While the premise was nice, the writing was... not what I expected. I wanted more from the characters because I felt that what was on the front cover and the front flap was not what we were given.

Did you ever have a friend who has really interesting stories and ideas but tells them over and over again until every time they start up again you kind of just shut your brain down and nod along until they're done? That's kind of what this book felt like to me.

The story starts off with such a bang, and I was there for it. It doesn't pick up again until the last 100 or so pages (where it gets wild), but by then it was too late for me to be completely invested in what was happening.

We know from the very beginning that the MC, Anastasia, is an alien who copied a human child's body year ago and has grown up being raised as human. Most of the book is her coming to terms with who/what she is and talking to friends and acquaintances about being an alien (which she has always been completely honest about, telling it to everyone she meets). She has a lot of inner arguments and discussions with herself, as well. Where do her loyalties lie as her fellow aliens come to Earth for the invasion? She has friends and a boyfriend she loves, but does that matter now that she is becoming her true self? And who is just really, if she is just a thing that took over an existing person's life years ago? How real does that even make her?

"It didn't matter that I'd been a seed at the time, unable to decide for myself who my host was going to be, and it didn't matter if I had lived her life as fiercely and honestly as I knew how. It didn't matter if I was an alien who thought like a human, thanks to nurture triumphing over nature in almost every way that mattered. She was still dead. Anastasia Miller was still dead, and she was always going to be. I was a replacement, but I was no substitute for the woman the real thing might have become."

There is some really beautiful introspection and conversation here, but there is SO much of it that it takes over the whole book and it just drags until the invasion actually starts happening. And then more of the same introspection and conversations happen again, so you're just re-reading what you already read the first half of the book. I expected more action, but most of that happens in the last 50 pages of the book.

There is certainly some body horror here, but it is very mild. I would say this is a good starting point for people new to horror. There is a great trans character and relationship representation--it was very sweet and heartfelt, and it fit great into the storyline of identity. There are some cool plant/alien creatures at the end of the book, but it takes a long time to get to them.

This is a slow burn, introspective book on identity, what it means to be human, and nature vs nurture. I just feel like the pacing was very off from what I expected.

Thank you to NetGalley and Tor Nightfire for the eARC.

4.5 stars!

Did I expect a book about freaky body-snatching plant aliens invading Earth to make me cry? No, but things don't always go the way we expect.

Stasie has spent her whole life informing those around her that she is an alien sent to Earth in advance of her kind's invasion, and who can blame her for the fact that no one listened? Now, as the threat of invasion becomes more and more real to humanity, Stasie must decide amidst which species her heart lies. This was a shockingly heartfelt book, and I'm not sure why I expected anything less from Mira Grant (AKA Seanan McGuire). I'm a devoted fan of McGuire's Wayward Children series but I hadn't read anything else from her (extensive) catalogue until now, and this is an amazing introduction. Overgrowth takes some classic ideas like invading aliens and directionless young women and turns them inside out, with a substantial dose of humanity and effortlessly loving prose. There is some truly striking commentary in here about colonization, immigration, violence, and belonging, made all the more impressive by the fact that Stasie is deeply inhuman and yet a lot more human than many of Earth's native residents. It's a Seanan McGuire book so of course the cast of characters is diverse and lovable even in their worst moments. I am also personally thrilled to see freaky plant fantasy/sci-fi done this well, because I think it's a cool idea that a lot of other books have tried and failed to fully utilize. I will say that I think this is a bit longer than it needs to be and I think some bits could have been cut down, but I don't feel like my time was wasted.

Such a joy to read and definitely makes me want to really all 1,000,000 books this author has written!

Thank you to Mira Grant and Tor Nightfire for this ARC in exchange for my full, honest review!

Happy reading!

Overgrowth by Mira Grant is a tense and immersive blend of horror and sci-fi, exploring themes of survival, nature’s power, and human resilience. Grant’s signature biological horror is in full force, with vivid world-building and unsettling tension. While gripping, the story’s pacing may feel uneven, but fans of her work will appreciate its eerie, thought-provoking atmosphere.

Thank you, Net Galley, Tor Publishing and Mira Grant!

I think maybe I am being a little unfair to this book, but:
I cannot connect how this book had such a horrifying, door busting start, and then evolved into something that almost felt like a YA novel? I was expecting a skin crawling, action-packed, sci-fi horror novel, and it felt like we got a coming-of-age novel with an alien invasion background?
Someone help me if I missed the mark with something, but this just wasn't what I was expecting. Maybe if this was shorter, it could have kept my interest?
All that said, it should also be mentioned that just because this book wasn't what I was expecting, does not negate the talent of Mira Grant. The characters and story are extremely well-developed, and there is dread and anxiety throughout.

Overgrowth is a demonstrated mastery of speculative emotional reality and scientific fact mixed with speculation.

I am actually at a lack for words at how to accurately describe just why I have such an affinity for this style of writing. Maybe it is that Grant/ McGuire can put to pen a lot of the issues I have with American ideologies or maybe it is the intricate alien biology, whatever it is I love it.

My heart hurts just thinking about the ending. An ache that's probably going to last a while.

This book is for those who wish for thoughts of anguish and beautiful connection to take root in the mind and flourish.

This is creepy! It starts off with a bang. The book begins firmly in the horror camp, but then it evolves. The narration wasn’t my particular cup of tea, but I can see how other sci-fi readers will appreciate this story. I love to see new sci-fi from female authors.

"Overgrowth" starts with a bang, and never quite hits that mark again. The opening chapter is so eerie, tense, and horrifying - straight up immediate child murder! I was instantly enraptured. And then... we spend way, way, WAY too much time hearing about Anastasia, the clueless and awkward alien, and her array of quirky friends. The tone shift is insane; it goes from dark to almost cozy, and all the characters have the same cheesy sense of humor as they navigate the stresses of an upcoming alien invasion. There's some action and some social commentary, and eventually darkness does creep back in to the narrative, but the whole thing feels very... YA, almost? It just doesn't work for me. I really thought this might be a great action-paced science fiction horror, and instead, it's more campy. Mira Grant has some sentences that are bangers - I've always enjoyed her writing - but the style she employs in this one just didn't really match the tone of the story for me.

Overgrowth is another Mira Grant book about a person gathering together a family-like team to deal with the apocalypse...it's another pod people story...and yet, it is completely engrossing and its own thing. For one, the POV of the book IS the pod person. Grant asks, "What does it mean to be in a culture but not of it?" but also another dozen questions about identity and humanity, friendship and trust and love, all in the midst of a tense book about an alien invasion. Highly recommended.

Thank you to Netgalley and Tor Nightfire for sending me an early copy of this book! All opinions are my own!

Where do I start with this book? From the very beginning, I knew it was going to become a new favorite. The way that Grant so immediately immerses you in the story and the otherworldliness of it all is something of an art. I loved the craft of this book in the way that it makes you entrench yourself in the truth of humanity while also bringing out such horrors and true alien-ness.

This is a story with all the sides of humanity at its heart. Sure, the horrors of humanity are on showcase, but I think the true life of the story is the love, inclusion, selflessness that Grant pours through these characters and their stories. Stasia builds her own family and shows the world - the universe - what it truly means to love. She's also the epitome of staying true to yourself no matter the situation. Though she was going through so much change, she never wavered from who she wanted to be and who she wanted to love.

This is such a carefully crafted love story to humanity, and I cannot wait for it to go into the world that so desperately needs to see it.

I love the way that Mira Grant blends science fiction and horror together. This was such a cool concept from the very beginning - an alien in a human's body who has been warning everyone the invasion is coming, but of course, no one listens to her. I liked Stasia a lot, as well as her quirky cast of friends. The aliens were so interesting and I would love future books about them, too. The only thing I disliked is that as far as I can tell, no one mentioned what happened to the cat at the end. Did he become an alien too?

5 stars, is anyone surprised? truthfully, this is more like a 4.5 but i am definitely rounding up because everyone knows i am a seanan / mira stan and this book is no exception.

Overgrowth is told from the point of view of Anastasia, who is an alien that has been raised as a human since age three. She has been telling everyone that she is an alien and the invasion is coming, and people react as you would expect - by ignoring her, at best. Turns out, she was right, oopsies, and now the armada is here, and everyone is fucked.

At it's core, this is a Body Snatchers type story that draws a lot of inspiration from War of the Worlds. It's also a cautionary tale about climate change, and like a lot of scifi it contains a certain amount of proselytizing and commentary on the subject. Neither is undeserved nor innacurate, and I appreciate the clear amount of research that Grant put into her scifi novels. i always feel like learn something whilst in the grips of ajbect horror; it's nice.

Without spoiling anything, this was such a ride, and one of the least predictable books i have had the pleasure of reading. I wasn't sure if I was rooting for humanity or the aliens until very close to the end. We also have some really excellent diversity in the supporting characters which is a breath of fresh air in a publishing landscape where generic LGBT / POC archetypes are shoehorned into every novel ever.

Warning: This book has some intense and graphic body horror. There's also a pretty rough scene, right in the beginning, involving the death of a child that was really hard to read, and i'm typically a person who pointedly ignores trigger warnings.

I really wanted to like this one. I'm a huge fan of Seanan McGuire/Mira Grant/A. Deborah Baker. I love most of what she writes, in each of her personas - but every now and again I find a book that just doesn't resonate with me. This (like Middlegame - despite loving the Up-And-Under books) was one of those.

She is a fabulous writer. She crafts wholly engaging worlds, populated with wholly original characters. But some of her worlds just aren't for me, apparently. I liked the way this one began, but around 22 days before invasion I just started losing interest - and I don't know why really... I just couldn't stay in the story, even though I was sure Things Were Coming. My fear was that it would take 300 pages before we actually go to Said Things, and I just didn't have the patience for that (this is a long, slow burn - at least as far as I got). Things started feeling repetitive and I was struggling to stay engaged. This one just wasn't for me...

That said, 95% of her writing is absolutely some of my favorite contemporary storytelling out there, so definitely give each of her books that calls to you a try, because I guarantee she has something you will love - even if they don't all resonate!

After falling in love with Into the Drowning Deep, Overgrowth was one of my most anticipated upcoming reads and holy hell does Mira grant deliver with this one. I’m a sucker for an unreliable narrator, but even more of a sucker for a reliable narrator that becomes unreliable and between that, the humor, the tasteful gore, the romance and the parallels Grant draws between the trans experience and the MCs transformation and metamorphosis? 6/5 stars

I will start by saying this book is a heavy read. If you are looking for a light hearted whimsical sci-fi alien invasion book, this is not it. The story is enjoyable and the tension of the story keeps you invested through out. The characters are well written and diverse, and not just because they include aliens. The sub themes of the book though are very heavy, and will definitely keep you thinking about the book long after you have finished. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who enjoys sci-fi or alien invasion books, or to people who really like plants!

First of all, ALIENS!!! This book is a wild ride right from the start, and it doesn't let up! This was everything I needed in a book! Since Stasia was little, she claimed that she was an alien in a human body. Years later when a signal is broadcast throughout the world, people are starting to listen. Stasia's biological family is (hopefully) coming to pick her up). I loved this book with my whole heart, and it was the first Mira Grant book I have read. You better believe I will be reading more by her in the future!

As an avid Mira Grant fan who has reread the Newsflesh and Parasitology trilogies numerous times, I had high hopes for Overgrowth and it did not disappoint.

Stasia has no qualms about telling it how it is: she's an alien. As a child, her human form went into the forest and something else came out. But Stasia has spent thirty years living a human life with human relationships, so when the invasion she was sent her for finally happens, she's got some choices to make..

I love the way Mira Grant writers people. You can't help but root for her characters, even if they are an ambassador for an alien species. The story is suspenseful and very satisfyingly morally grey - it's Invasion of the Body Snatchers for the next generation, and how far should you go to protect a planet hellbent on destroying itself?

Well worth the wait and I can't wait to tell everyone about it!

Overgrowth by Mira Grant

I have loved Mira Grant before I ever heard of Seanan McGuire. I was first introduced to her work when her book Parasite, written as Mira Grant, was nominated for a Hugo Award - that year, the person in charge of ebook buying for my local library got copies of all of the Hugo nominated works and that one was by far my favorite. I loved it and quickly devoured the Newsflesh series before I realized that Mira Grant and Seanan McGuire were the same person.

I started reading her works under her own name, starting with Sparrow Hill Road, which is amazing, but I picked it because I was intimidated by her long running October Daye series. I eventually fell in love with October and the Incryptid series, and her Velveteen Vs. series holds a very special place in my heart.

But science fiction has always been my first love with fantasy coming in second place, so I have always gravitated towards the Mira Grant books. After Tor got the rights to publish more October Daye and Incryptid books from Astra (formerly known as DAW) I was wondering if they would also be putting out more Mira Grant titles. I’m so glad to be right!

I remembered reading the initial description of this book in 2023 on Ms. McGuire’s social media and thinking to myself “ oh, hey, she wrote an autobiography”. You see, I remembered reading an interview years ago where Ms. McGuire said that she firmly believed that she was the vanguard of an invasion of alien plant people - she came out of the woods as a child and told that to her family. She has mentioned this on her old live journal and elsewhere over the years. (I always personally wondered if this was a response to a childhood trauma but it is folly to try to armchair psychoanalyze someone you don’t know based on what they say online). But I was quite intrigued when Tor and NetGalley gave me an eARC of Overgrowth in exchange for an honest review.

This book is excellent. The sense of creeping dread is palpable. I was enjoying this book but I kept having to put it down at different points to savor the impending doom - it is not a book to rush through.

The characters feel very real in what slowly becomes a very unreal scenario. I had a few quibbles with the government reactions at different points in the novel but all of it was very minor. The author described it as a “cozy apocalypse” novel, not meaning that the end of the world is relaxing , but that it has a very tight focus on the characters. That is a really good description.

I really enjoyed this book and I cannot wait for the next Mira Grant novel.

I want to be disappointed by this, but alas I cannot. I can only remain solidly neutral. Solidly neutral about everything Mira Grant writes. Despite her ideas being completely and wholly up my alley, there is something about her writing that just does not sit well with me. I’ve tried and tried so many times, but I just can never get immersed into any story she writes. Which is so frustrating, because of the whole aforementioned “every synopsis sounds like it’s going to be my favourite thing ever”.

So here we are again. I don’t think I’m fully equipped to give an opinion on this one. It might be good, it might be bad. I just can’t focus on anything except the clobbery writing style. Which is probably a me problem.

Mira Grant, who also writes as Seanan McGuire and A. Deborah Baker, is so incredibly prolific it is near impossible to keep up with her body of work. I have read a few of her series, but lost track of her several years ago, of her older stuff I particularly enjoyed the Newsflesh series (2011-18) and the Parasitology trilogy (2013-14). Best known as a science fiction and fantasy writer, I also featured her teen contribution to the Alien franchise Alien: Echo (2019) in my own YA Horror 400 almanac (2024). Grant has either won or been nominated for a huge number of genre awards, including the Hugo, the Shirley Jackson, the Philip K Dick, the Lotus, World Fantasy, and the British Fantasy Awards. Effortlessly moving between genres, adult and YA age groups, Grant has stacked up multiple nominations for many of these prestigious awards.

Overgrowth finds Grant in scintillating form and one wonders how she can continue to come up with such fresh plots after penning so many other novels. I hope this picks picks up sizable attention and is not lost amongst her prolific output, as it deserves to find a generous audience. Billed as “Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets Day of the Triffids in this full-on body horror/alien invasion apocalypse” is both an accurate and wayward description of what is a very thoughtful novel. Ultimately it concerns an alien invasion, but Overgrowth is not a smash-bang-wallop sort of story and is more concerned with the big questions of what it means to be human. If you want more action driven alien invasion novels then check out three of my personal favourites; Larry Niven’s Footfall (1985), Will McIntosh’s Defenders (2014) and Robert McCammon’s The Border (2015).

There is a massive amount to unpack in Overgrowth and it takes its time getting there, almost playing down that at some point (the novel features a chapter countdown) there will be an alien invasion of some kind. The book is more about how we arrive there, particularly the personal journey of narrator and main character Anastasia (Stasia) Miller, who works in a helpdesk call centre, is in her mid-30s and is reasonable content with her life, boyfriend, housemates and cat called Seymour (there’s your first sly clue; do you know of any plants with this name?).

Predominately set in the 2030s, the novel opens in the early noughties when Stasia is three and playing in the woods behind her house before being sucked into a tree which is not of this earth. She then disappears for three days before miraculously walks out of the forest unharmed. However, from that day forward Stasia has a strong compulsion to tell everybody that she is an alien and comes from a distant planet. She continues to do this into adulthood, with others thinking she is a weirdo, find it cute or has mental health problems. Stasia does not know why she believes this but is certain it is true without knowing why. Her friends are happy enough to humour her, as she is obviously harmless and pleasant company. I loved this quirky angle; the main character is very open about being an alien but is dismissed by all and sundry!

I do not wish to say any more of the plot except that NASA announce that they have discovered a signal coming from outer space, which is 100% alien, and all of a sudden everybody is looking at Stasia with more than side glances. Things get even more interesting, Stasia is not alone, it turns out thousands of other ‘humans’ had the same childhood experience as Stasia. This was an incredibly clever premise for a book which had me thinking of the short lived TV show Alien Nation (1990), what if aliens lived amongst us, do we automatically need to treat them as hostiles or a threat? Overgrowth has a lot of fun with this idea, as Stasia Miller is the most least threatening character you could ever come across, but if given the choice how easy would it be to abandon humanity (who would look after her cat?) for some distant inherent calling from across the galaxy?

In further reference to Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Day of the Triffids if you ever wondered how the science worked in the aliens replacing the humans then you will have a lot of fun with this book, as it goes into highly detailed and creative descriptions. As for comparisons with the latter, Triffids are wallflowers in comparison to what is heading towards Earth! Although this is not particularly an action novel, there were still some wild scenes in the final third where Stasia has to make some dig decisions.

Overgrowth is significantly more than just an alien invasion story; it’s a deeply imaginative and thoughtful exploration of identity, belonging, and the very powerful and dangerous unknown which might lurk in the stars. But even if humanity is in chaos, in dangerous of extinction, Anastasia Miller is still concerned whether her cat Seymour is being fed. This is also a genuinely clever spin on aliens being “little green men”, both partially correct and horribly wrong!

4.5/5