Whilst I appreciate others who are into this genre will enjoy it and the writing style is good, this is my first try with this genre and unfortunately it’s just not for me, but that is only personal preference and not a reflection on the author or their work.

Books featuring sentient plant life are like catnip to me at the moment, so when I read the blurb for Overgrowth I knew that this would be a must-read! A really intellectual and thought-provoking look at alien invasion, and incredibly human too! I loved Stasia, and the relationships she had with her friends, human and plant alike! A minor gripe would be the length - I mean minor in that I felt like it was taking me forever to read, but at the same time I was thoroughly enjoying the ride! I think the slow build-up was necessary for me to feel the stakes as a reader. More like this please!!!

Review time 🌱👽🛸

It’s been over a week since I read this book (thank you NetGalley for the ARC) and I have a lot of thoughts.

Overgrowth begins horrifically, a child is born and we learn in a distant third person narrative that this child then wanders into the woods at three years old and is graphically devoured by a plant and then replaced by an alien clone of herself that walks right up to her mother and says ‘The aliens took your real baby. They left me. I’m sorry’.

After this the book switches to first person and we the reader experience the rest of the story from the perspective of Stasia, who has lived her whole life knowing she is an alien and there is an invasion coming but being told she is crazy and will just grow out of it. She has fallen in love with a trans man called Graham (his identity is important to the story) who has accepted that she is an alien even though there is no evidence for it as she looks and acts completely human and she lives with two roommates who also both accept that what she says is at least true to her.

Then the invasion begins and our girl Stasia begins to show her true colours (literally and figuratively). She is torn between whether she should join the invasion or protect her friends, or both.

Don’t get it twisted though. Even though the invading aliens are carnivorous (mainly for humans) they aren’t the bad guys here and Mira Grant is not subtle with her messaging. How humans choose to treat the aliens when they are revealed to exist is linked in the book directly to how a lot of humans treat trans people and immigrants. I do take issue with conflating an invading species that is actually dangerous with immigrants/those seeking asylum and I don’t feel like it was the authors intention to say that immigrants actually are dangerous but that’s how it comes across through the comparison.

This book was a fun read with a few unexpected twists and trigger warnings for body horror, graphic violence and death of a young child, creepy plant things and blood devouring. There’s a lot more to it but I don’t want to give away spoilers.

The POV is enticing, a vanguard of alien species coming to invade the Earth. The characters were enjoyably flawed and humane and carried the story. The body horror aspects were also fantastic. Sometimes the pacing, especially in the latter half felt a little uneven. And while I don't expect speculative fiction to be too realistic, I still felt that there were times when for example agencies procedors didn't feel believable at all and that took me little out of the story. Overall still enjoyed this a lot.

DNF this book unfortunately. I had seen some positive chat on Instagram for this book and wanted to give it a try outside my usual genre. I do read sci-Fi but not horror.
Firstly I think the concept is great. A conflicted alien POV invasion. Exploring nature vs nurture in a unique way and I do love a found family trope.
The opening image with’s encounter with the alien species is dark and sets a certain tone for the book. I think this changes quite quickly and from what I read went almost to a cozy vibe. The pacing was off and for a dramatic start then got really slow.

I found the messaging a little to obvious from early on and feel it could have been woven better into a more subtle delivery. As interesting a concept it really wasn’t holding my attention and I didn’t find myself wanting to come back to finish it. I think if it is more your genre preference would be more enjoyable as you’d be more captured by preferred tropes.

Whilst this one had an incredibly compelling first chapter, my interest dwindled from then on. I read around 35% before I just had to admit that I was bored. I typically love alien invasion stories and have heard great things about Mira Grant’s other books but the pacing and characters weren’t for me. It very much like I was being told a lot rather than shown and some of the themes were heavy handed in a way that distracted me from the story. It also didn’t feel like much of a horror (which I felt is was pitched as) and I struggled to suspend my disbelief or feel invested in the story as time went on. It’s much more of a slow burn story than an alien invasion horror and ultimately wasn’t what I’d hoped.

DNF at 31%

I was expecting this to be more comedy sci-fi horror and instead it is more sci-fi action. The tone is also a little all over the place as it starts with a fairly graphic description of child death, and then flips to this much lighter style.
I think it might have worked better as a YA. The characters, despite being in their 20s, certainly already read very young.

I did not not like this book at all, first of all it read like YA not like the characters in question were in their 30s, second of all the invasion itself didn't start till 359 pages in...by this point I was bored out of my mind and third of all it was just silly and boring!

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC.

There is something about this book that is fundamentally indescribable.

Anastasia Miller is the vanguard of an oncoming alien invasion. She knows this because when she was three, the original Anastasia was eaten by an alien plant and she is what was left behind. It feels strange to describe that scene as loving and yet it is. The narrative is gentle but insistent on the experience of a terrible thing that must happen all the same. I was initally drawn to the book by a comparison to The Little Shop of Horrors and it has the quirkiness of it in spades. Anatasia grows and makes friends, fashions a life for herself while she tells everyone she meets that she is the vanguard of an oncoming alien invasion.

There's the introduction of what it means to be human when you know that you aren't, looping in identity through touching scenes with Anatasia's boyfriend (a transgender man) and the other vanguards of the oncoming invasion that she meets. It's a very human reaction to the revelation of aliens and their vanguards, also touching on citizenship and belonging, propaganda, while crafting a solid plot and circumstances.

It's a read that I'm going to be thinking about for a very long time afterwards.

This was very much a book of 2 halves for me. The first half was really entertaining and I enjoyed getting to know Stasia, Grahame, mandy and lucas (and Seymour) a lot. The tone was quite light hearted in this part. It was the latter part where the narrative just lost me, unfortunately and it felt unbalanced. Overall I did like this one, but just not as much as I thought I would in the first half.
I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for a fair and honest review.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me with an arc through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I absolutely loved the premise and the introduction to the book. It started very dark and I could feel the goosebumps. However, the rest of the book never lived up to this premise.

It read very slow and at some point it got tiring. Stasia's internal monologue got really repetitive, too. We kept reading about the upcoming invasion and how soon it's going to happen. But it feels like it’s never going to happen. As readers we can see how many days to the event are left and in this case it's only fuelling the frustration.

What didn't help was that it started as an adult horror but throughout the story it started shifting too much to YA. And I love YA books. Around the 57% mark, I realized I'm no longer anticipating how the story would conclude. With a heavy heart I decided to DNF the book.

However, I think some people might like it more than me. A stuffy atmosphere can be felt throughout the book, which makes it a perfect read for the upcoming summerween season.

A comet containing many MANY alien seeds crashes into Earth's atmosphere and sprinkles it's cargo aorund the planet. If they have landed in an environment conducive to growth then a beautiful plant the likes of which has never been seen before on Earth eventually develops and using the smell of the very best things you've ever smelled, it lures people within touching distance so that the plant can grab them, stick them in what is essentially a cocoon, steal their image and knowledge and send out a plant-based clone. These clones will then tell anybody who asks that they are the vanguard of an invasive species and the aliens are coming - which leads to people thinking they're an oddball, a liar, mentally unwell, or a mixture!

Guess what though? They were right! This book kicks off just as the aliens that planted their offspring years before decide it's time to come back and conquer the planet. Anastasia Miller is one of the plant people, soebody who has a limited social circle, in part due to her repeatedly telling people she's really an alien that was body swapped. I liked her a lot! The way she dealt with the world and the routine of trying to just get along on a day to day basis when you're not "one of the cool kids" and don't necessarily fit in with people's perceived expectations was really well done. Her circle of friends gets introduced and expanded until they're very well rounded characters, each with differing opinions of Stasia's story and different reactions when it is revealed to be correct!

The invasion was setup really well, from the government involvement being both suspicious and believable, to the crazy and imaginative extra terrestrial life forms that eventually turn up. Even though you know from the start of the book what is going to happen there is still a lot of nuance and details to really pad out the story, and the characterwork massively helped with that. I did find the ending quite abrupt, to the point where I went back and reread the last chapter as I was convinced I must have skipped over something, but apparently not.

Anastasia Miller is not human; she is a representative of an alien plant armada coming to Earth. She has been telling people this since she was three, when the original Anastasia went into the woods and this version came out three days later. Since then, Stasia has had to deal with all the usual issues of humanity, with the added bonus of the label delusional and the pyschotherapy that comes with it. Now in her thirties, a scientist has found a signal from space that calls to Stasia, and humans have to handle the realisation that not only was Stasia right, but that the vanguard is swiftly approaching.
Grant writes gorgeous, enticing descriptions that shift between childish whimsy and Lovecraftian horror, blending plants into horror in a way that contrasts sporror but bears similarities. Each character is distinct, with clear motivations and emotions that provide a scattered view of how humanity may act as an invasion approaches, including the complicated loyalties of any aliens who may already be here. The cast considers what life could be on other worlds, and how family can be complicated by a number of factors.
An interesting take on what humanity is when you aren't human, and how people react to truths they didn't believe, against a backdrop of the apocalypse and all that implies.

I've been in a female rage/horror type mood and this was what the doctor ordered! The Day of the Triffids is an all time favourite of mine, and I knew I needed to pick this up. Add in some aliens and I am hooked. It was a fun, creepy, and thought-provoking books. However, even with such a great premise, the book was a tad long and overly ambitious. But I did have fun.

This is a hard book to rate. When it works, it really works - the visceral creepiness of the aliens, the slow detachment of the main character from humanity that leaves you wondering if there was ever anything human about her in the first place...

Unfortunately, it doesn't always work. The pacing is all over the place, and there were some aspects of the plot that came off as unbelievable - for instance, since the flowers consume and replicate children and the process takes a few days, it must be that several thousands children all over the world all went missing in the same few months/years and came back claiming to be alien invaders and not only this didn't make national news, Stasia wasn't even aware of it? I don't buy it. Another aspect was the condition to keep the aliens from attacking earth - are you telling me no one triggered it, not even by accident? Also seems implausible.

Overall, I did enjoy it and recommend it if you're looking for a unique take on alien invasions that manages to deliver some truly poignant moments and some truly creepy ones, but it could have been a favorite, and sadly it wasn't.

I received a copy of this book from the publisher through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I don't count myself a fan of Mira Grant; I didn't like Feed and that put me off reading any of her other books, but something about this appealed and I was sure glad I gave it a go.

Overgrowth follows the story of alien seed pod that takes over the body of 3-year-0ld Anastasia Miller, who returns after a few days "missing" in the woods to tell everyone she is in fact an alien. She keeps this up throughout her mostly normal life as a human, until things begin to change for her upon the impending invasion of her own race.

I started off reading the book thinking "how are they going to stretch this one out? Surely it would have been better a short story?" But how wrong I was. Although some may feel the pacing slow, I thought it built beautifully and I raced through the book in a couple of days, staying up late to reach the conclusion.

I loved the themes of what constitutes humanity, love in all forms (not just kin), anger, identity... I loved the dry humour; I loved the main protagonist, Anastatsia as she really doesn't know what she wants, even as she becomes what she was destined to become (a man-eating plant but hey, nobody's perfect).

This is not a horror; it's a thoughtful piece of science fiction and it's all the better for it.

Well, I hated it

When I read the synopsis, I though I'd devour this book and ask for more because oof the whole Annihilation meet Day of the Triffid. Let me tell you a secret. There is no annihilation but that my poor brain cells. There's no triffids either. No creeping dread, no body horror, nothing but never ending identity crisis. The whole book is a self discovery journey poorly veiled as a sci-fi.

Nothing is wrong with the themes of found family and a path to find yourself, if only it was marketed as such. But when you expect a full on alien invasion, that we keep being told about and see no aliens until 70% of the book is gone, well, that's a let down.

The plot is full of holes. No locks or cameras in a secret government facility for alien containment? Justified by lack of funding? Are you kidding me? Like, they didn't have $50 and a locksmith? Or a minimum wage dude to sit in a chair outside the alien's cell? Yeah, right. Random cosplayer infiltrating said facility with no background check? Giant flying plant dinosaurs are more believable than that pile of crap.

Alien technology. Poor short exposition with no details. What fuel do those organic ships burn? How is it produced? Your guess is as good as mine.

Apparently humanity did not fight at all. Like AT ALL! Because, you know, a few thousand alien sociopaths infiltrated the government everywhere. So the rest 8 billion were like "Oh well, too late, can't do anything, let's get eaten" (insert facepalm emoji).

Where did Stacia's cat go? Why was he even mentioned? Why did we need Lucas or his stupid toxic girlfriend? The message of found family could be just as easily conveyed via Graham and Mandy alone.

Character development was the only good thing this book had going, however silly and immature their actions. We just keep diving back into Stacia's doubts about her humanity or lack thereof and the struggles she's facing, instead of exploring the alien menace and actually witnessing the 'big bad invasion'.

If you're after a book that teaches you to accept yourself and others around you the way you are, without pretenses and excuses, this book is for you. If you're after actual sci-fi with aliens and struggles of humanity against the overwhelming odds of an invading space armada, run the other way.

Overgrowth isn't something I'd usually read it. Sci-fi isn't really my thing, but this book was intriguing enough that it convinced me to pick up more of this genre and it wasn't even perfect anyways.

Anastasia and the other characters' dynamics were entertaining - especially her roommates. Some of their scenes were amusing and I liked how only some of them believed her, it made it more realistic.

If I'm being honest, the beginning was kinda tough to get through. It felt pretty informative, supposedly there was so much happening, but I couldn'r really bring myself to care what happens next. Luckily, about half way through, I finally got the sense of it but it still read pretty slowly.

This is the best book I have read in a while. I was never quite sure what was going to happen next. I will be thinking about this one and probably rereading it more than once.

Overgrowth was touted as an adult, horror/science fiction with comp titles such as War of The Worlds and Annihilation - I'm here to tell you that, unfortunately, it is not quite that.

The best way I can think of to sum up this book would be Independance Day crossed with The Princess Diaries, except if Mia had known she was an alien royalty all along and no one had believed her, and when the Genovian's come to collect their princess it turns out they are in fact carnivorous plant aliens.
The overall tone feels dark, as any alien invasion would, but it's also quite young: the characters are meant to be in their thirties for the most part, but read teen/early twenties at best and the horror starts with a bang and then all but disappears afterwards besides a few gunshot wounds and carnivorous aliens, of course. I also think the book really would have benefitted from being edited a bit more liberally and cut down a hundred pages or more - it took a long time to get to the action, and really lulled for me at times.

The story felt unique coming from Stasia's point of view, she's a great character, and there's a lot of emotional and thought provoking content as she discovers more of herself and true culture. At times the allegories become a little too transparent, bordering preaching, but very interesting packaging to explore them in - there's a definite focus on being an immigrant, and also some trans/gender identity discussion, and potentially neuro-divergence if you read between the lines.

TLDR: If you're here for annihilation style mind bending alien weirdness and horror to leave you second guessing the stars, you'll be underwhelmed. But, if you're after a story about alien plants, found family and a sort of coming of age/deciding where loyalties lie/nature vs nurture style exploration with some minor horror balanced with fun nods to alien pop culture and a heavy dose of social commentary with exploration of what it means to be human - I think you'll enjoy this.

Thank you to Daphne Press for the ARC read.