I was definitely a bit disappointed with this book. The way it was marketed was very misleading, which is unfortunate because I was very much looking forward to it regarding the label of "Annihilation" meets "The Day of the Triffids". This simply wasn't accurate. This novel definitely has more of a YA vibe that I wasn't expecting (nor excited for) and it definitely felt a bit like an action/adventure thriller? I don't even know if I've ever read one of those, but that's the vibe I got. With that said, this book would've been more appropriately marketed as a YA book to manage expectations because these characters did feel a lot like teenagers.

As for the content of the story, I didn't really enjoy it much because of the imbalance of the pacing. I felt like we switched courses so often that I didn't really know where we were or what was happening. In terms of pacing, I did feel this book was pretty slow. It's nearly 13 hours, and I just don't feel like it needed to be that long at all especially considering the fact that the ending felt so rushed.

I also thought it was very jarring when the messaging Grant tried to convey through the story was not weaved as well into the text as it could've been. I felt like she interrupted the story just so she could tell the reader what message she wanted them to come away with...specifically, when the protagonist is flying on the alien-dragon and she asks "what are your pronouns?" It was just too obvious and not weaved organically into the story at all.

Thank you for allowing me to review this book. I am giving my rating based on my own personal opinion and not that of any other party.

4 ⭐️ okay, i LOVED this.

this was marketed as “invasion of the body snatchers” meets “day of the triffids.” having never seen the latter, i would say it is “invasion of the body snatchers” meets “annihilation” meets “war of the worlds” meets “the thing” (but not as mindlessly bloody) with with an overtone of “little shop of horrors.”

there is a lot to write here — this book made me think a lot about what it means to be human, and what really defines humanity? is it more “human” for humanity to be innate, instinctive, or is it more human for humanity to be something that you choose, consciously, even when it is not your instinct? what is stronger, the family you choose, or the family that chooses you back? this story has a lot to say about humanity — the good and the bad, & what humanity might do if faced with a situation like this. would we recognize alien life when it came? would we actually listen if they contacted us? it’s so easy to “other” that which you do not understand. it is so easy to choose fear when faced with it, too.

this whole cast of characters was so interesting to me. i loved graham and mandy with my whole heart, and lucas too. i loved that it was never blind loyalty with them — they had their hesitations and their breakdowns when it came down to the wire, when faced with reality of the alien invasion, but they still loved anastasia, even after her transformation. i loved going with anastasia on this entire journey, and following her perspective as she transformed and “grew” throughout the book, even as her humanity slowly fell away and she had to deal with the in-between of loving her friends but loving (and disagreeing with) her biological family. i loved toni, too, her prickliness & her trauma-informed perspective on everything that was happening and her friendship with david. i loved the dynamics of the aliens and the way that mira grant wrote their backstory, their inter-connectedness and evolution and transformations.

i love mira grant’s writing style, ever since i read the “feed” series in high school. underneath the plot and action and drama, the story leaves you so much to think about. the scene where the other aliens showed up with their families — the way that even at the end of their transformations, they still chose love, still chose both their biological and found-human families, and were chosen in return — will stick with me for a while. this is one of those books that i know when i go back and reread (because i definitely will reread it) i will find more and more nuance and details as i do.

that said, there were some things that i was not as big of a fan of: the pacing here could have used some work. some portions absolutely dragged, and then sometimes plot would happen so quickly i would get whiplash. it felt like it took a while to get the whole crux of the plot out. and then i wanted a little bit *more* in other areas (like her cat!! what happened to her cat?! what happened to the rest of earth’s species besides humans?? i have questions!!)

thank you @ tor nightfire and netgalley for this ARC — even though i am late in reading, i am so glad that i got to hold this book in my hands as i read, and i cannot wait to reread!

I loved the premise of this book and was immediately sucked into the world. I was nervous because I didn’t realize when applying that this was body horror, but it was honestly much lighter than anticipated (which could be a negative for some). I found the book really lulled at parts and had pacing issues, but for the most part I quite enjoyed this!!

Thank you Tor for this ARC.

It pains me deep down to rate this book so low. I will write many words to explain this sad state of affairs.

Overgrowth is a book about aliens taking over the world from the oft-unvisited POV of the alien sent here to scout the planet before the invasion. Anastasia ("Stasia" to her friends) has been on Earth for her entire life and lived as a human, but has always been up-front with people about her alien origins. When the invasion finally comes and people begin to realize that Stasia was telling the truth all along about life on other planets, the countdown begins for Stasia to make a choice - the planet that raised her, or the species she came from?

Overgrowth is my 3rd experience reading Mira Grant. While I thought Rolling in the Deep was a truly exceptional work of short fiction, Into the Drowning Deep was a less enthralling read for me. I mentioned this is my review for that book in particular, but I felt like the story was unnecessarily bogged down with scientific facts. Though it was really well-researched, there's really only so much a narrative can take before it becomes semi-educational. Into the Drowning Deep toed the line, then jumped over it. Overgrowth doesn't have this flaw - the science in it both informs the story and the world-building - but still has a problem with its pacing.

Much of the book takes place under a month before "the invasion", and chapters are titled with that countdown. The thing is, for a book that is supposed to be about said invasion, I really expected it to arrive much sooner. The book is much more character-driven than I expected for a book about alien invasion which, while not exactly a "flaw", did throw off the reading experience for me. I felt at times that the page count was just droning on and on and on with repetitive thoughts from Stasia. The page count really could have been parred down and a lot of her internal monologue taken out.

My second reason for this low rating is how this book handles its allegory. The aliens in the book are an obvious stand-in for the "other" - POC, queer and trans folks, and anyone that society tends to fear, demonize, or otherwise oppress. This is a decent allegory that's been done before, like in Martian Chronicles, but I didn't love how it was handled in this book. First of all, the author definitely does not trust her readers to understand the points that she's making and aggressively rams the idea down your throat with internal monologue (again, too much of it) and dialogue between the characters. At one point, Stacia says that a man's blood "tastes like xenophobia". Not a moment of this book was not spoken, explained, and then brought up and explained again. Every point was examined from every conceivable angle, which made for a really frustrating reading experience.

This second bit will verge into spoilers for the book, so skip to the last paragraph if you'd like to remain spoiler-free.

These aliens are meant to stand in for marginalized communities but, like...they are not the good guys. This species, with zero shame, has come to commit genocide against an entire species, and has done this before. While most of the book is spent sympathizing with Stasia for the fact that this life was thrust upon her and not chosen, it becomes harder and harder to sympathize with her people as they explain that they have done this before and will do it again. It felt like it muddied the point that the author was trying to make and also puts the reader in a strange "hot seat".

Throughout the whole book, it is clear that we are supposed to look at Stasia as the misunderstood hero and humanity as the xenophobia pieces of shit who haven't accepted her (minus, of course, her few friends who happen to be the only good humans in the world). The rest of the Earth is put to the sword and, at the end, we apparently are supposed to celebrate this because the one character that we have been following gets to fly off with her origin species and friends to do this all over again. I mentioned to a friend that this book almost feels like it's challenging me and saying, "Well, you'd side with the aliens, right? Right?! and like...no. I would not, actually.

I'm disappointed by this book. Mira Grant is one of those authors where when she's great, she's great. But those great scenes, at least in this book, seem to fall through the cracks of forced social justice messaging that gets lost in its own rambling. I love horror that preys on the real-life terrors of racism, sexism, and other forms of oppression, but in this case I think that the story fell far short of what it could have been.

3.5/4 ⭐

I have really enjoyed Mina Grant's books, and while I didn't love this one as much as those previous books I've read, I still did end up enjoying it for the most part.

One thing I love about this author's books is that the premise of the books is always interesting, and this one was no different. So, we have Anastasia Miller, who, since she was a child, has been telling everyone who would listen that she is an alien and that an alien invasion is coming. People, of course, don't believe her. And then a strange signal from outer space is intercepted, and that's when people start taking her seriously. Unfortunately, it's too little too late.

Like I mentioned before, I liked this for the most part. However, there were things here and there that I just didn't vibe with. There was a certain event, for example, that happened in the middle of the book that reminded me of the Parasitology series, and not in a good way. Don't get me wrong, I really enjoyed that trilogy, but this is a thing that happened in every single book, and it got old fast. And then it happens in this one, too? Ugh.

[SPOILER] The government kidnapping the protagonist 🙄
[END SPOILER]

And that's all I'll say on that. But I was annoyed. Luckily, it didn't last, and I was happy about that. Lol.

The other thing I was not a fan of was the end. A lot of this author's books have a bittersweet ending, which I don't mind. I don't even mind the twist endings in horror where the killer comes back to life and slaughters everyone. Lol. But here's what didn't work for me:

[SPOILER] Long story short: alien seedlings were sent out from a far-off planet. From one such seedling came Anastasia. There was one point where she was commenting that humans are awful. I completely agree with her on this point actually. But where they lost me on this is when we found out the <b>motive</b> for the invasion. I thought these seedlings were sent off in urgency, for self-preservation, maybe. But no. They didn't HAVE to leave their planet. They left to explore AND consume everything else they came across. And what made it worse for me is that the reason why aliens like Anastasia felt the compulsion to tell others about the invasion is to give them a chance to say, "no, thank you." And just like that, they would stop the invasion...

Are you kidding me? This was so ridiculous! You're telling me all the humans had to do was ask the aliens nicely to please not invade and kill them?? Ugh. And the aliens would actually comply? Which made the very end frustrating because why the fuck were the alien representatives meeting with the human leaders of the world (that were left) when they were planning to harvest the world no matter what? And then they did. Earth was invaded. All humans were converted. The end.

The problem for me was that even though, throughout this entire book, we are following Anastasia, one of the alien transplants, if you will, I was always on the human side, despite me agreeing with Anastasia that they are terrible. I was just not on board with the aliens' motivations. And I was a little surprised that Anastasia, even though she grew up on Earth, so easily gave in to her people's plan to decimate Earth. I thought she was going to put up a little bit more of a fight. But nope.
[END SPOILER]

All that being said, one thing I really liked about this book was the characters— I loved Anastasia's quirky friends who accepted her, alien claims and all. Lol. But I particularly loved her boyfriend Graham and how supportive and understanding they were with one another. I'll give Mira Grant this: she always writes sweet and healthy romantic relationships. I love it!

So, even though I was not a fan of the motivation behind everything that happened, I did enjoy some other aspects of this book. The mythos was interesting, the sci-fi/horror combo was great like always, and I really liked the characters. And I'm really looking forward to seeing what Mira Grant has in store for us next!

When Mira Grant writes as Seanan McGuire, she is one of my favorite authors. I ADORE the Wayward Children series, as well as Middlegame.

I don’t think 'Grant's' genre is my favorite.

Main character Anastasia believes she is an alien in human form and that the aliens will return for her.

This books feels a bit more like light horror and YA than the extreme body horror that was promised,

This could also be my bad. I love the author so much that I gave it a try, but I am not a huge fan of aliens.

If this is your genre, give it a try!

Overgrowth is a quick read with some big things to say. There are themes of identity, otherness, and bodily autonomy that shine a light on immigration and trans issues in a brilliant way. It also includes my personal favourite found family trope, and I loved the quirky gang that Stasia collected.

Grant's (McGuire's) writing is always great, and I'm rally looking forward to picking up more of her work.

I'm a longtime fan of Mira Grant, and this one was layered. I loved the science fiction but very grounded (haha) take on this concept, and the human challenges that would happen if plants were taking over the planet were interesting to me. There were times that I gasped and times that I chuckled. The middle of this book was very slow, and I think I would have enjoyed this book more with a little more movement in the midsection, but I did have a lot of fun with it.

Anastasia Miller has always felt different, like she’s not quite human, convinced she’s actually an alien plant sent to Earth long ago. And…that’s all I’m going to say about the plot because I think what will keep people reading is having no idea where it’s going.

I loved the premise of this book and it was interesting enough to keep me reading until the end. I did feel it could have used some extra editing. There were parts I struggled with because I thought it was slow, and I was desperate to move on for something new to happen. But, that aside, the story is excellent and I’m glad I stuck with it.

Thanks for the opportunity to read!

I struggled with some parts of this one immensely while enjoying others quite a bit. The initial TSA scene completely threw me out of the narrative as it became didactic and preachy (and I agree with most of the points made). It was quite off-putting and made it hard to reengage with the rest of the book. I also didn't love how dismal and depressing the end was. I like the books I read to examine humanity while still offering hope. This one offered no hope, it was just really depressing. But I liked the premise, the characters, and the overall plot.

This was interesting - different than what I was expecting going into it, but definitely an interesting spin on an alien invasion! I think Grant played the two sides off each other very well, making sure the situation was never allowed to be reduced to a simple black and white conflict of us vs them, and I enjoyed Grant's clever (as always) worldbuilding when it came to the alien species. But there was something about the book that just didn't sing for me. I was interested enough to keep reading, but not as thoroughly engaged as I become with a book I'm absolutely loving. Maybe it was the length? I have zero issues with long books - we love an absolute BRICK of a SFF novel in this apartment. But the middle section of OVERGROWTH did feel a bit meander-y as we tried to get from event to event in the invasion. I did, however, really appreciate the way that the main character, Anastasia's, alien nature could be read as autistic in a lot of ways. I know what it's like to feel like you're so different from everyone else you meet that you can't possibly be human, and can only imagine what it would feel like to finally have that difference validated. To find that there's a place you can belong, with people who ARE like you, and I think Grant handled Anastasia's inner conflict between the world that raised her and the world where she actually belongs really well.

Mira Grant (Seanan McGuire's pseudonym) combines body horror, 50's monster movies and alien invasion in this deliciously creepy novel.

Anastasia Miller has been insisting to anyone who asks that she is an alien in human disguise since she was 3, most people take it as a somewhat amusing personality quirk, but we soon find out that it's not just a quirk. When an alien signal is picked up, Anastasia realizes that her family is coming for her and the others on Earth – and they may not be very friendly.

Absolutely recommended, as are all Grant's works no matter what the name on the cover is. Grant does a lot with subtext around found family, children's feelings and needs and listening to same. There's a revelation close to the end of the book that will break your heart, it did mine.

I received an ARC copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion.

This was a fun read. And by fun, it was unique and I really enjoyed it. The writing seemed a little different from into the drowning deep, but the vibes were obviously very different. I LOVED Toni. She was great. In saying that, I would have absolutely loved to have seen her wake up as one of them. Same with Graham and Mandy. I wanted to see the reactions and the after.

Thank you netgalley and the publisher for the e-arc in exchange for an honest review.

- OVERGROWTH is my first Mira Grant book (aka Seanan McGuire writing horror) and while it wasn’t totally for me, I was still fascinated by it.
- This book owes a lot to Octavia E. Butler’s Xenogenesis trilogy, with the concept of an alien race absorbing the human race, and where the line between human and alien lies. So yeah, this story was 100% up my alley.
- The downside for me, though, was that I think it could have been a lot shorter. Conversations and ideas were repeated endlessly between confrontations, often without any changes in the way the characters were thinking.

Narration/ Audiobook: 4/5
EGalley/ Overall Story: 2.75/5

A lot to say about this one, but I’m going to keep it short.

The downfall of this book is the execution.

Alongside many other readers, I was hooked by the blurb and book description. I mean we start the book off with alien child devouring plant that takes the place of a three year old! Needless to say, I was eager to dive into the body and eco horror while learning all about this body snatching alien species. Sadly for me, the tone was disjointed, the story dragged on longer than it needed to, and the parallels and metaphors in the story were contradictory and repetitive.

I found myself wondering: What exactly is the conversation the author is attempting to have? What is the message the reader should leave with? On one hand the author is opening up a clear dialog through trans representation. It feels as though we are supposed to recognize the othering experienced by our alien main character, Stasia, in comparison to that of her trans boyfriend, Graham. We see this in large part due to the way Stacia has never minimized her alien identity, but has instead existed around those who brush her off and deny her truth. This is repeatedly expressed in alignment to the experiences of Graham. Although, for the reader to align the alienating experiences of trans folk with that of the aliens in this story, the reader must also accept that these are predatory aliens that target children…. You see what I mean? What is the message you’re really trying to send?

I can appreciate the discussion and representation that Grant is attempting to present, but I cannot ignore the poorly developed execution of it. That’s not even getting into the fact that I was anxiously waiting for an alien invasion story that doesn’t start until around 70% of the book! Or that the character dialogue and development reads like a young adult novel.

That being said, the audiobook delivery of the story was very good! I was relieved to experience this book as an immersive read as the audio added layers to the characters that I wouldn’t have felt just reading the book solely. The book comes across as more found family than any other concept or trope, and the narration really captured the emotional range of the characters and their motivations.

Overall, Overgrowth was underwhelming. This may be a standout for others, but it was a let down for me.

Thanks to Tor Nightfire & Macmillan Audio for gifted access to the Digital and Audio copies.

Mira Grant became a staple of my reading with The Newsflesh series and Into the Drowning Deep. She has a history of writing great books with fantastic characters. She is not an author who is afraid to shock and push her readers’ boundaries. So, a book about an alien invasion, you know I am on board for that.

Anastasia Miller is a fabulous character, the perfect…um…person to build a story around. She is surrounded by a good and diverse cast of characters that really help to build up the story. She becomes a tangible character, living life with all of the hopes and challenges that one would expect.

Overgrowth builds nicely around Stasia and her entourage. The true nature of the aliens is slowly revealed; we have evil government agencies with baddies and everything. It was all going great, until it wasn’t.

I get that Grant was creating a new type of alien, and there is always a risk when you go out on a limb with something different. Personally, once the mothership arrived the story was no longer about the characters. I found that Grant spent too much time with the convoluted history of the alien race; the how and why of what was going on. The pace and focus of the story changed and my interest along with it.

Once in a while I don’t get the story I expect; it can be a good thing, but other times, not so much.

*3 Stars

Mira Grant is a horror author I recommend for those who are just dipping a toe into horror and Overgrowth is no exception! The tone balances humor and horror delicately and successfully, and the characters feel fleshed out and endearing. Thought the pacing felt a bit slow at times, the characters and relationships were definitely a highlight. Definitely a rec for those looking for botanical horror or a good "summerween" read!

This book was shocking from start to end. I'm not the biggest fan of extraterrestrial horror but this one was an amazing exception. The start itself is so brutal & sad that you won't be able to tear your eyes off. Following from the pov of a non-human person was very interesting indeed. This one was very dark, as expected, and I enjoyed it a lot. Definitely worth a read. (4.5 out of 5 stars).

I think the overall story was interesting and really built the background on the alien species, their purpose, their takeover, etc. I appreciate that every character had enough information that you cared about each of them and still could tell apart who was who despite it being a decent sized cast. My biggest hang-up, though, is the length of the book/the pacing. I felt it could've gotten the point across, and held my attention more, if it was a bit faster paced. I still liked the end and didn't feel let down that I took all that time to get there. I still would recommend (and have).