Narrated by Caitlin Kelly
Firstly, Caitlin Kelly did a great job narrating and is probably the sole reason I finished Overgrowth in a reasonable amount of time and why I'm giving it 3 stars.
Secondly, I was pretty disappointed overall. I think my expectations were too high (I LOVED Into the Drowning Deep), and I thought this would be more of a gruesome creature feature from outerspace. Spoiler- its not. I believe Overgrowth is targeted towards adults and most of the characters are 30-somethings, yet it all felt very YA, from the dialogue to the breakdown in messaging/metaphors (trans rep/visibility, empathy or the lack there of, environmental awareness, erc). Very telly versus showy. I could see this being easily adapted as a tv series, though. And really, it's not bad, just not for me.

Thanks to NetGalley and Macmillan Audio for the advanced audiobook!

This was at its best as social commentary; as science fiction, it didn't gel. Unfortunately, there wasn't that much social commentary.



Review copy provided by publisher.

War of the Worlds with cannibalistic plants? Yes, please!

Anastasia Miller has been telling everyone that she's an alien since she was three years old. That she is an alien plant species disguised as a human and that her "people" are coming for her.

Thirty-three years later and warning signals going off around the world, people are finally starting to listen but is it too late?

I absolutely loved this book. Written in the typical Mira Grant style of appreciation for diversity and science, this story will grab you from the very first chapter and will refuse to let you go.

I unfortunately really struggled to get into this one and DNF'd at 30%. This just wasn't for me but I really wanted it to be!

Anastasia can’t stop telling everyone she is an alien. After three decades everyone has evidence that she is telling the truth. Anastasia has to pick a side. The humans who she loves or the aliens that created her.
Mira is smarter than I will ever be. There’s so much important discussions occurring in the confines of Anastasia story. The biggest one in my opinion is nature vs. nature. I have never read a book like this before. Now I am going to google “books like overgrowth by Mira grant”
I felt genuinely distressed by some of the thoughts and feelings Anastasia has towards humans. I listened to the audiobook and I recommend because the narrator does an unearthly amazing job at bringing Anastasia to life.
l I knew 20 percent in that this book was gonna be 5 stars and I needed to read everything Mira has written and will write in the future. I loved the representation of the good and bad humanity has to offer
Thank you to the publisher and author for providing me with a ARC

Great characters and story. Read book and listened to audiobook, great experience. Thanks to Netgalley for the opportunity to read and listen to this new book

I thoroughly enjoyed this creepy and unsettling read about an alien invasion. I love Grant's writing style; I find all of her work extremely engaging. This had an amazing opening that had me immediately hooked, and I loved the ending. There were some slight pacing issues as it got extremely slow in the beginning. However, it did pick back up, and I found the pacing in the second half to be much better. The characters were likeable, and the character development was strong.

The audiobook was excellent. Caitlin Kelly did a fantastic job of narrating the audiobook. Her voice and tone fit this story perfectly, and she was always precise and clear. I absolutely loved her performance.

My name is Anastasia Miller and I am the vanguard of an alien invasion.

Anastasia wandered off into the woods at age 3 and disappeared. She found a mysterious plant in the woods and touched it. A few days later she emerges from the woods and she is not the same and never will be again. At that moment, Anastasia was no longer Anastasia, she was an alien. Forever after, she nearly always introduces herself as an alien. And, as it turns out, that invasion does occur, 30 years later. She IS an alien, and human life on earth, is over. Does any shred of humanity survive? You'll have to read this to find out!

I loved the first half or even 60 percent of this audiobook. After that, everything tilted in a direction I outright disliked. Aside from being rather silly-I mean any child or young adult telling everyone they are an alien and the vanguard of a forthcoming invasion is going to attract attention, amiright? Not the good kind of attention, either. It's the kind that will have you facing 4 rubber walls in a room with no windows. While Anastasia does see numerous therapists throughout her childhood, no one ever really does anything about it.

In spite of that kind of silliness, I did like Anastasia at first. I liked her quirky roommates, some of whom actually believed her, and I loved her boyfriend Graham. The character dynamics and interactions were engaging and I was settling in for a rollicking alien invasion story where the quirky main character somehow conquers all. But that is not what I got. I don't even know what I got to be honest with you.

In the last half or maybe even last third, things just went off the rails. We were following Stasia and her friends while just outside of view the world was ending. What? Everything became convoluted and strange and sometimes I wasn't even sure what was going on. I feel like the story didn't know where it wanted to go or where to place its focus. These were like...plant people, but not. Sometimes they had abilities that seemed ridiculous for plants...I don't know, somewhere along the way the narrative lost me. The characters began to irritate me and the whole thing lost any sense of believability that it had, if it ever had any at all. (Again, kind of silly.)

I was so psyched when I started this audio, and I can't remember a time when my feelings on a book changed so much between the start and the finish. There were some admirable things here, the interactions between the roommates and friends, and the social commentary that went along with that. But whatever other message was trying to be sent just didn't hit the target, at least not for this reader.

The narrator, Caitlin Kelly was incredible. If she wasn't I might have abandoned this story shortly after the halfway point. She kept me listening even while my interest was waning. (Her performance gets all 5 stars.)

Overall, being that I liked the first half and mostly hated the last half, I settled on a 3 star rating. As always, your mileage may vary and probably will. I'm not sorry I read it, but I'm glad it's over.

*ARC from audio publisher

This was loaded, in both ways of wonder and emotional counterpart. Overgrowth is a tall order of a book - to create a world where someone says they're an alien and that there will be an human-devouring plant alien invasion - and it's true. While I enjoyed the world build of this and how actually thought provoking this was - it was just A LOT. I think if this was cut a good 30% of the back and forth, it'd still capture this sci-fi/horror quite well.

This started off brilliantly. The pacing with Anastasia's missing as a child to her emerging from the woods, claiming that she was an alien. We were then introduced to her at 35, with roommates and a mundane job that she didn't mind and excelled at. Anastasia (now Stasia) was also in a great relationship. But then it was true - there were signs of an invasion impending as more and more of these plant-lifeform aliens were exposed. The author built this so well and through the eyes of Stasia - she captured the experiences illustriously. But my attention span started to taper off little by little because it became so repetitive.

All in all - it was just A LOT. The audio narration was entertaining and done well - but there were definitely times where my attention just weened off because it felt like I was going in circles way too many times.

Thank you to NetGalley and MacMillan Audio for a copy of this. All opinions are my own.

I finished this book a few days ago and wanted to reflect (a bit) about what I thought about this book before writing my review. I haven't stopped thinking about the ending since I finished Overgrowth. I really liked all of the characters and loved the relationship between Stasia and Graham. And plant aliens?? I thought that was a really unique approach to aliens.

As for the downsides, I do wish that we saw more of what was going on in the rest of the world and not just with this small group of people. I also thought the actual invasion could've been a bit better.

This is actually my first book by Mira Grant/ Seanan MacGurie (I actually didn't realize they were the same person until after I finished the book) but it definitely won't be my last.

I loved this audiobook so much that I had to buy the physical copy to get an immersive experience.
What a different sci fi/horror experience this was- all original for me- and with multiple layers to it.
Meet Stasia Miller- just a girl living in this world,making the best of what she’s got. Only she’s not just a girl- she’s a plant, and an alien to boot!
As Stasia comes to terms with what that means, the rest of the world finds out aliens do exist.
Chaos ensues- in the most chaotic way possible.
People’s loyalties are tested, friendship's are strengthened, and Anastasia Miller discovers who her family really is.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves horror,,sci fi, and romance.

Overgrowth is a stand-alone story of alien invasion with some interesting twists. You know that quirky friend you have who insists on telling everyone about some outlandish belief they have, and everyone just nods because it’s not worth arguing about? Of course you don’t believe them, not really. The main character, Stasia, is that friend, and she has been telling everyone who will listen that she is an alien and that an alien armada is coming. The trouble is, she really is telling the truth.

I really liked introverted, cat-loving Stasia and her geeky friends. They reminded me of people I know. I liked how the author used her premise to explore concepts like identity and family, trust and acceptance. I thought the aliens and their motivations were interesting. It’s a long book though, and slower paced than I expected for a tale of alien invasion involving vampire plants from outer space.

Give this a try if you enjoy character-driven speculative fiction with quirky characters, found family, LBGTQ rep, freaky aliens, and fun pop culture references.

The audiobook production was excellent, and Caitlin Kelly’s narration contributed to my enjoyment of the story. She was fun to listen to, with good pacing, clear pronunciation, distinctive voices to suit each character, and the ability to convey mood, emotion, and humor effectively. The story works very well as an audiobook.

Thanks to Macmillan Audio for providing me with a free advanced review copy of the audiobook through NetGalley. I volunteered to provide an honest review.

Well this was a ride to say the least.

I went into this pretty blind. I had a couple of friends who were pretty excited about it, so I decided to go for it, and that’s probably the best way. If you are interested in the premise, I wouldn’t go digging too much further into the reviews at the risk of getting spoiled. I know I really don’t want to talk too much about the ending.

I will say I highly recommend the audiobook. The narrator is great, and the book is a little overwritten and could have gone for another round of editing. If I had been reading it physically, I could imagine putting it down and having trouble picking it back up. As it was, the audiobook really helped me get through the slow bits, and I’m glad I did!

I really enjoyed this. It was a step away from my typical genre, but it was super refreshing. It had a great cast of characters.

I couldn’t stop listening, even at the slow parts because I needed to know what happened next. I was hooked from the first chapter (the only horror chapter imo). Just generally really glad I picked this one up.

Here's an unusual review. This experience felt comparable to the Universal's ET's Adventure ride and after drawing that comparison, I couldn't help but imagine the aliens in this novel as the aliens in that ride. That definitely hindered my experience, not gonna lie. Aside from that specific critique, the novel was okay. I'm new to the sci-fi scene, and this didn't really scratch that particularly sci-fi itch I'm suffering from. The audiobook narrator was alright, not my favorite.

For fans of Little Shop of Horrors, that's for sure.

I wanted to like this book sooooo bad but it just fell short for me. No, it didn’t fall short. It was a total flop. I should have known when the comps for it kept changing. I was hoping for some hardcore alien invasion stuff, and maybe how a diverse cast of characters came together to fight a common enemy. I’ve been jonesing for something like that! Instead, we got the author’s ham-fisted approach at stuffing every type of minority person they could think of into this story, and then continuously jamming it down our throats on why society hates them. At first, it was an acknowledgement of these groups. After hours of listening to it LITERALLY OVER AND OVER AND OVER, it was too much. And at 27%, we only have a transmission, but still no aliens. I can’t do 16 hours of this. Had the author focused on weaving those ideas in subtly while at the same time moving the plot forward, it has the potential to be great. I mean, it’s hard to go wrong with a premise like that. But the focus wasn’t really on the plot. It was about meeting a quota. Which really is a shame, because it takes away from the groups you are trying to lift up. Also, I had a really hard time believing that the MC was a 35 year old woman. The narrator absolutely did not fit that role. It read more like a 19 or 20 year old character playing dress up. This story would more accurately be described as upper-YA to NA. And I don’t know what comps this would actually be, but it wasn’t close to any of the ones described. I’m sure this story will be great for someone in a younger audience that is interested more in the author’s message than the actual plot moving forward, but it’s not for me. I probably won’t read anything from this author in the future.

Huge thanks to Macmillan Audio and NetGalley for sending me this ARC for review! All of my reviews are given honestly!

I was listening to this while trying to battle wild roses and virginia creeper in my yard, which was perfect for this story. I love Mira Grant and I love this book. The narrator was wonderful. Can you even imagine warning everyone and no one listening?
I love this so much I am thinking about buying it on Audible for a relisten.

Thank you NetGalley, the Publisher and Author for an ALC of this work in exchange for my review.

Overgrowth is a compelling Sci-fi-Horror-Comedy that was overall very okay. There was a lot I liked about it and I definitely got the little shop of horror vibes, the one thing that really got me was the change of the story's pacing. The narration was fine as well, it's a solid scifi book and Mira Grant's prose is easy to read. 3.5/5 rounding up.

This is a slow moving (some would say creeping) sci-fi book about the lead up to an alien plant invasion. Mira Grant weaves a tale that feels inspired by Little Shop of Horrors and the nods to the play were utterly fantastic.

You can hear the audiobook author take a very loud gasping breath every few seconds and while it initially drove me crazy I got used to it rather quickly.

I absolutely adore Mira Grant. Her sharp intellect, razor edged prose, and ability to blend cutting edge science with compelling narratives put her in a league of her own. She's the Michael Crichton of her generation, without a doubt. Her meticulous research and effortless command of complex scientific and societal themes always elevate her work above typical genre fare.

Overgrowth has all the hallmarks of a Mira Grant story: bold ideas, layered social commentary, and that eerie sense of “this could actually happen.” The environmental and political satire is beautifully understated, weaving in not just climate change but broader cultural anxieties that hit uncomfortably close to home. It’s clever, relevant, and often chilling in its plausibility.

That said, Overgrowth wasn’t my favorite of her books. While I appreciated the concept and the execution of the themes, the pacing dragged for a significant portion of the story. After a gripping first quarter, the narrative stalls and becomes repetitive until the final act. It’s not that the material isn’t interesting, it’s that it cycles through the same beats too often, which dulled some of the momentum.

Thankfully, in classic Mira Grant fashion, the ending makes up for it. It’s explosive, thought provoking, and deeply satisfying. Exactly the kind of finale you come to expect from Grant. Though Overgrowth may stumble a bit in pacing, it still showcases Grant’s brilliance and confirms why she remains one of the most exciting voices in speculative fiction today.

Many thanks to NetGalley, Macmillan Audio, and Mira Grant for the audio ARC in exchange for my honest reviews.

Thank you Macmillian Audio and Netgalley for the ARC.

NGL, I had to sit and stare at the wall when finishing this, and I am honestly not sure what my thoughts are. This book is well written, combining sci-fi and horror in the best ways. It left me feeling disturbed, confused, and angry. So angry.

But not at the aliens. At the humans. The solution to the entire problem was right there, so obvious, and we resorted to violence, again.

I appreciated the main characters complexity within their relationships with their friends and loved ones, as well as the trouble of biological family vs found family and when they are at odds with each other. I like the raw level of emotional depth within this story.

If you want a happy ending, put this book away. If you want to feel like a totally different person forever, then pick this one up.