Rounding up to 4 stars because in the end I like a lot more about it than the things that didn't work as well for me.

Overgrowth is a found family adventure story set on the eve - and during the event of - an alien invasion, one that's been warned for about thirty-some-odd years. It's Invasion of the Body Snatchers, but very queer and told from the first person point of view of one of the snatched as she has to figure out her life as literally, a plant person alien invader, even though she's been "human" as far as she could remember (which is only since about age 3 when the person she was was eaten by an alien flower and the person she is was birthed out of that).

Overgrowth is full of gorgeous descriptions of vegetation across the spectrum (I can only imagine how hard it must have been to come up with varying ways to describe plants and plant life for 400+ pages) and more deeply, the queer experience as Anastacia herself is queer, her boyfriend is trans, and the whole plant person thing can easily be an allegory for trans existence/acceptance as well - certainly Stacia pulls the similarities more that once.

And that's what doesn't quite work, either. Overgrowth could have used a lot of editing, perhaps, or just tightening up of how often certain messages were repeated. I'd LIKE TO think (though social media often proves me wrong) that readers can get a message and internalize it without having to repeat those messages so many times, but we also live in 2025 and this book takes place in 2031 and honestly although at first it was jarring to have something set so close to today's life, a lot of the points made by the invaders are not invalid and don't seem to be clearing up anytime in the next five years (here is where I would insert a melting face emoji were I typing this on a phone). The middle really did drag for me, even when things were happening, and I think a lot of it was Stacia's internal monologue and self-justification versus self-denial especially when in-story she had too much time to think.

But then again, there were a lot of interesting things! The dream forest, the psychic pollen, the visuals of the aliens, also if I may say the gore and despair because an invasion is not a fun time, not should it be! There were also a few parts that I see other reviewers didn't like (a line about pronouns later on -- vague to save from spoilers) that I actually *did* like, even if they seemed silly or out of place from the OUTSIDE I feel like they were in line with Stacia's character and/or thought process at the time when it came to trying to mesh how these plant aliens lived with how she now had to figure out what she assumed the rest of her life might be like. And let me just say, being someone who used to cosplay for 10+ years, having Stacia's bff/roommate credited constantly as "a cosplayer" besides her actual well to do job was very funny (positive) and also like, 'Yeah! We can do a lot!'

Caitlin Kelly did a *fantastic* job with the narration, bringing to life a whole cast of characters (several of whom couldn't even speak "into the air") in a way that should always be credited as a performance over just narration. I'm not someone who's always great with audiobooks (I've been trying the last few years!) so to find one with such high tier performance is always a joy!

So overall I enjoyed this book even though it took me a while to get through and the parts I'll be thinking about are the more positive parts (especially the post-invasion-start parts really) and that's all enough to slide toward the upper rounding part of this star-rating thing.

Thank you so much to Tor Nightfire for the eARC in exchange for review!

“I was an alien. I was not of this world. And one way or another, I was going to have to reconcile that with a lifetime lived among these people, who had been my friends and my family and my home.”

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for the eARC! This book was published in the US by Tor on May 6th, 2025.

What if you always knew you didn’t belong—but no one believed you?

In Overgrowth, Mira Grant gifts us a sci-fi horror that is part alien invasion, part existential exploration, and all heart. From the moment a comet seeds Earth with eerie, sentient flora, Grant roots her narrative in dread and wonder. What grows from those seeds—literally and metaphorically—is a richly layered story about identity, transformation, and the uneasy intimacy of being seen.

We meet Anastasia as a child warned never to enter the woods, and like all the best horror books, she does. What returns is not quite the same girl. Or maybe it is. As an adult, she goes by Stasia, living in Seattle, working tech, and still insisting she’s an alien sent to warn of an invasion. Most treat her story as trauma-induced delusion—until a broadcast arrives from the stars.

What unfolds is a slippery, haunting exploration of what it means to be human when you’ve always felt other. Stasia is a brilliant protagonist: alien in form, alienated in life, cuttingly funny and quietly grieving. Her voice is a balm for anyone who’s ever felt like an imposter in their own skin, or in their own community.

Grant’s prose blooms with strange beauty. The vines crawling beneath Stasia’s skin aren’t just body horror—they’re metaphor made flesh. Trauma and transformation are never separate here; instead, they’re intertwined like roots and memory. The novel digs deep into themes familiar to many queer and neurodivergent readers: disbelieved truths, found family, bodily autonomy, and the terrifying intimacy of letting someone care for you when you feel unknowable.

Even as the ending rushes past in a slightly-too-neat conclusion, the emotional stakes never wither. Overgrowth is less about saving humanity and more about who counts as human to begin with. And who gets to decide.

If you’ve ever been called dramatic for telling the truth—or told you were “too sensitive” when you were just right—Stasia might feel like coming home. Even if, like her, you were grown in a garden meant to devour you. Weird, wrenching, and deeply tender. Highly recommend.

📖 Read this if you love: queer sci-fi, neurodivergent-coded protagonists, slow-burning existential dread, and metaphor-rich body horror that doubles as a meditation on trauma and belonging.

🔑 Key Themes: Alienation and Identity, Difference and Disbelief, Bodily Autonomy, Found Family, Belonging Beyond Humanity.

Content / Trigger Warnings: Child Death (minor), Alcohol (minor), Transphobia (minor), Medical Content (minor), Confinement (minor), Blood (minor), Gun Violence (minor), Gore (minor), Murder (minor), Animal Death (minor).

This is a wonderful Cassandra of the alien invasion story. Aliens grow their own version if themselves on Earth and give their kids a compulsion to tell everyone the aliens are coming, but no one listens. Typical Earth people who think nothing bad will ever happen. The best part of this book is the realistic reactions of the characters to things that happen. The ending was also excellent.

i loveddd into the drowning deep and sang her praises for years. this is a close second for me!! this did not end how i thought at ALL but i loved it holyy. and becoming a plant person?? sign me up!!

4.5, rounded up

Overgrowth is a sci-fi horror novel about what it means to be human narrated by Stasia, an alien plant wearing a human skin suit. The novel, while being about an impending invasion on the surface, has a beating heart that delves into the nuances of found family, identity, human rights, and marginalization. The prose is inviting and free of frills, and the characters are diverse and eclectic. If you love descriptions of alien ships, biology, and telepathic communication, you're in for a real treat.

My only complaint refers to the repetition throughout; quite a few plot points are heavy handed in their distribution, being spelled out over a dozen times each. While this isn't an inherent issue, as the story is told from Stasia's point of view and spotlights the repetition of actual thought processes, I would have appreciated less redundancy.

If you're looking for a story akin to War of the Worlds or Little Shop of Horrors, this is for you.

I was given a free advance reader’s copy of Overgrowth by Mira Grant from Tor Nightfire via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Thank you, Tor Nightfire!

Mira Grant is the pseudonym used by Seanan McGuire when she writes horror or horror-leaning books and stories. This is the first Mira Grant book I’ve read, although I own Feed, and I’ve been meaning to read it and the Newsflesh series. If Overgrowth is a good representation of her horror work, then I definitely need to bump those books up closer to the top of my TBR. I really enjoyed reading this book, but there’s a lot to unpack here, so get ready. Ready? Ok, here we go.

Overgrowth takes place on a near-future Earth, mostly in the year 2031, and it follows a woman named Anastasia Miller. Stasia, as her friends call her, has an unusual history. At the age of 3, she wandered into the woods behind her house, disappeared for three days, and suddenly reappeared in her grandmother’s kitchen. She was scratched and a bit ruffled, but seemed to be otherwise unharmed. Until she began to insist she wasn’t really Anastasia. Instead, she said she was really an alien plant person and a harbinger of an upcoming invasion of the planet.

Naturally, Stasia’s mother and grandparents and everyone else involved believed the trauma of her kidnapping must have induced this admittedly strange coping mechanism in which Stasia has created a fantasy world for herself to explain where she’s been. As the years go on, though, Stasia’s story stays the same. No matter how many therapy sessions, MRI’s, anti-psychotics, and other treatments she undergoes over the next 30 years, Stasia still firmly insists she is an alien.

This obviously leads to a troubled upbringing. Stasia has a lot of difficulty making and keeping friends, and she endures endless bullying at school. Children can be cruel at the best of times, but anytime someone is different, it’s like that person is carrying a homing beacon for the cruelty of others. Stasia became a target of bullying, and even her teachers began to express concern for her. This continues into adulthood, at her job, in her home with her roommates. Even the friends she’s able to make don’t truly believe what Stasia is saying.

The way this difference is handled over the course of the story, though, makes it obvious that this is a metaphor for neurodivergence. Stasia has a lot of trouble feeling human. She knows she’s different, and she knows she’s not human. But, all of the treatments and therapy have sort of gaslighted her into doubting herself. Like many neurodivergent people, she has come up with rules to abide by when interacting with others and trying to live in the world.

In spite of this difficulty, at the time of the events in the book, Stasia has been in a stable romantic relationship for the past ten years with a trans man named Graham. This was another part of the story that I really enjoyed. Stasia has a moment of reminiscence about her and Graham’s early relationship and the difficulties of being in an LGBTQ relationship. I feel like a lot of people will be able to identify with their early struggles and their insistence on continuing to love each other.

In fact, choice is a big running theme throughout the story. Stasia constantly chooses Graham and her friends when she could easily choose her own people. She struggles with making human or alien choices. When the time comes, and it turns out that Stasia has been telling the truth all along about her origins, Graham and her friends have to decide if staying with Stasia is worth staying alive. There’s a very poignant discussion between Stasia, Graham, and her friends at one point that really illustrated this.

Anastasia Miller did not walk back out of those woods after missing for three days. In the opening portion of the book, the reader knows what no one else besides Stasia knows. Anastasia Miller was consumed by an alien plant, replicated, and released to walk among humanity until the time was right for the invasion. When Graham and Stasia’s friends find out she essentially ate a three year old, they are rightly shocked and disgusted. Nothing else up to this point in the story had truly emphasized Stasia’s alien nature to them, and they had to make a hard choice: stay with Stasia and maybe stay alive, or side with humanity and die.

However, Stasia wasn’t given a choice. Her seed was deposited on Earth, and the flower that sprouted from it chose for her. There are many points in the book that Stasia’s choices are made for her. The entire invasion happens because her species was faced with a choice: invade other worlds to survive or die. It is the desire of all life to sustain itself, and all sentient beings want to live and remain sentient.

I truly enjoyed the ending of this book, but I will not give it away. I just really liked how Mira Grant managed to instill this constant tension while reading. All alien invasion stories inevitably posit the question “Will humanity prevail?” This book definitely answers that question.

I gave Overgrowth by Mira Grant four out of five stars. This book was such an interesting exploration of the concept of alien invasions as told from the perspective of one of the invaders. I think that’s pretty unique in the sub-genre. Stasia is a well executed character with depth, and I really cared about what happened to her. Her inner struggles were the highlight of the story, but it didn’t leave as much room as I would’ve liked for more development in the side characters. Regardless, if you’re looking for sci-fi horror with a dash of existential dread definitely give this book a read!

I don’t read a ton of sci-fi, and pretty much no alien prose, but I has a blast with Overgrowth. The lead-up to the invasion is tense and mysterious, and the actual invasion challenges all your assumptions. I may have cheered for the alien invaders at times.

The story itself is great, but the framing device really knocks it out of the park.

Thank you to the publisher for providing me with a review copy.
I enjoyed this book, although it is definitely much more sci-fi than horror, and I was not expecting that, based on my previous experience with Into the Drowning Deep. The first half of the book is also much stronger than the second half, which struggles a bit with pacing and stumbles a bit with the ending.

I loved this so much I saw that it was Owlcrate’s first quarterly sci-fi pick and subscribed. Mira Grant is an automatic yes for me. Great writing and an engaging plot. Thank you to the publisher for a chance to read it early. Will definitely be recommending.

Anastasia Miller has been telling everyone that she was an alien sent to earth to foretell the coming invasion. Think Silver Surfer, but way more adorable. For years, no one believes her...until a broadcast comes and suddenly those around her realize she was telling the truth the whole time. Anastasia's biological family is coming for her, and they intend to take over earth, but with their messenger having been raised by humanity questions about belonging and nature vs. nurture seem more important than they once did.

I love a sci-fi/horror book. I really really enjoyed Overgrowth! I read some reviews before I dove into the book and I found that Overgrowth felt more "Little Shop" meets "Independence Day." I say this because both are some of my favorite invasion stories, but also Overgrowth has dark horror moments, and really creepy atmospheric vibes that give the shivers, but there are also very human moments and some slightly absurd moments that lift the reader back up after something scary. Overgrowth by Mira Grant would be good for fans of T. Kingfisher and Grady Hendix. There is some body horror elements but nothing too crazy.

First, thank you to NetGalley & the publisher, Tor Nightfire for an advanced copy of this book (even though I didn't finish it until after the publication date).

Overgrowth by Mira Grant is categorized - on Goodreads - as Horror first then Science Fiction. I was excited for the horror aspect as I read Into the Drowning Deep by Grant last year and loved it. While it wasn't jump-out-of-your-skin scary, it was suspenseful and involved mermaids of a sort so I was set up to enjoy it be default.

I thought the same would be true for Grant's latest novel, Overgrowth which turned its head toward aliens instead of sirens. Unfortunately, my assumptions were incorrect.

Overgrowth, while about aliens and invasion of such, leaned more literary fiction/science fiction and lacked the suspense and horror I believe I was going to get.

In fact, I found very little to justify the horror designation. Near the end of the novel, we get some violence but nothing I would deem as "horror." The descriptions of the other "non-human" aliens was interesting, if a bit too high-brow for my taste, but not frightening.

To make a long story short, I was bored for most of this and then disappointed for the last 10% when I realized things weren't going to get any better.

Sorry, Mira. This one wasn't for me.

A horror sci-fi novel by Mira Grant about an alien invasion many years in the making. The book starts with the seeds of the aliens being spread throughout space and landing in different places on Earth. We then meet Anastasia, a little girl who wanders into the woods alone and is taken over by one of the alien plants, turning her into an alien who answers that she is part of an invading alien armada when asked about herself. Stasia grows up and gets a boyfriend when her alien armada sends a message that it is coming soon. We follow Stasia as she and her friends try to learn what they can about the aliens, and as Stasia wrestles with who she is. Dark and layered. A suggested buy for sci-fi collections where Grant is popular.

I don’t read a ton of sci-fi (maybe 2-3 books a year?) but I loved Grant’s FEED zombie series so I had to check this one out. It was so great and half the time I couldn’t even picture what was going on in my head. There was some excellent commentary on humanity and what it means to be human. I loved not knowing if I was rooting for the humans or aliens and my allegiance changed throughout the novel. The characters were what made this great - they were complex, well rounded and flawed.

While the book was good, it was not for me. I found it interesting that the alien plant people could have been autistically-coded, and I don't want to put that on the author's work if that was unintended, but with all the compulsions and fight against the norm, it seemed like a strong parallel to me. So if it was intended, then it's a very interesting lens in which to look at how society treats neurodivergent people who are living the way they were genetically programmed to. If it was unintended, then it's an interesting look at the subconcious internal biases the author has surrounding neurodivergence. Despite these interesting points, I felt the story was a bit too long, and ended up skipping an entire part and not missing anything other than a minor character death, and was able to follow along to the end just fine.

At three years old, Anastasia Miller began to tell anyone who would listen that she was an alien that had taken over Anastasia's body and that her 'people' were going to return to take her to her true home. That was more than three decades ago and for more than three decades no one listened. Not listened and believed.

Now, scientists have picked up signals from outer space - signals too specific to be anything natural - and suddenly people are beginning to believe Anastasia, but now it might be too late. It also becomes clear that travelers from space aren't coming back just for one child - there are many across the world who've known they are not of Earth, only Anastasia has been so vocal about it.

With the arrival of what appears to be an invasion, Anastasia begins to change, shedding her earthly skin and revealing the plant-like nature of her true being. And with her shedding, is taken by a government 'alphabet' agency to be studied - hoping a defense against the invaders can be found. Only Anastasia's human friends can help her before the invasions arrives, but as they are doomed they have no reason to help her. Nothing but their humanity.

I am such a huge fan of Mira Grant (and her other name, Seanan McGuire). Her darker fiction is so powerful, providing not just a good, frightening read, but a deep examination of humanity and what it is capable of in the face of abject horror (as well as the horror that humans can inflict on one another).

What Grant does exceptionally well is make us like Anastasia. Despite being told, just like everyone she knows, that she's not human, we're drawn to her and we like her. There's likely a part of us that isn't entirely sure she's telling the truth - she seems a more likeable human than most! And it's because of this that we are angry when she's taken and experimented on. Are humans more frightening than an unknown, alien species?

I had such a recall to the 1978 movie, Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the 1963 film The Day the Triffids, while reading this, for some pretty obvious reasons. but this definitely stands out for Anastasia's struggle - long knowing that she isn't human but trying to reconcile with the fact that her being alive meant a 3 year old died.

This is Mira Grant, not Seanan McGuire, so expect it to be darker and more gruesome, and also expect to enjoy the hell out of it.

Looking for a good book? Overgrowth by Mira Grant is a dark tale, anticipating the end of the world, with one young woman standing between humanity and an alien species.

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

Great characters and fascinating story. Was able to also listen to audiobook Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read this book

"Three days and six hours after Anastasia Miller disappeared into the woods, something that looks just like her walks back out."
🌱👽💀🌳🪴
OVERGROWTH BY MIRA GRANT IS OUT AND I HAVE SO MANY WORDS TO SAY ABOUT IT I CAN'T CONTAIN THEM! This alien invasion isn't exactly what you'd expect, it's plant related, meaning those creepy and amazing aliens planted seeds on Earth and will soon be coming for their flowers(the plant people that replaced humans)
I love aliens, and I love plant horror, so this was a perfect combination for me, and THE MC IS MY AGE! Do you know how rare that is for me to find such a character in a book that also happens to be my new obsession? My first ace character was from another Seanan McGuire book and then here's Stasia! Queer, alien, kind and sweet and strong and more human than some people.
There's so many things I loved about this book, first that I have to mention is the names Toni calls Stasia and other plant people, those names made me chuckle and sparked my love for that character. Then there's Stasia, and her trans boyfriend, and the way their relationship was described gave me warm and fuzzy feelings. I usually don't care about romance in books, but these queers had my heart. Also there's not too much romance, it was the perfect amount. Another thing I loved was that the alien plants wanted to eat humans, well human blood, I honestly expected this to be more plant-based(pun not intended) story, but I got so excited that they weren't vegans and were still craving humans. I know, weird thing to be excited about, but that made them somehow even more fascinating.
Despite aliens being described that way and that we were supposed to be scared of them, truly terrifying thing in this book(well in reality too) for me was the government that abducted Stasia and her friends and was keeping them isolated and doing experiments on them and justifying their actions because they were "protecting humanity". Yeah no, sketchy creepy people, not very humane of you.
One thing that I can complain about is that this book was several pages too long for me, but it's not the authors fault, my attention span is becoming shorter and shorter and I need shorter books, even when I end up loving them entirely, I still feel like they were a little too long for my liking. Again not the books fault, it's just me.

Honestly 2025 is becoming my horror year because I’ve gone from not liking these types of books to devouring them. Overgrowth is body snatchers in 2025 with some parts of longing and all parts creepy. I loved this from the start. Mira Grant’s writing is descriptive and truly pulls you right into this world. She’ll make you question so much. I love that this has jump started my foray into horror.

This started out very interesting, but I wasn’t enjoying it by the end. I’m not sure if this was just a “not to my taste” thing, so I’m curious to hear what others think.

Content warning: the prologue depicts the death of a young girl.

The protagonist of this story is Anastasia Miller (Stasia). There was a little girl of that name, who found a strange flower in the woods. The flower seized her, consumed her, and created a perfect facsimile with all her memories. She goes home, tells Stasia’s mother that she’s not her daughter, she’s an alien, and Earth is going to be invaded soon. And she grows up that way, with the adults in her life gradually shifting from “oh what an imagination she has!” to concern over her delusions. But she’s never a danger to anyone, it’s just a quirk she has, so she basically grows up and lives normally. Just also knowing she’s an alien and the invasion is coming.

Fast forward to her 30s. She’s got a job, roommates, a boyfriend, and a cat (named Seymour, as a little joke towards the fact she’s a carnivorous alien plant out to eat all the humans). And an observatory announces they’ve detected a signal, proof that humanity isn’t alone - and Stasia somehow knows it’s her people, that the invasion is here.

The first part of the book was great. Stasia grappling with her own identity as both a human & not. Her friends and loved ones dealing with it as well - even those who sincerely thought they had believed her were nonetheless shocked to learn that she was actually telling the literal truth. I’d describe it as an allegory for the challenges involved in interactions between the neurotypical and their loved ones who are neurodivergent and/or struggling with mental illness, along with some political commentary about humanity’s rather impressive ability to ignore problems far longer than we should.

The back half of the book, featuring the actual invasion, was much weaker. The reaction of the actual-humans to the arrival of aliens was very cliched, in my opinion. It all felt like the kind of “wow humans suck” that I’ve read many times in science fiction, which is fine as a point, but I’ve seen it done much better. As for the ending, I didn’t like it at all. Left a definite bad taste in my mouth.

Averages out to a middling book, overall. Interesting premise, started strong, finished poorly.

I've been waiting for another Mira Grant book for years, and this one is certainly worth the wait. Grant is back with a bunch of science-y horror goodness, and on top of that packs a punch with her found family and discussions of humanity. The alien invasion that Grant has concocted here is a fascinating one, with so many different elements in play; it's clear that a lot of thought has been put into the invading species, and the invasion as a whole. I loved Stasia as a main character, and her internal debate and coming of...alien-ness was a fascinating one, and made the story more interesting than it would have been if we had just seen it through the eyes of a regular human. I think the only thing that made this miss a full 5 stars for me is the fact that the level of science felt reduced compared to the other Mira Grant novels that I've read. Previously you could tell how much research she put into each of her books, and it really showed, but with this one I didn't feel that quite as much and I feel like it made it seem like something was missing. We once again got a diverse cast of characters though, and all of them were wonderful (or well, most of them were wonderful) and the whole thing makes you wonder what you would do in a situation like that, what kind of person you would be. While it's certainly not my favorite Mira Grant novel, it was still an enjoyable time, and I do believe that more people need to read her work, so I will definitely be writing a shelf talker for this one and recommending it to whoever I can. Fingers crossed we get another Mira Grant novel soon (or at least sooner than we got this one compared to the last), and that this one will bring her the recognition she so clearly deserves.