In Teri Terry's Contagion (first in the Dark Matter trilogy), an epidemic sweeps the UK and countless die, as teens Shay and Kai try to make sense of what's happening. Towards the end, Shay wonders if she herself is a Typhoid Mary. There are so many questions and most are left unanswered in the first, very fast moving episode. It ends on a cliffhanger that will leave readers (including me) very curious about what comes next.

I will read anything that has to do with contagions, epidemics, viruses, and diseases so this was no exception. I was very pleased by so many things in this book but I will say that it isn't for everyone, as much as I want to have everyone read this book. If you're a bit squeamish I would say you might want to pass on this book but if not then read on.

When reading books about epidemics and contagions I always enjoy a map being included in the beginning because it makes it easy for me to follow the disease, virus, parasite, or whatever else is causing people to die in large quantities. I love being able to refer back to the map anytime that a character mentions their location or what is happening to people in different parts of Scotland.

I love how the story is told in the perspective of two characters and both of them are talking in first person. I was worried it would get confusing or that they would distract from each other's story but it was quite the opposite. I felt that hearing from both of their perspectives really adds to the story and is has more of an impact when you find out small details about both of the girls.

Something else that I enjoyed was the explanation for what this epidemic really is. It was a bit difficult for me to understand and I had to read it more than once to get it but I loved that it was different from others I have read in the past. I love that it was something completely out of the norm and something that really made you think.

I normally love books with this subject matter! Apocalyptic books always scare me the most because of the fact that I feel it could really happen. Unfortunately, I just couldn’t love this book. It was hard to get into and I didn’t have that can’t put it down feeling. Also, I feel this might be geared more towards young adults. I think they’d enjoy it very much!

I always got a teri terry book on my book shelves, I love her writing.
I really loved reading contagion it was a easy read, and I really liked the character's.
Contagion is a Sci-fi book about a flu like plague that nearly kills everyone. I can wait to read next book as book falls on a cliffhanger.

4.5/5

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Charlesbridge Teen, and Teri Terry for the opportunity to read Contagion in exchange for an honest review.

This is a fast-paced start to the thrilling Dark Matter trilogy about a mysteriously quick-spreading epidemic.

Set in Scotland, this book follows two perspectives: Callie and Shay.

In Callie's perspectives, we see that she is merely a number, one of many experiments. From the way it is told, it sounds like she is a ghost following around the laboratory workers, trying to reclaim her memory and find out just what happened to her. But what can she do if she is a ghost? She cannot go through walls, like one might think with a ghost, so she has to travel through hallways and doors just like any person. Perhaps finding her family will help her figure things out, but some memories are too torturous to revisit. Callie is a rather vengeful ghost in her hunt for Dr. 1.

Shay finds a missing person flyer, and she recognizes the girl and the date. It's Callie, but she last saw the girl getting into a car over a year ago. Even though it's been so long, her photographic memory spikes, and she knows she needs to tell someone about what she has seen. Shay meets Kai, Callie's brother, and together they investigate what may have happened to Callie. When the local detectives turn out to be a little less than helpful, the two take matters into their own hands. And of course, there is an almost immediate attraction to each other that starts off very fun and flirtatious.

After an underground explosion being covered up by the media, a disease begins to spread across the country. With the fast-spreading Aberdeen Flu, people are swiftly quarantined. Kai soon finds out he is immune, and Shay survives when there is an extremely low survival rate. And apparently, any survivors are found to be missing or have killed themselves. Shay can understand why as she is able to talk to ghosts, conveniently becoming friends with the deceased Callie. As she learns what surviving the flu means, Shay also discovers some newfound abilities, such as mind manipulation. No wonder there are some government soldiers (are they really?) trying to find and kill Shay!

Together, Shay, Callie, and Kai aim to put the pieces together and discover the origin of the disease, how it spreads, and through that, hopefully, a way to stop it before it leaves the British Isles and devastates the planet.

I love Terry's writing style. It's easy, fast, fun, and well-done. The structure of the novel was interesting but somewhat confusing at times. It alternates between Shay and Callie, and sometimes the chapters are exceedingly short. It made the two voices sound too similar at times and I would forget which character perspective I was reading. The book is paced in parts, and in Part One there is a time stamp of hours that I never quite understood what it was leading down to...the explosion, perhaps? I devoured this book, but the end didn't quite leave me with the right feeling. It felt as if it needed just a tad more, to end in the lab where everything began. Now that would be an interesting cliffhanger! But nope!

Anyway...

For a YA audience, I find the plot and characters just right! Overall, a quick, fun read that was rather hard to put down, and I am eager for the second one!

Contagion started off a bit confusing for me. To be fair, the formatting of the eARC didn't help, but I also can't help that I was a bit lost. But as the story picked up, I became more invested. Shay was a decent MC, though not particularly memorable. Callie was certainly more sympathetic, but also a bit less likable- not that I faulted her for it necessarily (talk about being dealt a crappy hand!) but alas. Basically, the gist of the story is that our characters are travelling around their Scotland hometowns to (at first) try to find Callie, and then to try to figure out what exactly the deal is with the plague.

I love plagues, and by "love" I don't mean I wish to obtain one. I love reading about them, because of the lengths characters will go to during them. True colors always come out when the stakes are highest, and that is no exception here. There's a lot of action, and I was never bored.

I was a little underwhelmed with a few of the twists, however. I found them to be a bit (okay fine, maybe more than a bit) predictable. And because of that, some of the time our characters took to reach said twists was a little too much, since the reader can generally parse what will happen. And yes, I'd have also liked to have more connection with the main characters. That said, I was invested enough to want to read the second book, because there are a lot of unanswered questions that I really need answers to!

Bottom Line: Pretty typical plague fare, but entertaining enough to keep me interested in continuing the series!

Shay saw a young girl on the side of the road the day before going on a vacation. Months later she discovers that this girl, Callie, went missing that morning. She calls the number on the flyer and reaches the brother, Kai. They meet to talk about what Shay saw, but quickly find themselves in the middle of an epidemic that is causing quarantines across the country. Will Kai and Shay discover the truth about Callie’s disappearance? What is behind this contagion that is sweeping across the land?

Contagion is the first book in the Dark Matter series. At the beginning of the book I was having trouble getting into the story because the reader knows some of the things that have happened to Callie, but as the story progresses and the protagonists begin to unravel the truth, I quickly discovered that having that additional information gave me a better understanding of the larger picture. This novel is full of adventure, mystery and a little bit about diseases and outbreaks. Terry has taken a very real possibility and has crafted a story that many readers will easily devour. This book was great and I look forward to the second book in a few months.

Contagion seemed very promising but fell short for me. The book was slow, hard to finish and the characters were not very well developed.

I'm a sucker for a good sci-fi dystopian book and when I saw Contagion's cover and read the description, I thought I was in for an epic post-apocalyptic thriller. Unfortunately, the execution of the book wasn't as great as the cover and the synopsis.

In Contagion, Kai and Shay are searching for Kai's missing sister, Callie, in the midst of a deadly epidemic sweeping the nation. While this sounds like a solid one-line premise, Contagion was very underdeveloped from its characters to its plot to its science fiction jargon.

The plot is so slow paced and I cared about none of the characters so this was a very boring book for me. The plot lacks a sense of urgency and intrigue- actions and events seem almost passive and on top of this, the writing style felt choppy and awkward in some parts. And the "twist" towards the ending was very predictable.

The characters felt very one dimensional. Contagion follows the dual narratives of Shay and Callie. Callie was a smidge better than Shay because Callie had more going for her and was actually a decent character (though her POV was a bit confusing in the beginning). Shay... disliked her because she was such a cookie cutter character, made selfish and unsmart decisions, and utterly not interesting. Also, the romance between Shay and Kai literally came out of nowhere and had zero chemistry. I feel like I would've Shay if the romance was turned down a notch because she could've developed without needing the romance to fill in her character arc.

Overall, I wasn't very impressed by Contagion but am anticipating the sequel be better.

Contagion comes out a little to late in the game of post apocalypse plague stories that have been coming and going for the last few years. The story isn't new but it is well written and the characters are strong and likable.
The book isn't bad nor is it unbelievable awesome it is what it is.

Fan of Plague Apocalypse stories for adults or teen well enjoy this latest addition this genre but reader who feel a little warn out might want to pass on Contagion for now.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy of Teri Terry Contagion.

**I received this as an eARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review**

This story was so close for me. That can mean a lot to different people, but for me it came down to the characters and the pacing.

The beginning of this novel jumped all over the place. I didn't like the very small pieces we were getting from each character. There would sometimes not be even a full page. And especially reading this in eARC fashion made it very disorienting. It made it hard to connect to any character and it drove me crazy that each time I picked up the book I had no idea where I was going or what was happening.

I did really like Kai, even having so few chapters from his point of view in this one. I really felt his desperation to find out what happened to Callie, and come on, he drives a motorcycle and has a hot accent. These are all good things. The chemistry between him and Shay was really good, it was just too insta-love for me, especially when they first met over his possibly dead sister.

Shay could have been so empathetic, but I feel like she only ended up helping Kai because he was good looking. That did not sit well with me and it made her very unlikable to me. Also, I got no sense of who she was on a day to day basis. I just couldn't love her and that made her scenes annoying to me.

Callie was very hard to connect with. The mystery of what was happening to her was intriguing but it got boring to me. After 3 weeks of trying to care about her, I just couldn't do it. I just didn't like her. As soon as she started to see what she could do, she kept doing it and I hated that.

I loved the setting, I feel like I don't read enough modern books set in the UK like this, maybe I am just not looking hard enough.

So, in the end I had to DNF this at 30%. I just don't care what the full story is, so I have to give it a 2 stars. Maybe someone else will want to finish it. But I wasn't the right audience.

Thank you to Netgalley for allowing me to read a copy of this book. I was a little confused when the publishing date says July 2019 but goodreads says published in 2017. I'm assuming they are republishing with new covers?

Either way, I enjoyed the story. It had a bit of Darkest Minds vibes where something is released and some die, some are immune and some are survivors. I think my favorite character is Callie and am looking forward to reading the rest to find out what happens with her.

The beginning was a bit strange when it was more of a kidnapping rather than being about the disease that was spreading. The book had a great flow to it and can't wait to pick up the rest of the series.

I received this book free from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.
Thanks NetGalley!

This book is about a biological experiment gone wrong that causes people to become infected. Main character Callie is kidnapped and experimented on in a lab with the antimatter. She escapes and with the help of her brother and a new friend, they try to find the source of the disease. Is she the first survivor of the disease?

It starts off a little slow but definitely picks up. This book is well-suited for younger teens.

Shay, a high school student who hasn’t fit into life in Killin, Scotland since she and her mother moved into an inherited home there from London, has been being bullied. One afternoon, in a scuffle, she falls into a kiosk and uncovers a missing persons poster.

With her photographic memory, she is certain she saw the young girl on the flyer. Unfortunately, it was almost a year before. Still, she calls the number, and Kai, the girl’s brother, not too much other than Shay, immediately arranges to meets with her and find out everything she remembers.

At the same time, Callie, a girl imprisoned in a highly secure underground bunker is forced to endure painful experiments until given the “cure.” The cure kills her, turning her body to ash, but she lives in an alternative form. In this state, she is able to travel through the facility and watch as the personnel who tortured her succumb to a terrifying illness.

As Kai and Shay try to find his sister and Callie attempts to negotiate her way home, the deadly and incurable illness reaches epidemic proportions. Kai’s mother, an epidemiologist, joins the team searching for a cure while Shay learns that she and Kai’s sister have more in common that a simple encounter.

Kai and Shay’s search may lead them to the secret to the disease, if they can keep ahead of its rapid advance and avoid the Special Alternatives Regiment, a secret military group that doesn’t want the teenagers to succeed.

Contagion, a disaster book in the young adult genre, was a fun and quick read, though because it is the first in a trilogy, it is setting up the action for the story, and the ending is unresolved, to be addressed in the sequels. For some inexplicable reason, books about infectious diseases interest me, and Contagion was written better than most. As expected in the YA literature, the protagonist is a smart, scrappy teenager who is pretty but doesn’t realize it and who develops a romance with an equally smart, strong, and handsome teenage boy who is the first to see the girl for who she is. Although this seems to be a requirement, I often find it saccharine and just endure it for the rest of the plot in series like The Red Queen. Happily, in Contagion, it’s the least mawkish I’ve seen.

Here, the disease vector is strange and new. Though it is clear from the beginning to readers how the epidemic is being transmitted, the characters don’t realize it until the end of the book, and even then, there is confusion. Even for the readers, most of the details are not fully explained, and I wish there had been a little more time on the hypothetical science behind it. Iona, Shay’s sidekick, was my favorite character, and I wish we’d seen more of her, though what we did see was a blast.

The conclusion of the book places the characters in precarious positions that will propel the action in the follow-up, Deception, which is due later this year and which I will read as soon as possible. I suppose that’s a good recommendation for Contagion!

This was a wonderful fresh idea to a subject that has always been on everyone;s mind. especially when you get sick. What if? Really enjoyed the journey throughout the story.

Giving this 4 stars because I really liked the interesting take on the "plague" that is spreading through Scotland. Took a while for the pieces to fall into place enough to understand what might have been happening in the beginning, but reminded me a bit of "Stranger Things" in the sense that it's the kids being experimented on and trying to figure out what is happening, without much help from the adults. In that sense it's very believable, and though the three main kids are not particularly likable at first, much is due to them having endured much and trying draw strength from each other as they figure out why so many thousands of people are dying around them. As a teen/young adult book I think it works well.

I almost always enjoy post apocalypse plague stories, so I had to give Contagion a try. Although the story is similar in many ways to other books of this genre, it's got just enough of its own twists to keep it fresh. I enjoyed the overall read. I think it's better for young adult readers, which I am not. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This started out a little slow for me, and I actually ended up skimming past the middle because I just couldn't connect with the characters or plot. However, the last third I found pretty compelling, and I read through that feverishly.

The aspects I especially liked were the science, the setting, Shay's intelligence, and Kai's loyalty. I don't know if I'll pick up the next book or not; I'm definitely curious about how this will resolve, but the pacing is just a little slow for me, personally.

I was gripped from the very first chapter. This is some of the best writing I’ve read in a while - so lyrical but with a sense of certainty. I loved the alternating points of view, especially as in this story we needed to have two different perspectives.

I didn’t really click with either Shay or Callie - especially in the beginning. However, as I got more into the book they grew on me and became a little less annoying.

I did find the plot hard to follow sometimes. Everything seemed to be going off at once and I got confused in places trying to keep up with what was happening.

I loved that this book was set in Scotland. Most post apocalyptic books I’ve read have been based in the USA so it was great to see a UK representation.

Overall, although the characters weren’t my favourite and I found the plot difficult to follow, I enjoyed the fantastic writing and that’s what kept me reading until the end.

Callie is missing.

Her brother Kai is losing hope of ever seeing her again. Then he meets Shay, a girl who saw Callie the day she disappeared, and his hope is reignited.

Their search leads them to the heart of a terrifying epidemic that is raging through the country.

Can Kai and Shay escape death and find Callie?


Contagion started out like a typical post-apocalyptic novel but quickly took an interesting, and unexpected twist. The characters are dynamic and compelling, the "villains" are mysterious and rather than there being a central character to serve as the focal point of your despise you find yourself wondering if there is even anyone to blame.

Terry does a fantastic job of drawing you into the story right from the beginning while simultaneously building the back story and helping you build relationships and connections with the characters.