Ok so this is book 2 for the Newsflesh trilogy. I loooved book 1. Book 2 was kind of a chore. I listened to it on my library’s app. Sometimes I feel like an audiobook swims or sinks based on the voice talent. I know that’s not a revolutionary opinion, but hear me out. I know The Girl with All the Gifts was a freaking awesome book. Listening to Finty Williams read it made it nearly magical. I loved it so hard. I don’t think I necessarily like the guy who voices Shaun Mason, and he’s basically the narrator for 99.8% of the book. It doesn’t help that I also suddenly don’t like Shaun. He was great in book 1 with George to work off of. He’s a violent asshole in book 2. I get that his sister died, and that she was his lobster, but man he’s hard to like. He literally assaults people. Also, his other people seem to be going off the rails too. As my sister would say “it’s an asshole parade”. I read a little bit of someone else’s review of book 2, and I hope it didn’t cloud my judgement. They did not like it. I feel like my assessment stands on its own though. This book treats you like you never read book 1, you don’t have any idea what the core virus is, and you might’ve just had a head injury that gave you amnesia. I hate when books think I’m dumb and need to be constantly reminded of the core concept.
I might need Botox after all the brow furrowing and eye rolling I’m doing listening to this book! There is a lot of flying off the handle, threatening to punch people, behaving like a spoiled assy kid, and wincing. OMG the wincing.
And one last thing… I cannot handle any more talk about how much Shaun and Georgia love each other!
Ok one last last thing. As the youths say… That ending though