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).

As in typical Mira Grant fashion, this book was unsettling and weird - exactly what I was looking for. She provided a chilling narrative of what it means to be illegal and an alien through the guise of an actual alien. It's a story of how differences met with hatred will only ever breed more hatred. And a lovely story of found family and the depths we go to in order to save and protect the ones we love. The end did feel like it was rushed though. Regardless, highly recommend!

👽✨ Overgrowth had all the setup for a sci-fi alien invasion romp… but it left me wanting more extraterrestrial action. Instead, I got Rocky Horror Picture Show vibes—strange, theatrical, and totally unexpected. Not necessarily a bad thing, just not my jam this time.

I adored Into the Drowning Deep, but sadly, this one didn’t quite click. Still grateful for the chance to dive in!

📚 Huge thanks to NetGalley and Daphne Press for the e-ARC in exchange for an honest review

What a trip this was!
Oh she’s just being cute. She has a wild imagination! She’ll outgrow her alien fascination, but is t she just the cutest?

I found the premise really attention grabbing. We usually don’t know when the aliens are going to come, but here we’re being told the whole time when it’ll happen. Ready or not, here they come.

I liked watching our alien navigate life on Earth. Is she supposed to blend in? Is she supposed to be a menace to society, to prepare them for the inevitable doom?

My biggest critique of this was the pacing. I was very interested in the overall story, but sections definitely bored me a little and I lost interest over time.

https://thequilltolive.comHorror, science fiction and climate change all feel like ingredients to fill a novel specifically designed for yours truly. The existential dread mixed with surges of terror coated in the sheen of technological achievement is just the kind of story I need in this day and age – I know, psychotic. So when I saw Overgrowth, by Mira Grant (horror alias of Seanan McGuire), spreading its tendrils into all three of those categories, I just had to take a peek.

Anastasia Miller is the vanguard of alien invasion preparing to harvest the Earth. She’ll tell you herself since the tender age of three. No one is listening, though, and she goes through her whole life alone, unsure of whether she is telling the truth. That is until one day a mysterious signal is released by a rogue scientist that triggers something with Stasia. It isn’t long before her dreams are invaded by a strange man who seems to share her condition. The United States government also takes notice and begins to track Stasia’s whereabouts as she was one of the most well-known public figures to be spouting alien nonsense. Stasia almost welcomes the invasion, but there is one problem – her boyfriend and closest friends are all human. Can she save them from the fate of the rest of the world?

Overgrowth left me in a weird mix of emotions. As a fun horror novel that has open shout-outs to both Little Shop of Horrors and Invasion of the Body Snatchers, it succeeds. The premise has the right mix of building horror tension of the latter mixed in with the absurdity of the former. Walking plant people who have a compulsion to tell you they are aliens, and an invasion is coming, but as individuals they are not hostile to the humans, is an intriguing idea. With the book being told from the perspective of Stasia, it adds to the tension as she herself doesn’t know how to handle the fact that she might be lying, but even when she discovers the truth, she struggles with how to handle it. She is unable to achieve any levels of subterfuge, though that seems to be far from her own mind, and she’s a bit of a shut-in on top of that. It leads to some darkly comedic moments as she begins to understand the position she is in and how the world starts to see her as a dangerous threat.

Grant’s ideas with Overgrowth are fun twists on and mix-ups of several different science fiction and horror staples. Some are subtle, while others are directly called out by the characters themselves. Your mileage may vary on these things depending on your knowledge. Personally, the subtle ones felt right to me. The outright call-outs are generally not my thing, but I can see their purpose. Where it wore a little thin was there were a few dialogue sections where a character would point out the similarity, a discussion would ensure before another character ended the discussion with “you’re right, it’s exactly like X.” It didn’t happen an egregious amount, but once is my limit, everything beyond that stands out like a sore thumb. But overall I was a fan of the mixing pot that Overgrowth cooked in with regards to these genre tropes.

Where I had some issues is that this book skews younger. Most of the characters are in their early to mid-thirties and beyond, but a lot of the dialogue and narration of events had a very new adult feel to them. There were several conversations about the nature of the invasion and what sort of labels people could place on the invaders, and the morality of such an invasion that felt like I was reading a left-leaning Twitter debate by well-meaning college students. It wasn’t that these conversations were unnecessary; it just felt like most of the points being made were meant to entangle the other side in a “gotcha” instead of trying to actually figure out what the hell was going on. To be fair, Stasia herself, along with all the other Earth-based alien scouts, had no contact with the main fleet so they were unsure of the exact intentions of the invasion, but there are only so many times I can handle the same debate between different groups of people. To be doubly fair, discussions of politics in America do have that theatre over substance quality to them, but that didn’t seem like the point the novel was trying to make.

The characters in general were fine, even if they suffered a little bit from arrested development. Stasia was a good voice to filter the story through, even if she was mostly an observer. Her trajectory was a little too clean for my tastes in terms of development and growth, but that’s a personal taste issue. I did enjoy her boyfriend, Graham, a trans man on the search for reptiles in the swamps of Florida. He brought up the most interesting bits of conversation and was generally a strong support for Stasia in her times of need. I wish there was a bit more to him than his near-unwavering support for Stasia, but he was above serviceable. The honest to god standout character though, was Toni, the rogue scientist responsible for leaking the alien signal to the public. She was unhinged, logical, and switched sides several times at the drop of a hat. She constantly wore a lampshade as a hat, reminding the crew that she was liable to betray them at any promise of redemption from the U.S. government. She was mean, funny, and obnoxious. Her antics do wear a little thing in the way that someone who has to be in every conversation at the party does, but she really added to the more pulpy horror aspects of the book.

Where Overgrowth falls just a bit shorter for me is that I didn’t really get much out of the ordeal. The invasion itself is anti-climactic, though I actually enjoyed this aspect. However, it just doesn’t really land for me. Usually, when something is anti-climactic purposefully, it feels like a period that cuts off a longer sentence. This instead felt like a run-on sentence that didn’t address the question it was trying to answer. There weren’t clever metaphors that alluded to climate change. The misanthropy was high, but assumed you, the reader, would bring your own hatred of mankind to fill in the blanks. Stasia herself had no real opinions on humans except for that she hated the people who bullied her at work and stole her stuff from her desk. There was a lot of talk about what the invaders were here to do, but there were no conversations about humanity’s plight or comeuppance for centuries of sin on planet Earth. There were no specific targets. It’s just a horror novel from the perspective of the carnivorous plants.

I’m going to add a little caveat, it does succeed at that aspect. It builds up an existential dread that it doesn’t really matter what humans have done up until this point, they’re just totally screwed by the invasion in some sense. This isn’t atonement, it’s natural law. And I think you can read into that if you’re having the conversation within yourself, and having been exposed to the myriad of ideas that Grant is drawing from here. But a lot of that doesn’t happen within the book itself. It’s all stuff in the aether that swirls inside my own brain as I converse with the logic of Overgrowth. Sure, some of the big ideas are mentioned – overpopulation, over-pollution, over-consumption, but they aren’t really given any context. They’re just taken at their word. And we already know how I feel about that (link for project hail mary). If you were to take this all at face value, Stasia is a nobody who just wants to exist. She lives in a world that doesn’t care about her and is on its way to hell, but look, something is coming to save her specifically. And through that act of salvation, Stasia self-actualizes to then save her friends specifically. The ones who tolerated her alien story, whether or not they totally believed it.

I did still enjoy my time with Overgrowth. Grant’s ability to describe the terror of plants attacking humans is visceral and discombobulating. The premise was well utilized even though I had frustrations with the conversations around it. There were some truly fun characters with some harrowing moments for several of them. But in the end, for me, Overgrowth is just a fun horror story that doesn’t investigate itself and hopes you’ll enjoy the ride.

Rating: Overgrowth – could have used less fertilizer and more holistic care
-Alex

An ARC of this book was provided to me by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. The thoughts on this book are my own./2025/05/14/overgrowth-by-mire-grant-horror-book-review/