Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Parasite
    Unavailable
    Parasite
    Unavailable
    Parasite
    Audiobook16 hours

    Parasite

    Written by Mira Grant

    Narrated by Christine Lakin

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A decade in the future, humanity thrives in the absence of sickness and disease.

    We owe our good health to a humble parasite - a genetically engineered tapeworm developed by the pioneering SymboGen Corporation. When implanted, the tapeworm protects us from illness, boosts our immune system - even secretes designer drugs. It's been successful beyond the scientists' wildest dreams. Now, years on, almost every human being has a SymboGen tapeworm living within them.

    But these parasites are getting restless. They want their own lives . . . and will do anything to get them.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherLittle, Brown (Hachette UK) Audio
    Release dateOct 29, 2013
    ISBN9781405527460
    Unavailable
    Parasite
    Author

    Mira Grant

    Mira Grant is the author of the New York Times best-selling Newsflesh trilogy, along with multiple other works of biomedical science fiction. She has been nominated for the Hugo Award, and her book, Feed, was chosen as one of NPR's 100 Killer Thrillers.

    More audiobooks from Mira Grant

    Related to Parasite

    Science Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    Reviews for Parasite

    3.5/5

    498 ratings66 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Could not put down. Can't wait for the next one!
    • 5/5
      I really liked this book. The characters felt authentic, and while I figured out some of the plot way before the end, it was very well done. Looking forward to the sequel!
    • 3/5
      I have mixed feelings about this book. It was one of those that I picked up when I had a moment to read a few pages but I never got invested enough in the characters to feel the drive to immediately find out what happened. You know - that book that you pick up on a Saturday morning and don’t stop reading until you have finished it? It wasn’t one of those for me. The concept is interesting, so it may be a case of reading it at the wrong time - when my taste was elsewhere - because I did pick up other books and read them cover to cover during the same time frame.Bottom line: No complaints per se, I just didn’t find it compelling enough to keep me ‘having’ to read it. I did finish it, and noted there is supposed to be a sequel, but I haven’t looked for it. I am donating this book.
    • 3/5
      I have celiac disease. There has been a small but successful study using hookworms to treat/manage celiac disease. That makes this book relevant to my interests. Okay, plus I like books with apocalyptic elements like zombies, aliens, or other "the humans are all gonna die" things going on.

      This book was a bit of a mixed bag for me. The bad outweighs the good but I didn't hate this book at all. I did get kind of annoyed though. “You mean you haven’t figured it out yet?” she asked. “I mean, I understand sometimes people have to learn things at their own pace, and sometimes people don’t want to learn things, so they don’t allow themselves to learn them, and all that, but there’s sort of a limit, don’t you think? We’ve been giving you all the answers. You’ve even gone digging for a few of them on your own. Shouldn’t you be a little further along than this?”Yeah, that was pretty much me for the last three quarters of the book. The "big reveal" was so obvious, it got to be pretty painful that the main character refused to acknowledge it. But what really threw me off was the way the big reveal was then treated. All of the characters knew, the author had made it more than obvious to readers. So why was the reveal treated as this big dramatic moment and giant cliff hanger? Was the reader not actually supposed to know? Because again, it was really obvious and I think to assume we didn't know is a bit condescending. Was it simply because it was first person narration and it was dramatic to Sal? Because having Sal be so painfully oblivious/willfully ignorant for so much of the story really made me lose a lot of interest in and sympathy towards her. Yes, her world just got turned upside down, but really Sal chose to remain ignorant in spite of some pretty pointed statements and that made me frustrated with her more than anything else. Which was a shame because I really liked her at the beginning. But as the book went on, Sal because less interesting and turned into a bland bit of nothingness that just got scared a lot. And once Sal was taken away as an interesting character, I just didn't care about anyone else.

      On the plus side, I really did enjoy the writing. I wasn't all that engaged in the story (though I did get more into it at around the 60% mark but then started disconnecting again at about 85%). When I was reading the book, it was so easy to keep reading - I even stayed up later than I had intended a couple of times to read an extra chapter - but when I wasn't actively reading the book, I had no desire to pick it up again. So thumbs up to the author for an engaging writing style, even if the story didn't do it for me.

      I won't be reading the rest of this series (because I just don't care what happens to anyone except maybe the dog, but no, she was too perfect for me to really get attached to either) but I will probably check out more things by this author.
    • 1/5
      Trite…Sophomoric…Lazy…with hints of adolescent pseudo-feminism. Here we go again: a multi-billion dollar Big Pharma corporation has perverted science and is greedily cashing in on its defective product. I understand that Science Fiction is filled with cautionary tales of technology gone wild but, please, can’t we once in a while recognize the huge benefits scientific research has provided?I have many criticisms of this novel. First of all, it is written in the style of a young adult novel. The heroine/narrator is constantly gabbing at the reader like a middle-schooler talking to her bestie. The dialogue feels like it was padded in as filler to make the story longer and the voices were indistinguishable; except for the father who came across as a stiff and wooden authority figure. There was zero suspense in the story. I will not go into spoilers but suffice to say by one quarter of the way through the book the reader is basically slogging their way through to the inevitable plot lines. Perhaps the story could have worked had it been told through the sister’s perspective. It is also very clear that the author had perhaps been on a tour of a pharmaceutical research facility: she obviously has no real idea how research works or how FDA review processes work. For a science fiction or medical thriller to really work it has to have some basis in reality. At least it has to seem plausible on some level. The ideas presented here are, in a word, crackpot. Finally: the coincidences. As I plodded through the story I found myself saying more and more “Oh, come ON!” From the inaction and ambivalence of authorities to the total cluelessness of the press and the media to the total corruption of a huge company and the naiveté or complicity of its employees, things just didn’t seem plausible. Not to mention the fact that a sophisticated research facility exists in secret in an abandoned bowling alley, it just too much. How did they get their MRI and who services it? Again, come ON!On top of all this, after 500 pages we get a “to be continued”!?! Doesn’t anyone write stand-alone stories anymore?Suffice to say, I will not be reading any more Mira Grant, though I have a couple of suggestions for her: Try working in a real lab for a while. It would do wonders for your background. And get rid of the cutesy picture attached to the bioblurb: really? Putting on lipstick in the reflection of a kitchen knife?
    • 4/5
      Check out this review and others at:
      Live to Read, Love to Read

      Let me just start by saying I had really high hopes for this book. I first saw it featured on a blog I trust at the start of the year. I thought the concept sounded amazing and unique. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it. The publisher was kind enough to send it to me a few days before it came out and I started it immediately. I was not disappointed!

      Parasite is the story of Sal, a woman who is in a car accident and declared legally brain dead. When her family is about to pull the plug on the machines keeping her alive, she suddenly wakes up. All thanks to the SymboGen parasite. In the future in this book most people are fitted with an intestinal parasite which helps with a range of health problems such as allergies. It basically means no more taking so many pills just to survive day to day. Unfortunately she has no memory of anything before waking up. The book jumps ahead six years, and Sal can now walk and talk just like before. Only she is a different person completely, as she has no memories of her old self.

      In the book we first see the “sleeping sickness” while Sal is shopping at the mall. The “sleeping sickness” is basically people acting like zombies. The reason behind this is pretty obvious if you’ve read the blurb, the parasites are taking over their hosts’ body. Quite a lot of the book is taken up with the protagonist trying to figure out what’s going on and why people are starting to act this way. Though it’s quite obvious to the reader, I don’t feel like this took away from the story at all.

      My favourite part of the whole reading experience is Grant’s ability to build horror gradually. I’m not one to read horror or thriller novels regularly. The only horror I can be said to read is zombie novels (got to love a good zombie story). But the scary scenes in this novel were done so well! No jump-y moments (hope that makes sense!). It was very much a gradual build to being scared, which left me screaming “shut the freaking door” at the book. I found this to be very effective and there were quite a few scenes that left me with goose bumps.

      As I said above, I love zombie stories, and I think that was one of the reasons I loved this book so much. It wasn’t an outright zombie novel, but it did have a few of the elements of a good zombie story. To me it seemed like the absolute start of a zombie novel done really well. There was no sudden “oh god, run for your life!” It was very much people seeing other people acting in a strange way and thinking they were sick and then pretty much going on with their daily lives. Even though you suspect where this series is going to go with the whole zombie-like apocalypse, you still see where the people seeing what is happening in the story come from. So what, you see a few people acting like zombies walking down the street, what are you supposed to do? Quit your job and find a cabin in the mountains to hide away in? Or dismiss it as a fluke that could never affect you and go about your business as usual. I found this aspect of the story to be so interesting and I can’t wait to see where the rest of the series goes with this.

      I won’t take the time to comment on the characters, because this is primarily a plot driven story. As much as I liked and disliked some characters, for me the plot is what makes this book so good.

      Parasite is quite a slow paced novel, except for a few key scenes that make this book as good as it is.

      I would definitely recommend this novel for anybody who loves a good zombie novel, or a slow building horror.
    • 5/5
      Have you read Parasite Rex? Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire) has. And because she was reading it and found it interesting, I read it. Now that I've read the non-fiction book about parasites and Parasite all I can say is "thanks a lot for the nightmares, MG." Oh, but they're going to be delicious nightmares. Knowing a little about parasite behavior I was primed for this book, but not knowing won't make it any less horrifying for you once you figure out what's going on.

      According to the hygiene hypothesis, the increase in autoimmune and allergic diseases is caused by the decrease in infections. In response to this, SymboGen genetically engineered a tapeworm to protect us from this, even to dispense the medications each individual might need. Just one pill every two years and you're cured. It's big business and big money, and it's the biggest health advance in ages. It might also be a miracle.

      Sally Mitchell had a seizure while driving and suffered terrible injuries, including brain death. Just as her family was discussing ending her life support, Sally woke up. But she doesn't feel like Sally any more; after all the brain damage she might as well be a different person. Now Sal is part of the SymboGen family, proof of just what the intestinal implant can do.

      The thing about parasites--that the SymboGen founders know and that Sal will find out--is that ultimately they want to survive and they're able to do incredible things to make that happen. Even manipulate and change their hosts.

      Each chapter begins with excerpts from fictional books about SymboGen, its founders, the implant, and the advertising that got people to accept walking around with tapeworms living inside of them. It's one of those little touches Mira Grant does so well that makes the universe really come alive and it is fascinating.

      (ARC provided by publisher)
    • 4/5
      I enjoyed this book very much! even though from the beginning I was screaming "it's the worms" and "you're a worm!!!" Multiple times while beating my head against the wall/desk. I'm surprised Nathan didn't pick it up earlier. But I guess that would've made for a shorter book!
      This books was very creepy and full of paranoia! Soo good!
    • 3/5
      Have you been waiting for apocalyptic fiction to stop writing about zombies and aliens and get to the real threat? That's right - tapeworms! Forget about invasion of the body-snatchers, these tapeworms are tired of just hanging around in your intestine, and they're not gonna take it anymore!Still with me? Okay it's not quite as dramatic as all that, but that's the basic concept of the book. Our main character lives in a world where 99% or so of the population has implanted themselves with engineered tapeworms that release things like medicine and vitamins, and generally make the population healthier. They are sold by a Monsanto-like "evil" corporation bent on profits, and gradually the troubled past of the tapeworms' development is revealed. No one really suspects any problems but all of a sudden people start turning up "zombified" and violent. They are not in control of themselves... so what is? It's not a huge spoiler to say it's related to the tapeworms, and that the corporation knows more than it's letting on. Several parties with interests in the future of the tapeworms emerge by the end of the book, and may or may not have humanity's best interests in mind (there's a sequel so it doesn't end with the events in this book).Overall the setup was okay - but what I really enjoyed in this book was the main character. She awakens from a car accident against all odds thanks to her implanted tapeworm and becomes the corporation's PR piece about how wonderful their technology is. But she doesn't want to be a lab rat, she wants to live her life. She has no memory of who she was before the accident, and as a result she has a certain innocence that several of the other characters take advantage of. She's also not a doormat. It was her personality that sold this book for me, otherwise it felt a bit too long and drawn out - especially given the super obvious revelation at the end. But I'll probably try the second book just to see what happens after the ending.
    • 4/5
      So what if someone developed a tapeworm that would eliminate most diseases? What if they didn't test it as well as they could and what if they released it on the market quickly? What if it became popular? What if it decided that the two year life-span they are being allowed is too short? What if it discovered that it could take over it's host and be in charge? This book looks at these questions in interesting ways.Six years ago Sally Mitchell almost died, while her parents were making the decision about pulling the plug she came to life and ever since then she's been the subject of research, Symbogen are convinced their intestinal Bodyguard(tm) is responsible, but no-one is quite sure. She doesn't remember her previous life and her current life is somewhat restricted. When people start acting strangely she gets caught up in investigating and the issues and the chaos.While I did guess some of the twists, some of them took me by surprise and overall it was very believable as a concept, scarily believable. Enjoyable, but you may need to wash your hands a few times more while reading.
    • 5/5
      I adore Mira Grant's apocalypse stories. The Feed trilogy was an amazing and delightfully violent take on a zombie apocalypse as seen through newsblogger eyes, and here in Parasite, she takes on genetic engineering.Imagine a parasite that will regulate your health. Diabetics no longer need worry about insulin shots, and those with ADHD manage their disorder effortlessly. But what it that parasite becomes self-aware?Highly recommended for those with strong stomachs.
    • 4/5
      OMG! I hated this book, but, I can't wait until the 2nd book in the series. The story dragged until about 2/3 into the book, then the book exploded and ended with a cliffhanger.

      So, when you start this book, DO NOT GIVE UP! It is worth reading to the end.
    • 4/5
      I am not quite sure what to say about this book. I found it interesting and disturbing at the same time. It was a real page turner, and it stayed up way too late reading it. The idea of intentionally introducing a parasite into one's body is disturbing, but if could see people doing it as it seems to be a quick fix for what ails them. I can't say I truly look forward to the next book, but I will read it, as I am interested to see how the series continues to develop.
    • 4/5
      I'm a fan of Seanann McGuire / Mira Grant. She does amazing work organizing her stories in such a detailed and disciplined way that as a reader, all I notice are the characters and the situations they find themselves in. I don't notice the careful plotting, research, and detail that go into making the narrative plausible and immersive.

      In Parasite, I really enjoyed the story, even if this isn't the sort of thing I'd pick up if I didn't already have a fondness for the author's other work. The plotting works well, the characters seem very human, and I was able to relate to many of them. The boyfriend seemed a touch overly perfect, but who doesn't want a perfectly supportive and understanding partner to help when things get crazy?

      I was also intrigued by the "big reveal" which was clearly telegraphed early in the story. I rather liked this. A rule of thumb for me has always been that if the ending of a story can be ruined by revealing what happens, it isn't a very good story. In this case, while the ending was foreshadowed from the middle, it was still quite satisfying and carried emotional weight.
    • 4/5
      I cannot wait for the next book to come out and I'm so happy that this is a series. This was my first book that I have read by Mira Grant and I was not disappointed. I love books that grip my attention from the first chapter and make me hate the fact that I'm running out of pages to read. Great book and would totally recommend it!
    • 5/5
      This is the first book in many many months to reach inside my head and hold on until I'd finished reading - not quite in one sitting, but certainly no more than six hours between start and finish. I found the exploration of the personality changes that can happen with major head trauma to be an interesting side line to the book, and the general theme of infantilising the main character because of pervasive amnesia to be rage inducing, but overall I found it to be a great contribution to the weird and wacky epidemic/medical thriller genre.
    • 4/5
      This is a sort-of sf thriller, with a distinct YA tone.I found it pretty engaging, despite being very long; I think it might have been stronger if it had been shorter.The science was plausible- although I really wonder how ready most of us are to intentionally introduce a parasite to our systems! Nonetheless, for this amateur, anyway, the science did seem possible, and an interesting take on genetic engineering, some of the work being done regarding intestinal fauna, and the "hygiene hypothesis" (which says that one of the reasons we are getting more chronic health problems is due to us living more sterile lives).I'm not giving it 5 stars, though, for several reason. Mostly because of the length; really, it could have been shorter and stronger. Also, though, because of the characterizations. Only toward the end does Sal, our first-person protagonist, start to develop a spine; before that she is both pushed around and very resentful, and in over 500 pages, that did start to wear. The other characters seemed more like plot puppets than individuals, too; Sal's family especially.Still, the story was interesting enough that I'll likely read the sequel.
    • 4/5
      Really very good. The writing is taut and excellent. Sally's voice is simple and almost childlike at times, which makes sense since she only has six years of memory.

      The 'twist' was fairly obvious to me, and I predicted it by a quarter of a way into the book, but I am a regular reader of books like this. Someone with less experience might find it genuinely surprising.

      I'll probably pick up the sequels.
    • 5/5
      WOW! Just wow! This book truly creeped me out and has really got me thinking. I am definitely taking Mia Grant's reccomendation in the acknowledhements and reading Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer (a non-fiction book). The ending left me wanting more with the way it ended, but in a good way. I can't wait for the next book in this series! It's already killing me....or is it just the tapeworm in my brain?
    • 5/5
      Raced through this because I found the characters and the situation intriguing. If you liked The Host, this has a similar vibe, but without the painfully goopy love scenes. I groaned when I realized it was only part 1, but luckily for me, part 2 is out already. Also, if you liked Brilliance by Marcus Sakey, you'd probably like this book.
    • 3/5
      Before I get into some of my criticisms of this book, I have to point out that overall I liked it. It has a good plotline, and has some fun twists and turns that I enjoyed. The author also took time to create books within the book which were fun and interesting.

      What I didn't like was the setting of the book. It is supposed to take place in the future, like 2030 or somewhere around there I believe...but yet the author did not find it necessary to make up some new facts of living in the future to add (I believe) necessary details. For example: the main premise of the book is that we are far enough into the future that medical scientists have found the miracle it's been searching for. It is not a drug, but a parasite/tape worm that is able to exist in your body and control your nutrition, weight, allergies, even illnesses. That is a pretty cool idea! Great creativity. But then when it comes to the daily life of the characters, they are still using Facebook, have phone apps, and are basically just as technologically advanced as we are right now. This I found disruptive to the story for me. Whenever I would come across a section about this, it seemed unreal to me. In my mind, part of the fun of science fiction is thinking of all the things that we will be able to do (such as a weight-loss parasite), but I felt Grant was lazy in thinking through the other details of this futuristic society. Really, we are so advanced, but still use thumb drives and GPS? You can't have it both ways, either we are more technologically advanced (which would mean all areas of life) or we aren't.


      This is a series, and I haven't decided if I will continue my journey into it...
    • 4/5
      The first book in a duology set in the near future where most medical problems are solved by ingesting a genetically modified tapeworm. Sal is a miracle of this, after having a horrible accident and in a coma she survives but has lost all her memories of her previous life and has to relearn everything, walking language and taking care of herself. She is learning about herself at the same time the SymboGen is constantly studying her to find out what happened and how they can make money from it. Of course this is a science gone wrong story and the founder of the company took shortcuts with results no one fully expected. As the story progresses Sal comes to find out that not everyone is looking out for her which seems to be the worst coming of age story for her especially since she only has six years of experience to fall back on. A good read and now I have to sit and wait for the the next one.


      Digital review copy provided by the publisher through Edelweiss
    • 5/5
      In the future, humanity has achieved near perfect health through parasitic tapeworm implants (developed by the SymboGen Corporation), which boost the immune system and can disperse necessary drugs. Following a car crash, the implant even managed to bring Sal back from a coma just as her family was preparing to pull the plug. Though she has no memory of Sally, the woman she used to be, Sal is shaping a new life for herself — even though SymboGen hounds her for more tests, her family doesn't seem to trust her, and a new sleepwalking sickness is starting to spread among the populace. I opened page one, planning to just read a chapter or two only to look up hours later, 200 pages in, with the realization that it was almost midnight and I barely moved, let alone eaten dinner or peed. I reluctantly forced myself to go to bed at around one in the morning, only to get up the next day and polish off the second half of the book before dinner. I honestly don't remember the last time I pulled an under 24 hour read like that (probably with the Harry Potter books). Parasite is a compelling thriller and Sal is a sympathetic character. It's clear from page one that just about everyone has secrets and though Sal sometimes seems hopelessly naive, this is forgivable given her traumatic brain injury and her ongoing to work to recover (she often has trouble with proper use of slang). It makes sense that she can't quite catch on as quickly as the reader or some of the other characters in the book (some of whom mock her for it). Also, I love the moral ambiguity. It's not really clear who the "good guys" are, or if there are such a thing as good guys or villains. I don't know any other storyline that could possibly make me sympathize with the plight of tapeworms. I mean, really.Final words: I can't wait for book two.
    • 4/5
      Title: Parasite: The Next Level of Health care: Extinction The Setup (Overview):In the near future health care has become almost universally standardized. A company by the name of SymboGen has found away to take one of nature's more pesky parasites and turn it into a revolutionary way of delivering medicine. There is almost no down sides and millions have been saved that might have other wised perished. In the case of one one woman the SymboGen treatment may even have brought her back from the the dead. Of course this is an unexpected side effect, one that SymboGen doesn't quite understand so they are very eager, or very worried, and want to find an explanation as soon as possible. This is the story of Sally Mitchell, the girl who came back. The Story(Some Story Details):Sally Mitchell was not the nicest person in the world before her accident. While her SymboGen implant saved her body from the effects of getting T-Boned by a semi-truck, it didn't quite stop her brain from getting banged around a bit. In fact she doesn't remember anything at all from her past. Which is why she prefers to be called Sal now since she's apparently a completely opposite person now. It has taken Sal almost two years to make up all the progress she lost due to the accident. She is ready to move on with her life but SymboGen still hasn't gotten the answers they wanted. There is also some lingering side effects that no one can quite explain. While some might normal, like nightmare's, there are others such as severe allergy reactions that could be deadly. So Sal puts up with the continuing tests whether she likes it or not. Everything changes though when a strange new sickness starts to spread across the country. It causes normal people to act as if they are suddenly sleep walking. The victims start out docile but eventually they become aggressive, almost as if they are hunting something. As the sickness accelerates it seems that SymboGen might not have been quite as beneficial as they seemed. The answers lie locked in the head of Sal Mitchell. Now she and her ragtag group of friends and unlikely allies must delve into the shrouded history of SymboGen to find the truth behind what was thought to be the miracle of the century. Conclusion(My Overall Opinion on the Story): This was a pretty good read. The story moves a pretty good clip, it does get a little fast toward the end as this is the first book in the trilogy so the next book needs to get it's story arc's setup. It's not really that distracting, just after a certain point in the book there are a few “and then!” moments. The story may remind some of “The Host”, while there are a few similarities the idea has more to do with the “humans mess nature's plan and that's a bad idea” concept than anything else. The characters are also interesting for the most part. Just about everyone has more than meets the eye to them or most likely will in the sequel. If your interested in thrillers that have a side of “mysterious virus may destroy the world” or you liked the “news flesh trilogy” give this one a read. m.a.c
    • 2/5
      You know, I was really enjoying this book up for the first half. I liked the characters and I thought the characterization of Sal's amnesia added to the plot rather than forcing the melodrama as amnesia often does. I was in for the medical explanations of the parasites and eager to see how everything goes terribly wrong (because it is obvious from chapter one that somehow everything is going to go terribly wrong).But the book lost me almost exactly halfway through when Sal and Nathan meet Dr. Cale. The medicine becomes basically nonsensical magic, which particularly bothered me since previously it had been fine (and because scientific accuracy matters internally inside the story to the doctor characters). Nathan reacts in a bizarre way to a big reveal (which I predicted, and maybe he did too, but still! It is that big of a reveal about his own family!). Then some people are actually tapeworms controlling humans, and that's where I abandoned the book. I was in for the suspension of disbelief ride until then. But I couldn't anymore.
    • 5/5
      Another superb offering from Mira Grant. Just mind blowing awesome ideas well executed in an almost believable package. It's very quickly apparent that coming after the magnificent success of Feed that this was going to be another zombie book. In a way I'd rather it wasn't and see Mira branch out into other fields. I'm sure her talent at characterisation and world building would be grand and enthralling fantasy too. But what we here is rather than the post-zombie apocalypse of Feed, is a rather more traditional Zombie outbreak story. AT least to start with.As you can probably guess form the title the causative agent Mira has decided to go with is a Parasite. Specifically a bio-engineered tapeworm, deliberately designed by a major pharma company to treat the consequences of the hygiene hypothesis that remains in current scientific medical thinking. The concept is that humans evolved dealing with a significant daily load of hostile micro-organisms of various kinds. Our immune systems expect to have to be fighting things off all the time. But since the 70s humans homes have been getting ever increasingly sterile, and human lives ever less exposed to the daily muck of real nature. Hence our immune systems have gone to town and massively over-respond to minor infections leading to cancers and many other diseases. This implanted tapeworm live happily in the intestine and gives the immune system something to fight,plus the worm itself is designed to excrete various necessary drugs and compounds to ensure everyone (except a few holdouts who don't trust corporations) lives nice healthy long lives. Until it goes wrong of course.Sally is our heroine - Sal as she is now known. Somewhat of a celebrity girl because six years ago she had a major traffic accident and was thought to be in a braindead coma - even her worm could only do so much - but then she revived and although totally amnesiac she could start her life again, from re-learning how to walk and talk, and her social skills. But everybody agreed the new Sal was a much nicer girl than the Sally who'd been before. She still undergoes frequent medical supervision by SymBio but is basically living her own life, now complete with boyfriend. (a couple of huge continuity errors here involving her medical records and the frequency of traffic accidents in the US). We follow Sal through her interactions with SynBio and her family and boyfriend, until the first reports a sleeping sickness start to appear, after which the action ratchets up and we're drawn into a complex world of politics and action.Once again Mira manages to grab your attention with a massive Wow factor and just hang onto it throughout a breakneck ride. There are several genuinely brilliant moments scattered throughout this book, where you can't believe she's just done that. There a re a few moments that somewhat less believable and a couple of inconsistencies but it's mostly a massive adrenaline rush as we're drawn into Sal's world and get to see how the zombies came.
    • 1/5
      I was really hoping for more with this one - the premise is interesting, but the plot is utterly predictable and the characters are a little flat. Worth a read of you're interested in medical mystery/thriller books, but I'll hesitate before continuing onward in the series.
    • 3/5
      Just a three star read for me. This was on my TBR pile for quite a while and finally, I picked it up from the library. A story about research medicine and Big Pharma gone wrong (and by wrong, I mean to the detriment of human beings globally) sounded like it would be a fun read but alas, this was middling at best. I enjoyed the scientific research parts but I truly felt the story lagged and lacked in the characterisation and plot pacing departments. At times it felt terminally boring but there was enough intrigue that I kept pushing myself to continue because just enough crumbs of promise had been lain down for me to keep following through to the end. I wanted to love this book, I really did. Sadly, the characters all felt a bit like ciphers with no more depth than minimally required to serve the plot. I wanted to love Sal and Nathan and root for them hard core but in the end, I just had a general malaise where they were concerned. Like, I'll root for them because they're all I've got and they're supposed to be on the right side of this crazy train. And Beverly and Millie, I'm rooting for them because really, the dogs deserve better. I did find Dr Cale the most interesting in the bunch but given the pool here, that's not exactly anything that gets my fangirling heart to flutter. The denouement was so heavily telegraphed early on that I admit to being disappointed that I'd been right all along, in addition to being glad that I'd slogged all the way through. Overall, I think this story could have been told in 100 fewer pages. I have the second book already but I won't be reading it right away (if I ever do, to be honest). The second book is going right back to the library unread and perhaps I'll check it out at another time because right now, I'm just not in the mood for any more of this. Bye, book.
    • 4/5
      Of course this was going to be scary. The concept of having a parasite living inside one's body, and allegedly acting as a miracle cure for any medically-related trouble, called for a massive - and I mean *massive* - foul-up down the road...

      So the slow build-up of the "sleeping sickness" kept playing at the back of my brain along with some tense string music, reaching for the explosive crescendo I knew would come. And I was not disappointed.

      What's interesting here is that the horror does not come from a proverbial blood-and-gore scenario, but from something far subtler, and therefore much more terrifying.

      Mira Grant has done it again, and I can hardly wait for book nr. 2, especially because I would like to know if the theory I envisioned concerning Sally, the main character, will play out or if I'm totally off the mark with it...
    • 4/5
      I liked the story, although the big reveal at the end was pretty obvious from early in the book. I mostly read it because I loved the news flesh trilogy. Which was better, well let's be real, the best zombie series yet. This was a fun quick read though.