Symbiont

By: Mira Grant

Narrated by: Christine Lakin

Length: 16 hrs and 47 mins

Publisher's summary

NPR's Top 100 Killer Thrillers

Romantic Times' Best SF Novel of the Year nominee, 2010

John W. Campbell Award winner, 2010

Short-listed, the Hugo Best Novel, 2012

From New York Times best-selling author Mira Grant comes the second book in the terrifying Parasitology series.

The SymboGen-designed tapeworms were created to relieve humanity of disease and sickness. But the implants in the majority of the world's population began attacking their hosts, turning them into a ravenous horde.

Now those who do not appear to be afflicted are being gathered for quarantine as panic spreads, but Sal and her companions must discover how the tapeworms are taking over their hosts, what their eventual goal is, and how they can be stopped.

More from Mira Grant:

Parasitology

• Parasite
• Symbiont
• Chimera

Newsflesh

• Feed
• Deadline
• Blackout
• Feedback
• Rise

©2014 Mira Grant (P)2014 Hachette Audio

Good but 1st was better

You must read these books in order. I liked the first book better. Not sure if that is because of the fun of discovery or if the premise is getting old. Could just be 2nd book fatigue and the 3rd will be exciting again. Did make me remember and compare a Deep Space 9 story arc.

Not good

I didn't like this book, the main charter gets really annoying worrying about killing the sleepwalkers, then right after worrying they always try to eat her. Not only does the second book fail to move the plot line anywhere, it feel like this is just a money grab extention of the first. I will not be buying the third, heard it's bad anyway.

The story isn't bad.

I did finish. It wasn't bad. Sections of the book were beautifully written, but there's the problem. I really like Mira Grant, and I plan on listening to three book in the series, but...

Parts of the book were clearly not line edited properly. This is a publisher mistake, not a writer mistake. In one particular chapter a character was referred to as "amiable" or "blithe" so many times that I lost count. this wasn't done on purpose.

As a writer certain characters are certain things to us and it can be difficult to find other words in a split second to describe them, other than our perfect words. A line edit is specifically designed to prevent exactly this from showing up in a finished product. They find the words that we overuse and we take the time necessary to fix it.

I mention this in particular, but it happens a good bit. Several things that a line edit would catch are simply ignored.

I had to force myself to finish listening

(Spoilers maybe?) The storyline had promise but I was really disinterested in this book because of the sappy lovey-dovey nonsense between Sal & Nathan - gag - & it was really obnoxious listening to overly detailed descriptions of Sal's every single injury. I tried to like Sal but she's just too needy & helpless in my opinion. And she argues with everyone about everything & asks too many questions & I just don't like the character. It was also annoying to listen to Sherman's "voice" since part of the time he sounded Australian & the other part British, often in the same line of dialog. This whole book seems unnecessary & the entire plot line of the sleepwalkers eating people was lame - humans turning into psychotic killing machines because of parasites they willingly put into their bodies? Sure. Having them turn into flesh eating zombies? Been there, read that. I'm also so tired of listening to quotes from 'Don't Go Out Alone' which is just a creepy nonsensical "children's book".

Decent sequel

Great performance but the story was too introspective and felt like filler to get from book 1 to a book 3

Like a worm in my brain

I liked this book so much -- despite its flaws -- that I can't wait to hear the next one.

Before I list any flaws, let me say that the story itself is truly original and Grant's exploration of what it means to be a symbiont/host is elegant. There's a lot to reflect on here, in regards to who we are as people, and what makes us human. I found myself caring a great deal about the characters, and wanting to know what would happen next.

Somewhere early on in the book, I realized that it was intended for young adults (which I am not) and I do wish that YA books would be more clearly labeled. I know the lines are blurring between good YA fiction and adult fiction these days. But the characteristics that frustrated me are actually common tropes of YA fiction. The heroine is often confused about things that adults would understand, adults are either one-dimensionally evil or simply inscrutable, and then there's the repetition that the other reviewer was talking about. Repetition may be good for young readers, or people who didn't read the first book in the series, or -- lets face it -- adults who aren't paying close attention to the book, for instance if they listen while driving.

In the end, I think that I was so frustrated by these qualities precisely because the story itself is so good. I will definitely listen to part three regardless.

Tell Me More

You know when your just trying to live your best life and so you get a tapeworm introduced into your bowels to synthesize some things you need or want and then it migrates to your brain and takes you over in mind and body? No? Me neither. And thank goodness for that! In this series of books most people do and let me just say it does not end well for them.

The shit continues to hit the fan in volume two of this trilogy. And guess what? I am here for it. I was riveted for the whole 16 hr. 47 min. of this audiobook and am looking forward to listening to volume three in the near future.

A Middle Book

I have loved all of her books but this series was supposed to be 2 and became 3 books and this entire boo read like filler crap I didn't really need to know.

I don't do spoilers so I can say - yeah it was good and kept me on some pins and needles. I even just stayed up til 4 am to finish it but could have just saved it for tomorrow.

Great Book!

If your a fan of Mira Grant then you will love this book, such a cliff hanger too...

This author is fire!!

I have to say I listen to multiple audiobooks a week, I'm kinda a junkie. This is now the 5th book from this author I've listened to and everything from the reading to the actual content, story building, character building, all of it, has been one of my favorites to date. we'll done.