Review by takarakeireads - Overgrowth

takarakeireads 's review for:

Overgrowth by Mira Grant

3.0

dark slow-paced

I'm truly unsure how I feel about this book but I'm leaning toward there were serious execution problems and the more distance I have from it the less I remember and the less the story stuck with me in any positive way. I did really like the first bit - the plot setup was wild, unique, and I was really intrigued. I thought there was some good exploration of gender with the MC's boyfriend. But I think the book was too long? Too much time was spent meandering around waiting for the inevitable invasion to come that I became quite bored at some point. Also I don't find this to be horror? I'm not an expert on the horror genre, but in my opinion it reads as dark sci-fi. The initial chapter is horror, but then after that there's nothing that made me feel creepy again.
I'm also kind of unsure what the 'point' of this book is. I'm not sure what the author was trying to say. Is the goal to compare humans that are 'othered' for any myriad of reasons to aliens? Why then make the aliens the 'bad guy' that are coming to literally colonize a planet? There's plenty of other comparisons made, but with the way the book ends I'm just not sure what the takeaway was supposed to be. So while the metaphors were blatant, if I'm left not really understanding the point I think something is missing here. Because the aliens are plant-like the author kept bringing up veganism which like, why? they're blood drinking plant aliens, so that comparison actually doesn't make sense. Also I'm sorry but if I were friends with the mc who turned out to be an alien I don't know that I would stick by her side through to the end the way her friends/boyfriend did *shrugs*

Content Warnings