Contagion

I feel strange, as this is a book in a 12+ age range and I've enjoyed it more than I should, probably. I mean I am 12+, but that plus is a pretty big number ;) Either way, this is a well written and fast paced book, which ends with an awful cliffhanger.
There's a girl and there's a boy (good "bad boy" type), and there's another girl, who is missing. Add some bad people, a mysterious and deadly virus, some love and death of loved ones and you get a good story.
The writing style is light and easy to read, with a lot of dialogues.
I'm giving it 4 stars, but it's more like 3.8 ;) The story feels like something you've already read or seen, but it's still a fun read.
Now I'm waiting for the second book!

Callie is missing.

Her brother Kai is losing hope of ever seeing her again. Then he meets Shay, a girl who saw Callie the day she disappeared, and his hope is reignited.

Their search leads them to the heart of a terrifying epidemic that is raging through the country.

Can Kai and Shay escape death and find Callie?


Contagion started out like a typical post-apocalyptic novel but quickly took an interesting, and unexpected twist. The characters are dynamic and compelling, the "villains" are mysterious and rather than there being a central character to serve as the focal point of your despise you find yourself wondering if there is even anyone to blame.

Terry does a fantastic job of drawing you into the story right from the beginning while simultaneously building the back story and helping you build relationships and connections with the characters.

I was gripped from the very first chapter. This is some of the best writing I’ve read in a while - so lyrical but with a sense of certainty. I loved the alternating points of view, especially as in this story we needed to have two different perspectives.

I didn’t really click with either Shay or Callie - especially in the beginning. However, as I got more into the book they grew on me and became a little less annoying.

I did find the plot hard to follow sometimes. Everything seemed to be going off at once and I got confused in places trying to keep up with what was happening.

I loved that this book was set in Scotland. Most post apocalyptic books I’ve read have been based in the USA so it was great to see a UK representation.

Overall, although the characters weren’t my favourite and I found the plot difficult to follow, I enjoyed the fantastic writing and that’s what kept me reading until the end.

Giving this 4 stars because I really liked the interesting take on the "plague" that is spreading through Scotland. Took a while for the pieces to fall into place enough to understand what might have been happening in the beginning, but reminded me a bit of "Stranger Things" in the sense that it's the kids being experimented on and trying to figure out what is happening, without much help from the adults. In that sense it's very believable, and though the three main kids are not particularly likable at first, much is due to them having endured much and trying draw strength from each other as they figure out why so many thousands of people are dying around them. As a teen/young adult book I think it works well.

I almost always enjoy post apocalypse plague stories, so I had to give Contagion a try. Although the story is similar in many ways to other books of this genre, it's got just enough of its own twists to keep it fresh. I enjoyed the overall read. I think it's better for young adult readers, which I am not. Thanks to NetGalley for an arc in exchange for an honest review.

This was a wonderful fresh idea to a subject that has always been on everyone;s mind. especially when you get sick. What if? Really enjoyed the journey throughout the story.

Shay, a high school student who hasn’t fit into life in Killin, Scotland since she and her mother moved into an inherited home there from London, has been being bullied. One afternoon, in a scuffle, she falls into a kiosk and uncovers a missing persons poster.

With her photographic memory, she is certain she saw the young girl on the flyer. Unfortunately, it was almost a year before. Still, she calls the number, and Kai, the girl’s brother, not too much other than Shay, immediately arranges to meets with her and find out everything she remembers.

At the same time, Callie, a girl imprisoned in a highly secure underground bunker is forced to endure painful experiments until given the “cure.” The cure kills her, turning her body to ash, but she lives in an alternative form. In this state, she is able to travel through the facility and watch as the personnel who tortured her succumb to a terrifying illness.

As Kai and Shay try to find his sister and Callie attempts to negotiate her way home, the deadly and incurable illness reaches epidemic proportions. Kai’s mother, an epidemiologist, joins the team searching for a cure while Shay learns that she and Kai’s sister have more in common that a simple encounter.

Kai and Shay’s search may lead them to the secret to the disease, if they can keep ahead of its rapid advance and avoid the Special Alternatives Regiment, a secret military group that doesn’t want the teenagers to succeed.

Contagion, a disaster book in the young adult genre, was a fun and quick read, though because it is the first in a trilogy, it is setting up the action for the story, and the ending is unresolved, to be addressed in the sequels. For some inexplicable reason, books about infectious diseases interest me, and Contagion was written better than most. As expected in the YA literature, the protagonist is a smart, scrappy teenager who is pretty but doesn’t realize it and who develops a romance with an equally smart, strong, and handsome teenage boy who is the first to see the girl for who she is. Although this seems to be a requirement, I often find it saccharine and just endure it for the rest of the plot in series like The Red Queen. Happily, in Contagion, it’s the least mawkish I’ve seen.

Here, the disease vector is strange and new. Though it is clear from the beginning to readers how the epidemic is being transmitted, the characters don’t realize it until the end of the book, and even then, there is confusion. Even for the readers, most of the details are not fully explained, and I wish there had been a little more time on the hypothetical science behind it. Iona, Shay’s sidekick, was my favorite character, and I wish we’d seen more of her, though what we did see was a blast.

The conclusion of the book places the characters in precarious positions that will propel the action in the follow-up, Deception, which is due later this year and which I will read as soon as possible. I suppose that’s a good recommendation for Contagion!

Shay saw a young girl on the side of the road the day before going on a vacation. Months later she discovers that this girl, Callie, went missing that morning. She calls the number on the flyer and reaches the brother, Kai. They meet to talk about what Shay saw, but quickly find themselves in the middle of an epidemic that is causing quarantines across the country. Will Kai and Shay discover the truth about Callie’s disappearance? What is behind this contagion that is sweeping across the land?

Contagion is the first book in the Dark Matter series. At the beginning of the book I was having trouble getting into the story because the reader knows some of the things that have happened to Callie, but as the story progresses and the protagonists begin to unravel the truth, I quickly discovered that having that additional information gave me a better understanding of the larger picture. This novel is full of adventure, mystery and a little bit about diseases and outbreaks. Terry has taken a very real possibility and has crafted a story that many readers will easily devour. This book was great and I look forward to the second book in a few months.

4.5/5

A huge thank you to NetGalley, Charlesbridge Teen, and Teri Terry for the opportunity to read Contagion in exchange for an honest review.

This is a fast-paced start to the thrilling Dark Matter trilogy about a mysteriously quick-spreading epidemic.

Set in Scotland, this book follows two perspectives: Callie and Shay.

In Callie's perspectives, we see that she is merely a number, one of many experiments. From the way it is told, it sounds like she is a ghost following around the laboratory workers, trying to reclaim her memory and find out just what happened to her. But what can she do if she is a ghost? She cannot go through walls, like one might think with a ghost, so she has to travel through hallways and doors just like any person. Perhaps finding her family will help her figure things out, but some memories are too torturous to revisit. Callie is a rather vengeful ghost in her hunt for Dr. 1.

Shay finds a missing person flyer, and she recognizes the girl and the date. It's Callie, but she last saw the girl getting into a car over a year ago. Even though it's been so long, her photographic memory spikes, and she knows she needs to tell someone about what she has seen. Shay meets Kai, Callie's brother, and together they investigate what may have happened to Callie. When the local detectives turn out to be a little less than helpful, the two take matters into their own hands. And of course, there is an almost immediate attraction to each other that starts off very fun and flirtatious.

After an underground explosion being covered up by the media, a disease begins to spread across the country. With the fast-spreading Aberdeen Flu, people are swiftly quarantined. Kai soon finds out he is immune, and Shay survives when there is an extremely low survival rate. And apparently, any survivors are found to be missing or have killed themselves. Shay can understand why as she is able to talk to ghosts, conveniently becoming friends with the deceased Callie. As she learns what surviving the flu means, Shay also discovers some newfound abilities, such as mind manipulation. No wonder there are some government soldiers (are they really?) trying to find and kill Shay!

Together, Shay, Callie, and Kai aim to put the pieces together and discover the origin of the disease, how it spreads, and through that, hopefully, a way to stop it before it leaves the British Isles and devastates the planet.

I love Terry's writing style. It's easy, fast, fun, and well-done. The structure of the novel was interesting but somewhat confusing at times. It alternates between Shay and Callie, and sometimes the chapters are exceedingly short. It made the two voices sound too similar at times and I would forget which character perspective I was reading. The book is paced in parts, and in Part One there is a time stamp of hours that I never quite understood what it was leading down to...the explosion, perhaps? I devoured this book, but the end didn't quite leave me with the right feeling. It felt as if it needed just a tad more, to end in the lab where everything began. Now that would be an interesting cliffhanger! But nope!

Anyway...

For a YA audience, I find the plot and characters just right! Overall, a quick, fun read that was rather hard to put down, and I am eager for the second one!

I will read anything that has to do with contagions, epidemics, viruses, and diseases so this was no exception. I was very pleased by so many things in this book but I will say that it isn't for everyone, as much as I want to have everyone read this book. If you're a bit squeamish I would say you might want to pass on this book but if not then read on.

When reading books about epidemics and contagions I always enjoy a map being included in the beginning because it makes it easy for me to follow the disease, virus, parasite, or whatever else is causing people to die in large quantities. I love being able to refer back to the map anytime that a character mentions their location or what is happening to people in different parts of Scotland.

I love how the story is told in the perspective of two characters and both of them are talking in first person. I was worried it would get confusing or that they would distract from each other's story but it was quite the opposite. I felt that hearing from both of their perspectives really adds to the story and is has more of an impact when you find out small details about both of the girls.

Something else that I enjoyed was the explanation for what this epidemic really is. It was a bit difficult for me to understand and I had to read it more than once to get it but I loved that it was different from others I have read in the past. I love that it was something completely out of the norm and something that really made you think.

Contagion by Teri Terry is the first book in her Dark Matter trilogy. The trilogy is billed as young adult, but don’t let age stop you. It’s an interesting read for all adults, young or otherwise.

Callie has been abducted and subjected to horrific scientific experiments. She’s escaped, but things are going from bad to worse.

Kai and his family have been looking for his younger sister, Callie, who’s been missing for a year. He’s recently been contacted by Shay, who is the last person to have seen his sister alive. The teenagers form a bond and are actively searching for Callie, even though the country has been overtaken by a deadly epidemic. Is this how the world ends?

Contagion is very well written. The story is told through the alternating viewpoints of Callie and Shay, which the author handles nicely with appropriate chapter headers. Scotland is an excellent choice of location and is strongly featured throughout the story. The characters are fully fleshed and the dialogue is strong. The plot and it’s twists completely grab and hold the reader’s attention. The ending satisfies but also sets the stage for the second installment of the trilogy, which I will definitely be reading. This novel has earned a 4 out of 5 star rating. I recommend it to young adult readers and anyone who likes a well-written mystery/thriller.

My thanks to Charlesbridge and NetGalley for the opportunity to read an advance copy of this book. However, the opinions expressed in this review are 100% mine and mine alone.

A fantastic book perfect for fans of the Darkest Minds trilogy by Alexandra Bracken. I particularly like that the characters that we read from the perspectives of are initially unaware of what is happening and you find out with them throughout the book. This book was fast-paced, unpredictable and kept me on the edge of my seat and I can't wait to read the rest of the series.

Thank you to Charlesbridge Teen and to NetGalley for providing an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I always got a teri terry book on my book shelves, I love her writing.
I really loved reading contagion it was a easy read, and I really liked the character's.
Contagion is a Sci-fi book about a flu like plague that nearly kills everyone. I can wait to read next book as book falls on a cliffhanger.

“Contagion” is the first in a trilogy, a young adult novel which should appeal to a wide age range. The plot is interestingly involving, and the characters empathetic and easy to care about; and it’s written in a way that makes it suitable for relatively young readers as well as older young people.

Shay is 17, living in a part of Scotland that’s rather off the beaten path. One day she sees a flyer regarding a missing girl, and is startled to realise that she saw the girl on the day she disappeared. The police are not confident her sighting will help since it’s over a year ago, but the missing girl’s older brother, Kai is much more enthusiastic, and Shay soon finds herself drawn into his search.

The search is quickly complicated by the outbreak of what’s known as the Aberdeen Flu, a new illness that is virulently contagious and kills almost everyone who catches it. Before long Shay and Kai are dodging the flu, the army and the police, and they’re now trying to help find the origin of the illness as well as Kai’s sister.
There are some elements of this plot which are likely to be blindingly obvious to more experienced readers but the novel is interesting and engaging enough that most won’t care. Shay is slower on the uptake, but given her youth and the fact she’s right in the middle of events, that’s hardly surprising. Her slower realisations are believable.

Shay and Kai are realistic characters, and their growing relationship is also believable. In fact, all the characters, however briefly they appear, are realistic and believable. Shay’s friendships, enmities, relationship with her mother, and romance, will all be recognisable to young readers.

Teri has a light, easy style which is deceptively simple; it makes events credible and draws the reader into the characters’ dilemmas. This is not the first of Teri’s books that I’ve read, and they all share a strong understanding of how teenagers feel, and an accurate ear for the rhythms of their speech.

This is a young adult novel that will appeal most to its’ intended audience; in making it accessible to a wide range of young people Teri has perhaps made the novel a little too understated to strongly appeal to many adult readers. Nevertheless, I found the novel highly readable, and would be happy to hand it to any young person (say, anyone over about 12), confident that most will enjoy it.

This was a page turner for sure. The chapters were short, which was also nice. I always like to stop reading at the end of a chapter, so this book made it easy to do that. I loved the medical aspects of the novel. The virus, how it started, how it spread, looking for a cure. As a nurse, I love a book with a good medical backdrop. There was also some suspense! Part 4 had my heart beating out of my chest!

The beginning was hard to get into. Around part 2 it really picked up for me and had me reading quickly. This almost felt like two different novels meshed together – one where the focus was finding the lost girl and one with a killer flu like virus. It all ends up coming together, but the start didn’t mesh well for me. Some of the conversation didn’t flow very naturally. There was also a part about family lineage that I felt like was thrown in only for shock value? Maybe in the second or third book it will be explained. While I liked the medical aspects of the book, at times it was a little too science-y. She started talking about matter, anti-matter, particle accelerators and I was just as lost as could be. I do realize some people could feel this way about the medical aspect though.

All in all, it was a pretty solid read. Not a full four stars because I think it got too science-y and the start was hard to get into.

I would recommend Contagion! I actually included it in this month’s Book Battle recs for multi-pov! It was a good story with a solid start. I can’t wait to read the next books in the series!

Thank you to Netgalley and Charlesbridge Teen for a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

‏I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.

In Teri Terry's Contagion, Kai's sister, Callie, is missing. She disappeared a year ago and Kai is beginning to lose hope Callie will ever be found. That is until he receives a call from Shay, who is most likely the last person to see Callie before she disappeared.

With the help of Shay, Kai seeks the truth about Callie's disappearance. Their search takes them through areas affected by a painful and contagious epidemic, an epidemic that mimics the flu, and which almost no one survives.

While the description presents a typical lost child/search storyline, the book is more than that. Notice the epidemic? It is more than a common epidemic.

The chapters are short and are time-stamped which ensures the reader knows the timeline events occurred. The story is presented from Callie and Shay's perspectives. Some reviewers on Goodreads commented they were confused in the beginning but, after reading a few chapters, everything made sense.

Contagion is the first book in Teri Terry's Dark Matter trilogy. The complete trilogy was released in the UK and the 1st book has been finally released in the USA! Deception (book 2) and Evolution (book 3) are available for purchase from the UK.

This 200-word review was published on Philomathinphila.com on 8/11/19.

A ghost, a girl with supernatural powers and a hot guy battle their way through an epidemic. Of course they did not start out that way (except the hot guy). Callie is our young ghost. She was part of an experiment in a facility on Shetland Island. She was cured of the plague but didn't survive the cure by fire they treated her with. After the facility is overrun by the deadly contagion she escapes to the mainland of Scotland. There she tries to find her family.

Shay lives with her mother in Scotland. After running from a bully, she sees a poster about missing Callie and realizes she saw her the day she went missing. She contacts Callie's family and brother Kai comes to see her. Kai and Callie try to figure out what happened to Callie even though they really have no leads. Then a plague starts sweeping through Scotland and England. Kai turns out to be immune but Shay gets the plague and survives. Now she has powers she can't understand. She can influence people and see auras around everything. She can connect with animals around her. Her powers continue to grow and now she can see ghost Callie. It is only survivors or those about to die who can see and communicate with Callie. Now the three of them are trying to figure out what is going on and to outrun those who are trying to capture them.

I could not put this book down. I was riveted from the first moments of Callie's story. I loved how Kai and Shay became part of that story and how we learned more and more about the plague and its deadly consequences. The shadowy government agents in the background trying to cover things up just added to the thrills and chills. I was thrilled that I had access to the second book in the series already!

This book is fairly fast paced but can be a bit slow at points. I love books with mysterious illnesses gone wrong, like Maze Runner. So this one was a definite win for me. The main characters were enjoyable as well. The storyline was unique. Highly recommend!

I really enjoyed this book and honestly it took me longer to finish than it should have because life interfered. It isn’t often that you read something about a pandemic and want to read more. I honestly think this book can be used to draw parallels to outbreaks of disease that we are seeing today such as measles. The story moves & you do not realize how so many people in the world are connected until you look back on the story and what happened over its course. I highly recommend for fans of sci-fi & adventure.
I read a galley of this book through NetGalley in exchange for this review.

This was my first book by this author, It was pretty enjoyable. I would give this book a 3.5 star rating! It was a pretty Quick and easy read!

Out the gate, first and foremost, I loved the short chapters. This book was a wild and engaging read and totally unpredictable. Shay remembers seeing Callie who has gone missing and she contacts her brother Kai with this information. It turns out that there is disease which is being called the Aberdeen Flu that is sweeping parts of the UK and Scotland. The book takes us through trying to figure out the source of the disease and what happened to Callie. It did leave off with a cliffhanger and I cannot wait to read the next book in the series.

Don’t we all just enjoy a killer epidemic once in a while? I have been on a kick of dystopian books lately and I can’t say that I am upset about it. After fantasy, dystopian’s are one of my absolute favorites. This began after reading The Giver by Lois Lowry and the dystopian genre has just gotten better ever since. Contagion brings that typical story of something epidemic-like to the world and I love it. I love seeing the world drown into chaos that leaves little pockets of humanity left because I LOVE seeing how groups of people live after the fact. One of my favorite TV shows was Jericho (post-apocolyptic/not epidemic) but still LOVE the survival aspect.

The characters in Contagion are not the best written characters and they actually all fall on the wayside with how excellent the plot/setting of the book are written. I enjoy that they are from Scotland and this takes place there, but I wish the characters had a little bit more depth. Callie has an interesting POV that I enjoy reading but at the same time I feel like she is the annoying little sister that everyone wants to knock over. Shay and Kas have a more interesting characterization and I feel like if the book had somehow just been about them it would have been much, much better.

I absolutely loved the little cliffhanger twist at the end that made me so upset I had finished! Hopefully I can read more from Terry in the future and I hope my students do too.

My Rating: 5 out of 5 Stars! :)

Favorite Moment:
Anytime Shay talks about physics. As a future Chemist, I’m a sucker for science!

This book was a brilliant start to a plague-riddled dystopian trilogy that’s mixed with a healthy dose of science fiction! It’s got everything: a top-secret government project, kidnapping, murder, mystery, deceit, dark matter, and a love story. I first heard of the story at BookCon 2019 in NYC at the publisher’s booth and have been itching to read it ever since! I was even approved for the ARC on NetGalley in June of 2019, but life finds a way of getting in the way and I JUST NOW got to read it. Better late than never, especially when the reward is a book this good, right?! :D We’ll leave out the irony of finally getting to read about a flu-like epidemic thanks to a newfound abundance of free time from being in the middle of a flu-like pandemic…

Warning, there are mild spoilers ahead!

The story takes place in Scotland, where an underground lab is running a series of secret experiments. Nearby, the main character Shay lives with her mom in a small town. The area surrounding the lab is suddenly plunged into chaos when there is an explosion at the same time that Shay’s adventure begins. She, along with Kai—a boy from a nearby town that she meets by chance—embark on a journey to find out what happened to Kai’s sister Callie, but instead they begin to uncover the cause of the epidemic that is ravaging their home. From there, things only get worse as Shay falls ill and the epidemic spreads across Europe…

There’s so much more to this story than my vague synopsis, but I loathe spoilers. You’ll just have to check this one out for yourself and see what happens next—and let me know what you think!

Also, I listened to this on audio, but also have an ebook and a hardcover. I’m not obsessed or anything… 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️

Thank you to NetGalley, Charlesbridge Teen, and the author for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review. My apologies for it being a year late. (:

An intriguing book to read after the effects of COVID-19, I initially struggled purely because of the real-life implications we have experienced as a whole, but once i got past that (it was more of an "its not you its me" situation) the book was completely engrossing and I devoured the book!

“They say I’m sick, and I need to be cured. But I don’t feel sick. Not any more.”

The book follows Callie who to her brother Kai is missing. Kai and his new fried Shay are on the search for her during an epidemic, especially as Shay was the last person to see her alive. However it transpires that Callie is alive and survived the disease (but she was kidnapped and experimented on, and unfortunately has suffered due to this) Callie is on a mission to break free from her lab confinement and Kai is on the search for her, can they find each other again whilst an epidemic rages throughout the world.

This book was completely fast paced, and there was a foreboding sense of dread throughout the book that really does provide the feels and spooks necessary for a dystopian/sci fi novel. Plus i loved the romance arc within the book, I was completely smitten, and I completely shipped Kai and Shay, and was intrigued watching their romance develop. The book is written from multiple perspective, so it is great reading from other perspectives, whilst also adding to the characters depths. My favourite has to be Callie though, her attitude completely shone through the book, and i was willing her own the entire time!

I would recommend this book to fans of Sci-Fi, i just personally wouldn't of read it so soon after my own lockdown!

This was a page turner for sure. The chapters were short, which was also nice. I always like to stop reading at the end of a chapter, so this book made it easy to do that.
I loved the medical aspects of the novel. The virus, how it started, how it spread, looking for a cure. I love a book with a good medical backdrop.
There was also some suspense! Part 4 had my heart beating out of my chest!

The beginning was hard to get into. Around part 2 it really picked up for me and had me reading quickly. This almost felt like two different novels meshed together – one where the focus was finding the lost girl and one with a killer flu like virus. It all ends up coming together, but the start didn’t mesh well for me.

Some of the conversation didn’t flow very naturally. There was also a part about family lineage that I felt like was thrown in only for shock value? Maybe in the second or third book it will be explained.

While I liked the medical aspects of the book, at times it was a little too science-y. She started talking about matter, anti-matter, particle accelerators and I was just as lost as could be. I do realize some people could feel this way about the medical aspect though.

All in all, it was a pretty solid read. Not a full four stars because I think it got too science-y and the start was hard to get into.

I would recommend Contagion. It was a good story with a solid start. I can’t wait to read the next books in the series!

took me a while to get to this one ,but I'm glad that i finally picked it up and give it a try , will be going on with the rest of the series ,well written and fast paced book, which ends with an awful cliffhanger.