Parasite (Parasitology)

Mira Grant writes intelligent, biological end-of-the-world stories.

This book, halfway between near-future science fiction, horror, and corporate espionage, isn't easily categorized. But it's deeply enjoyable.

It deals with an idea: What if we could engineer parasites that provide medical treatments over a long period? These treatments would last for years, not hours. A parasite that, for example, generates insulin could end a diabetics need for injections.

The society Mira Grant describes takes place years after these parasites become common. The ones that have been put into people's bodies have been carefully tested. What could possibly go wrong?

What a fantastic book! I was extremely hesitant when I began reading this piece. I am not a sci-fi reader or a zombie apocalypse person, but this was more of a medically enhanced plot albeit with truth stretching .I hope they decide to make this into a movie, because I could see it being another hunger games/divergent type deal. I am sad the book is over, because I want more. I didn't want it to end...

As it was with the Newsflesh series, Parasite is a great read. Another group of characters that you will want to get to know more about and hang out with. Mira Grant has another winner with this one.

while I liked the concept, the execution of this story was like reading about pain drying. I think this book would have been better as a short story, rather than as a full book. I love Mira's other work, but I could not finish this book.

The title pretty much describes it. I enjoyed this book immensely, and cannot wait for the next one! If you're easily squicked out(def:if things gross you out very easily) you might have trouble in a couple parts of the book, but it's 100% worth it.

Enjoy!

I hoped to like this book, but was totally surprised to find myself sucked in to the story. Was better than I expected and I'm really looking forward to the next book in the series. Was a believable scenario, which made it an even better read.

One of the most creative writers today. Loved the Newsflesh trilogy, and now I can't read to read the rest of the books in this serious. Grant has created a world in the new future that seems realistic and the premise of the book does seem plausible. Certainly exploits any fears of big Pharma one may have.
The main character, Sal, is a very compelling heroine. This books seems a like more in the Crichton genre than the horror genre, which is a good thing. There is even a bit of humor, and most nuances are well explained. Can't wait for the next one, and hope its a long series!

Grant writes very engaging stories. Parasite gives a new twist on the zombie story, but then again she already wrote the most engaging series of books on that topic prior to Parasite. I am looking forward to more stories from Grant anx hope that the trilogy becomes more.

The concept for the story seemed appealing and I was excited to read it. Unfortunately the writer couldn't manage to move past how the main character felt about the prolific minutiae of her daily life, to actually tell the story. Another thing I found disappointing about this unquestionably boring attempt is, the writer spent the entire length of the story building up to what I'm sure she thought was a profound revelation. Only this revelation was glaringly obvious within the first few paragraphs. This book was not completely devoid of interest and had several fleeting moments of watered down intrigue that kept me soldiering on to the end. The ending "shocker" that was sadly predictable was followed by "to be continued" which to me is a let down squared. Overall this book is like an expensive meal served cold with poor and clumsy service. I will not be reading the next installment in this series as well as anything else written by Mira Grant.

I love Mira Grant,
Her switch from Zombies to Parasites is seamless. The book is fun to read. I never give fives but the originality and complete lack of plausibility based sci-fi was refreshing and left me with a smile.
I cant wait for the next book in this series.

Once again Mira Grant is able to create a totally plausible reason why science could create a Zombie Apocalypse. She's got the science and the story interwoven so well, you start looking over your shoulder

First let me state I truly enjoy reading Mira Grant stories I loved the Newsflesh series, she makes me care about her characters with a twist of hard science. I believe this book is a great start to a new series, I can't wait for it to continue.

If you've read the Newsflesh trilogy, you will find the themes and characters in this book familiar, but disappointing. If you haven't read Newsflesh yet, read that instead. And then don't make the mistake of assuming that another book by the same author will also be good. You'd be wrong.

This book's a dud. Slow paced, uninteresting characters, with a plot that heavily depends on outrageous coincidences. If you have any tendency to analyze the reasonableness of what you're reading, you will be constantly annoyed. You are a young woman who finds out something important about an incredibly scary disease that is striking down hundreds of people: there's a test for it. Your father is head of the local military disease unit -- but you don't tell him about the test because (a) you're worried about losing your own medical care and (b) he's being mean to you. Makes sense, right? Alternatively, you are the father of the above stupid and selfish young woman. For some reason you suspect that she's hiding something, so rather than ask her reasonably to tell you, you keep her in virtual house arrest for 5 days and then (mild spoiler alert) pretend to be sick yourself and attack her in order to scare her into giving up what she knows. I mean, who are these people?

There are also some very basic stupidities about the science in the plot, and you don't have to be a scientist to be aware of them. A big part of the mystery revolves around the idea that nobody (except the evil corporation who created it) quite knows the composition of the genome of the eponymous parasite. Hello? This is set in the future, not the past. We sequence genomes every day now. Anyone who wants to know the DNA composition of an organism can just throw a sample on the sequencer. And (another mild spoiler alert, though really, there's not much to spoil) Sally had an accident that damaged her brain 6 years ago and then miraculously recovered, and in all that time nobody (except perhaps the evil corporation) has thought to run an MRI on her head?

I made it to the end, mostly because I couldn't believe that the person who wrote Newsflesh would write something quite this stupid -- only to find that the end is "to be continued". Maybe so, but not by me.

I loved this book. I bought a used hardbound copy from a library book sale for 50 cents, and then it sat on my TBR shelf for the longest time because it just looked so HUGE. At 512 pages, this was actually a really fast read. I don't read much horror, but when I do it tends to be zombie fic, and I'm really interested in epidemiology. Now this book doesn't really have to do with epidemiology, but it seems like it does? I can't explain it.

Of course I saw the ending (at least as it relates to Sal) coming from miles away. Still, there were several plot twists and surprises I did not see coming at all, and the book kept me riveted throughout. I really like the dynamic between Sal and Nathan, and appreciated that this sci-fi/horror story also had an element of romance. Hooray! It's also interesting to think about the dynamic between Sal and her parents, with them treating her like a child because she only has a child's "life span," but she also has a fully developed adult brain, so she's a "child" but at the same time not. Intriguing to me and my just-enough-to-be-dangerous knowledge of psychology.

I don't know anything at all about biology, parasites, or medicine, so I can't say if the jargon around the Intestinal Bodyguard is possible or not from a purely scientific viewpoint. As a reader, Mira Grant made me believe that it was believable, which is all I ask. For someone with a more advanced medical background, there might be more of a suspension of disbelief involved when reading this book. There's enough medical stuff put in there in such a way that I believed it and it gave the book a very sci-fi feel, but not so much that I felt lost or disconnected from the story. I think that's a very fine line to traverse, and Grant does it amazingly well. Also for being horror, this book isn't TOO horrific, which I appreciate because I'm a total weenie when it comes to gore and the super scary stuff.

Long story short, after reading this as a chaser to Mira Grant's Into the Drowning Deep (which I LOVED), I'm pretty much convinced Mira Grant can do no wrong. I can't wait to read the next book in this series, Symbiont.

I had very conflicted feelings about Newsflesh; I was definitely entertained, yet had a faint feeling of nausea from the all-pervasive cheesiness of Mira Grant's writing. With Parasite, my feelings are much less conflicted, and the balance is not in the author’s favour.

Mira should stop with the formulaic writing. Parasite is pretty much the same as Feed but with tapeworms instead of zombies. Government/corporate cover-ups, big revelations, mad scientists, underground laboratories, excerpts from fictional journals/books/articles, we've had all that (and plenty of it) in Feed, no need to repeat it with a tapeworm. Not amusing.

The premise of the book is flimsy at best. You start with the Hygiene Hypothesis, which sounds about right, but sticking a tapeworm into your gut in response to it is a bit of a stretch. Maybe a Louis Vuitton or an iSomething, but a tapeworm, really?

Characterisation is bad. The meaning of the word 'subtlety' is completely lost on the author. Grant’s characters do not express sadness – they throw their hands in the air and start screaming at the top of their lungs, “Oh, God, I’m so, so, so sad!”, then dive onto the floor and sob for half a day. The quips the main protagonists exchange all the time are cringeworthy. This is not how actual people act or talk; this is how people who stay home alone with their cat/dog and answer fanmail think actual people act and talk.

The ‘big secret’ of the book is clear 30 pages in and absolutely predictable for anyone but a dimwit. I don’t know if the author was aiming for a ‘wow’ effect, if she was, it's really not working. On the other hand, there is another big revelation at around 95% of the book which I completely didn’t expect and which almost made me want to stop and delete it immediately. After Parasite, Mira Grant goes on my ‘no-no’ list, no way I’m going on with Symbiont.

"Ladies and gentlemen, at long last, it’s alive."

While I normally enjoy Mira Grant's work this book didn't really work for me.

It may be because the story is a bit tame compared to other zombie/horror stories or that it was so predictable or that there was so much exposition with only a bit of action here and there throughout the story. It's graphic in that some things are thoroughly described, but mostly we hear about Sal's feelings about watching these things.

I wanted to give this book more stars...but from the hard-to-believe characters like Tansy to the predictability to the unlikable main character I kept thinking the story would become more interesting and it didn't. While the book is gruesome at times there's a lot about it that didn't add up to me and parts of the plot felt forced. I think the format would have been more enjoyable as well without the interludes and all the quotes - there was other worldbuilding that gave us an idea of what we were in for.

This book probably could have been a short story - I don't know where the series could go from here that would make me feel like anything is actually at stake. I'd say check out Grant's Newsflesh series instead.

Parasite is hard to categorize -- and that's a good thing. It has elements of a corporate conspiracy thriller, a biotech thriller, a creepy science fiction/horror novel, and a mystery. It combines a low-key love story with an offbeat family drama. At its heart, Parasite is an "aliens take over human bodies" story, a staple of bad science fiction, but with the refreshing twist that parasites are substituted for aliens. Parasite will teach you more about tapeworms and other parasites than you might want to know, but it tells an innovative story and builds tension without resorting to car chases and explosions.

Sally Mitchell, brain dead and on the verge of having her organs harvested, opens her eyes. She awakens in a blank state, her brain wiped of its memories. Sally has been given a new life by virtue of a genetically engineered tapeworm called the SymboGen Intestinal Bodyguard. Six years later, she's relatively normal, but very different from the person she doesn't remember being before her accident. Sally copes with being reeducated, studied, and psychoanalyzed, while living in fear that SymboGen will stop paying her medical expenses if she isn't an appropriate guinea pig.

Sally's life becomes even complex with the outbreak of an apparent disease that turns people into dangerous shambling sleepwalkers. My initial reaction to this was "oh geez, Mira Grant found a way to add zombies to the story." Fortunately -- since the world really doesn't need another zombie novel -- Parasite takes off in a wild and unexpected direction. The mystery of Sally's true nature is telegraphed so often that the reveal isn't much of a surprise, but that doesn't detract from the story. Other revelations at the novel's end are more surprising, and they whet interest in the next installment.

Sally, her boyfriend Nathan, and the other principle characters are realistic, including Sally's parents, who provide fruitful family drama by being less than ideal role models. One of the characters is completely daft in a dangerously amusing way. Dogs play a critical role in the story, providing further evidence for my theory that every novel is made better by the inclusion of a dog -- particularly when a writer portrays them as sympathetically as does Grant. (Grant is also sympathetic to tapeworms, but I'll let that pass ... so to speak.)

Parasite delivers a crash course in parasitology but, by using fascinating examples of parasitic behavior, it never becomes boring. This is one of the better biotech thrillers I've encountered. I don't know whether it's credible, but Grant convinced me that it could happen, and that allowed me to enjoy the well-crafted story.

First off- you should know- this book is the first of a series- there is no ending in this book. It ends with "To Be Continued" And the big reveal in the last page was pretty much obvious from the first chapter.

The premise was great. The author seems to have done her research. Around the half-way mark the sum of irrational character choices started to take a toll on my ability to care. Then it got worse till I had to force myself to finish the book- just because I always try and see a book to the end. And there isn't an end. There is just a non surprise. Frequently it felt like the characters were just puppets acting out an author's pre-ordained plot outline instead of making rational logical decisions in the moment. The main character herself was kind of all over the place in who she was.

If there are thousands of nice people turning into zombies- and you know what is causing it- you'd think you'd say something to someone - like perhaps your dad who happens to be the head of the military's attempt to understand the crisis. But, then, maybe that's just me. When your leading character is a moody 28 year old woman, I guess it somehow makes sense for her to be like- "I don't know- I kind of don't feel like saying anything to him now- I am kind of angry at him. I know it means the future of humankind but- I don't know. Maybe I'll talk to my boyfriend the successful parasitologist about it- but for some unobvious reason he isn't sounding any warnings either... maybe we'll get around to warning the human race eventually in the next book... if we feel like it..."

It could almost be a comedy. But, it isn't.

Pity. Great concept.

Interesting concept. This book is a science fiction thriller that delves in to the subject matters of medication, biotechnology, and parasites. This story takes place in a world where human beings struggle with so many aliments that modern medication was barely effective anymore. To solve the problems of their floundering medical system they turned to a company who genetically engineered an implant based on a tapeworm to automatically counteract most human aliments.

The story takes place mostly from the viewpoint of Sally Mitchell. A young women who woke up from a coma, just as her family was about to pull the plug and donate her body to science. She had no memory of who she was. In fact the story goes on about her struggles to relearn language, social norms, and how to interact with other people. Jumping ahead six years later, Sally finally feels that she should be in charge of her own life. She has a job at an animal shelter, a boyfriend that worships the ground she walks on, and a fairly steady relationship with her family. There is only one problem; she is practically owned by the company who keeps her alive. SymboGen parades her about as both their miracle patient and ultimate specimen for study as they try and understand how their implant brought her all the way from brain death back to a functional member of society. She feels constrained and reluctant about this and is trying to find her way to complete independence when strange events start occurring.

People start falling ill to something called the sleeping sickness. It started with a few people going unresponsive spontaneously and shuffling along in a trance, then they started randomly becoming attacking people, then they began to speak; calling out for Sally Mitchell.

Again, interesting concept that peeks the interest of the good ol' science fiction reader in all of us. The only problem is that the "twist" in the end is ruined about halfway through. Once a certain mad scientist character explains the facts of the sleeping sickness to Sally, it's immediately clear what makes her special. In fact, the rest of the book deliberately places her and everyone in this weird state of denial, trying to gloss over the information so that all the characters will be shocked at the end.

The plot doesn't fall apart exactly, but everything suddenly seem to be about prolonging the end of the book and characters start losing that third dimension that makes them as relatable as they were at the beginning of the story . Her family starts having a crisis that goes on and on about trust issues that Sally seems to feel justified in resenting even though she's hiding information that could save their lives. Grant, the man behind SymboGen gets dense, snarky and secretive after his secret is already beyond covering up then totally overlooks Sally's obviously odd behavior in his office during one scene. Sally's friend goes crazy zealot in a way that makes his whole viewpoint seem pointless. Nathan devolves from being a somewhat believable character to one of those stereotyped boyfriend characters that can't seem to do anything but follow commands and say how much he loves his girlfriend every few minutes. In fact, the only ones who don't seem to have lost the ability to deduce things on their own by the end of the book was the craziest character; Tanzi and Sally's dog.

In short, the book was okay, but probably could have been a lot better if the pacing of the plot a was different. It had a great setting, it even had a good character line up; if they had stayed believable past the half way point. Since Parasite is technically a beginning to a trilogy, here is to hoping that things pick up a bit during the second book and most of the character shake of the one dimensional blues again. There is great potential here.

This book was totally lame. I think it would have been more interesting if it was a tad more believable. I know the thriller and horror genres are different but after reading all the medical thrillers by robin cook, this was a big, fat waste. The main character has the behavior of a 12 yr old who works in an animal shelter and yet her boyfriend is a parasitology doctor. Totally stupid unbelievable characters and plot! Pass this one by......

Apparently decaying, brain devouring zombies are not terrifying enough for Mira Grant, she has to add parasitic worms to the mix.

In a future imagined by Mira Grant, we have obviously become much more open-minded because people agree to ingest genetically altered parasitic worms into our system to guard us against common diseases. Unfortunately, the big money drug corporations are no more forthcoming with the truth about the dangers these parasites pose than they are in today's world. When the main character, Sally Mitchell, awakens from a coma in which she had been declared brain dead with no memories of her previous life, her miracle recovery is attributed to the healing properties of this parasite. Sally struggles with learning to function in society again, from finding her place within her family to understanding commonly used slang. She also has to accept, albeit grudgingly, being a lab rat for Symbogen, the company responsible for her miracle worm, since they are footing the bill for all of her ongoing medical care. When people suddenly begin showing strange symptoms of blank expressions, no nerve response, a kind of "sleepwalking" state, the scientists race to figure out what is going on and how to cover it up. But when it become too big a pandemic to hide and these "sleepwalkers" become less quiescent, blame needs to fall somewhere. Sally finds herself right in the thick of all the turmoil and not at all sure of who she should trust or if she should trust anyone at all.

Parasite is a twisted medical/sci-fi thriller where the suspense slowly builds as more and more of the story unfolds. The tale is primarily told from Sally's perspective so the reader learns things as she does, and since Sally has some issues with analyzing social signals and reading between the lines due to her medical issues, she is sometimes a bit slow on making connections. This sometimes becomes a bit frustrating for the reader because things that may seem obvious, seems to go right over her head.

Each chapter begins with excerpts from the biographies from the three scientists that created this parasite which gives some background on how this situation came to be. This helps a bit with the world building and gives some explanation as to how science convinced so many people to so enthusiastically ingest worms. I personally still found it to be too farfetched because even if a parasitic worm ate only fat cells and expelled cash, I still wouldn't so much as touch it, let alone swallow it!

However farfetched, I still found Parasite to be satisfyingly creepy and several scenes made me physically cringe. The writing is detailed yet engaging. The characters are fully realized and each have their own agendas which become apparent as the story progresses. While the "big reveal" was something I saw coming from almost the beginning, the sub-plots within Parasite are enough to keep me invested in this series.

The only real problem I had with this book, other than the idea of ingesting worms, is that it ended unexpectedly and abruptly. It wasn't so much a cliffhanger as it felt like someone just took the book away in the middle of a chapter. I am NOT a fan of endings without resolution.

However, it's Mira Grant, so I will trust that all will be redeemed in the second book.I would absolutely recommend Parasite to anyone who read and enjoyed Mira Grant's Newsflesh series and fans of medical and/or sci-fi thrillers. This isn't exactly a zombie book but it does have the potential to go in that direction so fans of zombies or horror may want to read this as well

With the completion of the Newsflesh trilogy that has earned Mira Grant some dedicated readers, she turns to a new series, this one a duology called Parasitology, leaving the zombies behind for now and taking on a perhaps more frightening and realistic subject: parasites. The time is the near future and the concept is what if we kept a tapeworm in our intestines, known as the Intestinal Bodyguard, which could help cure sickness and prevent things like allergies? Sounds great. But what if these tapeworms became sentient and intelligent?

Sally came back from the dead; she suffered a horrible accident that essentially killed her but thanks to SymboGen she was brought back to life along with her Intestinal Bodyguard. She’s a different person now, changed from who she was; calmer, quieter, less likely to anger. She’s living with her parents again, still getting used to being alive and being a person once more. She has monthly visits with SymboGen as they continue to check on her and perform their experiments to make sure everything inside her is working fine. She works at an animal habitat center and she has a boyfriend; life for Sally now ain’t too bad.

Except things are starting to get weird; some people are starting to act not like people. They’re acting as if someone else is in control of them, turning violent against other people, really violent, and then falling into a sort of catatonic state. It’s seems totally random and no one really knows who’s going to get hit with this weird state next. And SymboGen isn’t saying if they know anything about this. But Sally knows they have to know something, and she’s going to need to work out what exactly is happening to these people and what can be done about it; because if it’s to do with the Intestinal Bodyguard, then this could happen to her too, at any time.

Grant uses a vaguely similar template for Parasite as she did with Newsflesh, and the reader can’t help but think of these people acting weird as being “zombielike,” but she presents plenty of fun surprises and explores some interesting concepts that leave the reader questioning just about everything, plus one gets to learn way more than they wanted about parasites, Mira Grant style.

Originally written on September 23, 2013 ©Alex C. Telander.

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Picked this up based on the "glowing" recommendations peppered across the back cover and the intriguing synopsis. Sadly, this book is far from being "suspenseful," "riveting," or "spine-tingling." Lord what a slow, slow, excruciatingly slow developing story. The problem is there is not only a incredible amount of overly detailed padding (if Mira is not paid by the word then she needs a new agent) but the big twist/surprise/reveal found at the very end of the book is so painfully obvious that it made the journey a real head-slapper. "How do these people not know what it going on?!" In fact - I am no genius but I knew exactly what it was by page 10. The reveal is page 501. Man, that is a long wait.

Final verdict - skip it.