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/

Overly descriptive. Good concepts and themes but struggled to keep my attention. My full review will be published on Horrortree.com

I liked it, but I think I had high expectations going into it. Strong start that tapered a lot in the middle. Really cool plant horror though!

Very unique take on the alien invasion story. A little too long, but it was fun. More sci-fi than horror, but had plenty of traditional horror scares.

1.5/5 stars, rounded up

The concept and setup for this book was very cool, but I feel that it didn't deliver on anything promised. The themes and messaging were confusing and poorly explored. The humour made me cringe and the characters were two-dimensional, all falling into either "good" or "evil" boxes and acting in unreasonable ways. I also felt the trans rep was quite harmful, with the trans man LI only really existing to make the MC seem "good." It was a slog to read and I probably would have DNF'd if it hadn't been an ARC. Regardless, thank you to NetGalley and Tor for the eARC in exchange for my honest review.

Unfortunately this didn't work for me and I think that's more of a me problem so I'm going to give it a 3 star. I think this mostly didn't work for me because of the writing style and the strange humor peppered throughout the book. I had a big problem with figuring out the tone of the book. I absolutely love the Wayward Children's series, but the tone of those books, put into this style of book, didn't work. I was constantly trying to figure out how to feel about what was going on and it left me a little confused throughout the reading experience. I think plenty of people will really enjoy this though if they specifically really love the writing style.

I absolutely love Mira Grant, her Parasite series was one of my favourites. I love how she describes her world, the opening of this story really drew me in. When Anastasia goes into the forest and meets this flower, I absolutely loved the descriptiveness of Grant's writing and it still gives me chills. I did find that the book really slowed down coming up to the invasion. I did really enjoy how Grant delves into how people would react, though I do wish there was a little more to the invasion. She will continue to be one of my favourite authors.

Anastasia has not fit in since she walked into the forest and was turned into an alien plant. To make things worse she can't seem to help telling everyone that the alien invasion is coming. No one believes her, but they should have heeded the warning.

Science fiction and horror is a genre blend that works so well. This is a very character focused story with a quirky main character and her amazing found family. It shows the alien invasion from the perspective of an alien plant that has been raised human that needs to choose sides. It is light on horror past a very disturbing plant attack of a child, but it is an epic and fun story with an interesting perspective. If you are wanting to read about an invasion of sentient blood drinking plants that does not take itself seriously then this story is for you.

The characters jump off the page, and I enjoyed the diverse cast. Grant does an excellent job of describing the setting and making the reader feel emotion. The world-building is awesome, and I love the visual writing style. The alien world-building feels believable and immersive. There is some repetition, and it’s a slow pace, however, the last 25% was a wild ride. I laughed, I teared up, and the pages turned.

APPEAL FACTORS
Storyline: character-driven, issue-oriented, open-ended, unconventional, tragic
Pace: slow
Tone: bittersweet, dramatic, suspenseful, thought-provoking, edgy, mysterious, bleak, gruesome, violent
Humour: dark humour, offbeat, sarcastic
Writing Style: banter-filled, conversational
Character: awkward, complex, flawed, likeable, strong female, well-developed, diverse
LGBTQIA+ Representation: gay, queer, transgender
Racial Representation: Multiracial

Read Alikes:
The Scourge Between Stars by Ness Brown
Future’s Edge by Gareth Powell
Nightflyers by George R. R. Martin
Bloodmoon by Heather Graham
The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells


› Final Thoughts
• Overgrowth is a horrific, tense, and emotional sci-fi novel about identity, found-family, and acceptance. I recommend this to readers who like plant-horror and science fiction.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

A chilling sci-fi horror exploring identity, cosmic dread & fear of the unknown. It had great build up but I wanted more from the invasion part!(3.5★)

If you're looking for an alien invasion story that has no intensity, no tension, and no action for the first 50%, and is just agonizingly slow, boring, with messaging as subtle as a brick, and worst of all, repetitive, then boy do I have the story for you.

In case you were curious, the only thing that does change post-halfway point is the action. I guess that does exist. Just depends on if it suits you. Or if, after all that time, it even interests you. But it still manages to be slow, cycles through the same thought processes and considerations and situations from before, just with some other bits in the mix. Because y'know.. the invasion does happen. The plant people hiding in human skin suits start to be less human, and more plant people, and they do what they were sent to do. And there is a lot -- so much -- explaining behind the reasons for it. If you're interested. Which I was not.

But what is consistent, no matter the percentage, was the inconsistencies of characters from one paragraph to the next -- which also means this wasn't particularly well-written. Or well thought out. Maybe both. Not that the characters even had much personality to differentiate themselves. But I'll nip this in the bud (snort), I've complained enough as it is.

Considering how my adventures with this author's other series under their other pen name, notably the October Daye series which has driven me to distraction whereas the Wayward Children series is.. maybe a bit up and down but still overall enjoyable, I don't know why I took a chance on this one. Leftover love for the Newsflesh series? A general love for sci-fi? While both are valid, but I still should've known better.

Can't recommend this one, friends. Sorry. I'm just glad it's over.

1.5 stars

A young girl discovers a beautiful flower in the woods, and the incursion begins.

It feels wrong to give this book a 3, because it was a blast to read. I found myself absolutely engulfed by the story, especially within the first half. Unfortunately, the book is weighed down by an anticlimactic ending (or an overall tame story) and a lot of questionable moral statements.

The book looks at identity, otherness, and the nature of humanity. The story is about an alien species looking to spreed its seed. At the start, it reads almost like a warped wayward children story of a seedling looking for a world where they belong and are accepted. Anastasia is an alien. She tells everyone that from the start. Of course, no one believes her, but nevertheless she finds her group who accepts her.

One of the central themes in Overgrowth is the idea of accepting people as they present themselves, even when they seem strange or unbelievable. This feels like its intended to mirror the language of queer and trans allegory, and on the surface, the story seems to celebrate radical acceptance. However, I think the metaphor starts to unravel under scrutiny.

The story equates claiming to be an alien with claiming a gender identity, but that parallel feels ethically and conceptually shaky. Gender is a social construct that is fluid and culturally embedded, while species identity is a material and biological distinction. Framing gender queerness as analogous to identifying as an alien risks trivializing it, reducing it to a quirky or harmless fantasy rather than a lived reality grounded in both experience and social struggle.

More troublingly, this metaphor sidesteps the dangers of uncritical acceptance. We live in a time shaped by science denial and conspiracy theories. The idea that all claims should be accepted at face value, even fantastical or self-serving ones, can be harmful. Some beliefs and identities, especially when rooted in harmful ideologies, deserve interrogation, not affirmation. The book’s message of blanket acceptance might work as allegory, but it brushes aside the need for discernment in the real world.

I can't say this a critical failure of the book, but it is framed as a fundamental aspect of the narrative. The entire invasion is justified by the lack of acceptance of these claims of being alien in the most cringe way. The entire invasion could have been avoided the humans had just accepted what they were told as truth and told the messengers that they did not want to be invaded. As a mechanic, I don't think it fails completely, but it becomes a literal justification by our main character for why humans deserve whats coming.

It is our failure to believe people are who they say they are, even when there is absolutely no reason to believe such an extreme claim. It intersects with my original concern around the harm of critical thinking and asking what is and isn't worth believing. Imagine if the moral of this story was taken literally. What does it even mean to believe? One character is said to have decided to believe what they were told, as if belief is something we can just decide to have or not have.

I almost forgot another thing that really frustrated me: using NASA as the representative of the big bad government. Realistically, this is my smallest critique as its more personal, but I think it is a huge mischaracterization of NASA to lump it (and the astrobiologists within it) into the militant part of the government. They literally worry about a robot on Mars might disturb possible microbes. As a astrobiologist and planetary scientist, I assure you, NASA scientists would almost certainly advocate peace.

At the end of the day, I enjoyed this book, but I feel uncomfortable with some of its messaging. I also think it needed more horror and less exposition. At the very least, it was thought provoking which made for an engaging read, and for that I am grateful.

For a book about an alien invasion, there’s not a lot of aliens invading.

And then it turns out it’s the most casual alien invasion ever lol

Bummer to because that prologue was eerily creepy but it did not in fact set the stage.

3.5/5 An alien invasion from the perspective of the invading alien. Add on that the invading alien does not know the plan or if invasion day is even going to happen. This story had a very interesting take on alien invasions! If the topics of found family and self-discovery with a touch of carnivorous blood sucking plant aliens sounds like a delight then this book is for you. I really enjoyed this story but it felt very slow paced and took me 2/3 of the way through to finally get invested. But man, that ending was poetic and absolutely made it worth it.