representation happening within the background. Well done Mira Grant for having that in there. I was very impressed with how she represented that, and I’m sure many other people will too.
Feedback was a good book. I am obsessed with the original three books in this series. It’s one of my favourite series of all time. Was Feedback as good as those? No, I didn’t think it was. But I thoroughly enjoyed being back in this zombie infested world and loved seeing it from some other characters perspective. It was great and definitely worth reading. If Mira decided to write more I would definitely be lining up to buy them immediately.
“You knew I was a scorpion when you picked me up, and I’ll always do my best to sting my way back to you.”
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I’m Kayleigh, a teacher and blogger who is obsessed with all things bookish. I love reading YA books of all genres and I am happiest when sharing my love and passion for books.