Reading Challenge: Disability

Feed is a zombie novel. About bloggers. I had a bad feeling about this, but a good friend recommended it, so I decided to give it a shot. I ended up loving it. Some things grated--it was a little heavy on the "bloggers are the truth-tellers, mainstream media are sellouts" trope at times (not that I object to the sentiment, really--it was just a bit eyeroll-inducing coming from protagonists who are themselves bloggers). On the topic of self-congratulation, the protagonists also engage in a fair amount of posturing and somewhat Whedonesque pop-culture-referencing and wisecracking-in-the-face-of-danger, which veers between entertaining and annoying. Also, while the book is overall pretty feminist in that it has a kickass female hero and lots of interesting women characters who get to do important things and be real human beings, there are still some vaguely misogynistic tropes that pop up once in a while. All that being said, I adore the two main characters, Georgia and her brother Shaun. The pacing is pretty good--it's a little slow to get to the meat of the plot, but it's entertaining in the meantime, and the writing is snappy. Very quick read. Georgia (better known as George) has a (technically fictional, but I thought the treatment of it was interesting enough to merit inclusion here) disability induced by the zombie virus, which has set up a reservoir in her retinas and causes extreme sensitivity to light and the possibility of retinal scarring and permanent loss of vision if she's exposed to it for long, plus chronic migraines and acute debilitation if she's deprived of her special sunglasses or contacts. This makes life interesting in a world infested with hungry zombies, physical combat, and trigger-happy armed officials who are leery of anyone who's been exposed to the virus. Anyway, this definitely won't be to everyone's taste, but I was pleasantly surprised. There's also a second book, Deadline, already out, and the third book is due sometimes in 2012, I think.