Reviews with content warning for Body horror - Contagion

I can't help comparing this to Dead Silence, because the concept - small crew who really shouldn't be there investigating somewhere deep in space where all the people who were there died horribly and whatever killed them might not have left - is almost exactly the same. I expected it to be space horror, but it's really more of a thriller. It takes them less than half the book to figure out what must have happened, and the rest of it is trying to survive and escape. And overall, it was good. Not spectacular or outstanding, but very readable and quite enjoyable. There were way too many focus characters to get particularly attached to any of them, but none were bad. The ideas were fantastic (turns out I like space horror quite a bit), I loved the setting, and the execution was solid. I probably will read the sequel - not because I'm desperate to find out what happens, but I have enough casual interest and I like the ideas enough that I would like to see where it goes.

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cait's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious sad tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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ripxw's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

4.0

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dlrosebyh's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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carmexfiend's review against another edition

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dark tense fast-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

Contagion is a fast-paced soft science fiction YA with multiple POV characters about a small group trying to survive a rescue mission gone very wrong. There's two explicitly queer women (one of which is a POV character) and I liked the dynamic between them. The team seems pretty racially diverse, but the story doesn't dive deep into their backstories since everyone is mostly focused on not dying. There's no romance in the book and the whole thing is very focused on action, which I liked. Based on how it ended, I do wonder if there will be a romance in the sequel.

My only quibble is that the premise lost a lot of its spark for me once it's confirmed that the contagion is

bacteria that causes most people to become zombies and some people to get super-powers like super-speed and telepathy

. It was partly expected but it became a little hard to believe. But it is a action YA so I can't really fault it.

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typedtruths's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

Reread #1 (Dec 2020): ★★★★☆

remind me, why did i think reading about contagions was a good idea during a real-life pandemic

Original Read (Aug 2019): ★★★☆☆

when you think you rated a book five stars but goodreads says you gave it three stars 🤦‍♀️

➸ Trigger warnings for

ableism (including denied work due to medical condition), parental abandonment recount, self-harm, suicide by gun (on-page in the prologue & mentioned later), graphic blood & gore depiction, dead bodies, physical injuries & illness, eyeball trauma, contagion (central theme), medical emergency & serious (terminal) illness of a loved one, needles & syringes, blood test, emesis, death of a cousin, death of a father in a military-related explosion mentioned, death of a colleague, death of parents recounted, death from strangulation mentioned, death by electrocution, murder & attempted murder, knife & gun violence, kidnapping, drowning mentioned, and blizzards & severe storms

.

▷ Representation: Thea (mc) Turkish-Korean; Nova (mc) brown, vision impaired (degenerative eye condition) & sapphic; Dylan (sc) sapphic & recovered addict; Lisbeth (sc) tremor in her hand; Sullivan (sc) POC.

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