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A review by faileskye
Deadline by Mira Grant
1.0
Initially, I was going to give this book two stars since the first third of the book wasn't bad, if a little odd. However, I reserve one star reviews for books that I cannot finish. Now I did in fact finish this book. but only because I was reading it with someone, and they kept pressuring me to finish it, since if he could, I could too. Now let me try to impart upon you why I hated this book.
It is hard to decide where to begin, well I guess I'll start with the drinking game I made up (though thankfully did not play) for it so that I could tolerate it more.
Take one drink if:
The word "coke" is mentioned (Warning, there are at least 49 instances of this in the book)
Any time it is referenced that Georgia is dead
A character gets a blood test and it is described (I do not advise following this rule...you may very well die)
Kelley is abused for no real reason other than the characters a jerks
Take two drinks if:
Mahir is woken up or is half dead exhausted
It is mentioned that Shaun's parents only thought of him and Georgia as a ratings stunt
Buffy is described as being a great technological wiz (SHE'S DEAD!)
Buffy is mentioned as betraying them (she really didn't, not directly anyway)
Take three drinks if:
"Mahir is the head of the newsies"
Any allusion to the [technically not] incestuous relationship Shaun and Georgia had.
You are given the backstory of a dead character.
As you can see from the drinking game, this book is repetitive. It is repetitive in the language and word choice. Not only that, it is also repetitive in the plot. Basically you will have a few chapters of them sitting around talking or doing nothing sensible, then something big will happen, then someone will die, then they have to escape. This happens three times, and that is the book.
As for that repetitiveness, why are half the repetitions about characters that died in the previous book?
On the topic of the characters, they are still kind of flat like the first book, but they at least start out different. By the end of the book however, I couldn't tell what character was talking at any given time because all their personalities melded into one. Needless to say, I stopped caring about any of the characters left alive.
The reason I read books is usually for the story, I love stories, and am VERY tolerant of them. But this book was awful. The plot is driven by asinine decisions, stupid reasoning, or just the random will of the author, not the characters, the author. The characters don't ever seem to have any legitimate reason for doing things, and this leads to plot holes. Big, massive, moon swallowing, plot holes. Please direct yourself to the drinking game, I used square brackets incorrectly in it. The thing is, square brackets are best used in news reporting as a way of adding something to clarify a quote that wasn't actually said. This is kind of news media 101. The funny thing is, that even though all the protagonists in this book are somehow linked to reporting the news, they stop doing it. They probably don't know how to use brackets. My only assumption is that the KA virus makes people stupid, manic, or neurotic. They get some huge Earth shattering news that everyone should know about so they can be saved. Do they report it the first time? nah. How about the second bit of news? Nuh-uh. The third or 4th bit of news, how about the bit that could save MILLIONS. Noooope! Really? It is insinuated that that would put them in more danger with the people trying to kill them. THe people that are spying on them. The people that know where they are and have lots of resources to kill them. I ask you, wouldn't telling the world about why they are trying to murder you actually protect you? I mean they couldn't hide your deaths then, and they'd probably be worried about getting murdered themselves.
Also where are the best buds from book one, you know the ones that are now president and vice president?
The long story short on what my issue with the book is that nothing changed. This is the middle book of a trilogy. The only things that changed from the end of Feed and the end of Deadline is that the reader knows two small bits of information and the cast is a little different. If I had messed up and read book one then book three, I would not have missed out on anything. In the large scheme of things in the world, absolutely jack happened that couldn't be summed up with an en medias res first chapter of the third book. SIGH
PS: And the award for the MOST awkwardly written sex scene ever goes to this book.
It is hard to decide where to begin, well I guess I'll start with the drinking game I made up (though thankfully did not play) for it so that I could tolerate it more.
Spoiler
Take one drink if:
The word "coke" is mentioned (Warning, there are at least 49 instances of this in the book)
Any time it is referenced that Georgia is dead
A character gets a blood test and it is described (I do not advise following this rule...you may very well die)
Kelley is abused for no real reason other than the characters a jerks
Take two drinks if:
Mahir is woken up or is half dead exhausted
It is mentioned that Shaun's parents only thought of him and Georgia as a ratings stunt
Buffy is described as being a great technological wiz (SHE'S DEAD!)
Buffy is mentioned as betraying them (she really didn't, not directly anyway)
Take three drinks if:
"Mahir is the head of the newsies"
Any allusion to the [technically not] incestuous relationship Shaun and Georgia had.
You are given the backstory of a dead character.
As you can see from the drinking game, this book is repetitive. It is repetitive in the language and word choice. Not only that, it is also repetitive in the plot. Basically you will have a few chapters of them sitting around talking or doing nothing sensible, then something big will happen, then someone will die, then they have to escape. This happens three times, and that is the book.
As for that repetitiveness, why are half the repetitions about characters that died in the previous book?
On the topic of the characters, they are still kind of flat like the first book, but they at least start out different. By the end of the book however, I couldn't tell what character was talking at any given time because all their personalities melded into one. Needless to say, I stopped caring about any of the characters left alive.
The reason I read books is usually for the story, I love stories, and am VERY tolerant of them. But this book was awful. The plot is driven by asinine decisions, stupid reasoning, or just the random will of the author, not the characters, the author. The characters don't ever seem to have any legitimate reason for doing things, and this leads to plot holes. Big, massive, moon swallowing, plot holes. Please direct yourself to the drinking game, I used square brackets incorrectly in it. The thing is, square brackets are best used in news reporting as a way of adding something to clarify a quote that wasn't actually said. This is kind of news media 101. The funny thing is, that even though all the protagonists in this book are somehow linked to reporting the news, they stop doing it. They probably don't know how to use brackets. My only assumption is that the KA virus makes people stupid, manic, or neurotic. They get some huge Earth shattering news that everyone should know about so they can be saved. Do they report it the first time? nah. How about the second bit of news? Nuh-uh. The third or 4th bit of news, how about the bit that could save MILLIONS. Noooope! Really? It is insinuated that that would put them in more danger with the people trying to kill them. THe people that are spying on them. The people that know where they are and have lots of resources to kill them. I ask you, wouldn't telling the world about why they are trying to murder you actually protect you? I mean they couldn't hide your deaths then, and they'd probably be worried about getting murdered themselves.
Also where are the best buds from book one, you know the ones that are now president and vice president?
The long story short on what my issue with the book is that nothing changed. This is the middle book of a trilogy. The only things that changed from the end of Feed and the end of Deadline is that the reader knows two small bits of information and the cast is a little different. If I had messed up and read book one then book three, I would not have missed out on anything. In the large scheme of things in the world, absolutely jack happened that couldn't be summed up with an en medias res first chapter of the third book. SIGH
PS: And the award for the MOST awkwardly written sex scene ever goes to this book.