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May. 28th, 2012 02:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
indiana_jFair warning - I am only 60% (thanks Kindle) through Blackout, book three in the Newsflesh trilogy by Mira Grant. I'm a little over half way through the book but I needed to put down my reaction to something before I go any further. There are major spoilers for the series beneath this cut.
I'll start off with this: Grant went where I'd been terribly afraid she was going back in the second book, Deadline. George and Shaun aren't biological siblings - they were both adopted by the Masons in separate orphanages but raised as siblings. Their parents used them, essentially, to gain good publicity, amongst other things. Fucked up family life so it made sense, it really did, for Georgia and Shaun to be so unnaturally close as brother and sister. They were all they had.
Except in the second book, she had Shaun call out George's name while having sex with a female co-worker of his. Now, by this time, Shaun's pretty much gone completely insane. George died at the end of book one but he's been hearing her voice in the back of his head and, sometimes, seeing her. So, while I was really afraid of what that might mean, I chalked it up to the whole crazy thing.
Yeah, no, Grant went full on out with the incest thing in Blackout. And I know that they aren't technically related to each other and that there's no blood relation but they were raised as siblings, so, to me, still incest. (Yes, George did die at the end of the first but the CDC decided to do a test run on cloning. I really kind of wish that they'd left George well and truly dead but what can you do?)
I think I wouldn't have so many issues with it if it were treated ... well, like it was fucked up? Now there is a chance that in the last 40% of the book that they do come out and say something and, god, I really hope so. Because it's beyond fucked up and if the other characters acknowledge this fact, then it'll seem that Grant is going "Yes, I know this is fucked up. You know this is fucked up. George and Shaun don't but, that's okay, they're fucked up. It's a symbol of their crazy / fucked up lives / whatever. But it's fucked up."
As opposed to the vibe that I'm getting right now, which is "True love, true love!" Like I was supposed to think 'Oh, finally, the two main characters have gotten together!'
My reaction was to almost stop reading because it just wasn't necessary. It really wasn't. They could have been fucked up siblings who were very very close without them being 'in' love and having sex. I lost any emotional connection I had with the two characters because it just felt slapped on.
And, maybe stupidly, I felt rather lied to when I think back to Feed, the first book. Because there's no mention of this (though some sections now take on a whole new creepy level, thanks) and it worked. But we find out that they were probably having sex all through that book? *facepalm*
My overall reaction, to that point, was the feeling that the third was nowhere near as good as the first or even the second. The first was just mindblowingly good and the second was a lot of fun. I'm pushing through the end to this book because I want to see what happens but, damn, I'm going to have to grind my teeth every time Shaun and Georgia are in the same scene together because ew. (It really boils down to that, honestly.)
I'll start off with this: Grant went where I'd been terribly afraid she was going back in the second book, Deadline. George and Shaun aren't biological siblings - they were both adopted by the Masons in separate orphanages but raised as siblings. Their parents used them, essentially, to gain good publicity, amongst other things. Fucked up family life so it made sense, it really did, for Georgia and Shaun to be so unnaturally close as brother and sister. They were all they had.
Except in the second book, she had Shaun call out George's name while having sex with a female co-worker of his. Now, by this time, Shaun's pretty much gone completely insane. George died at the end of book one but he's been hearing her voice in the back of his head and, sometimes, seeing her. So, while I was really afraid of what that might mean, I chalked it up to the whole crazy thing.
Yeah, no, Grant went full on out with the incest thing in Blackout. And I know that they aren't technically related to each other and that there's no blood relation but they were raised as siblings, so, to me, still incest. (Yes, George did die at the end of the first but the CDC decided to do a test run on cloning. I really kind of wish that they'd left George well and truly dead but what can you do?)
I think I wouldn't have so many issues with it if it were treated ... well, like it was fucked up? Now there is a chance that in the last 40% of the book that they do come out and say something and, god, I really hope so. Because it's beyond fucked up and if the other characters acknowledge this fact, then it'll seem that Grant is going "Yes, I know this is fucked up. You know this is fucked up. George and Shaun don't but, that's okay, they're fucked up. It's a symbol of their crazy / fucked up lives / whatever. But it's fucked up."
As opposed to the vibe that I'm getting right now, which is "True love, true love!" Like I was supposed to think 'Oh, finally, the two main characters have gotten together!'
My reaction was to almost stop reading because it just wasn't necessary. It really wasn't. They could have been fucked up siblings who were very very close without them being 'in' love and having sex. I lost any emotional connection I had with the two characters because it just felt slapped on.
And, maybe stupidly, I felt rather lied to when I think back to Feed, the first book. Because there's no mention of this (though some sections now take on a whole new creepy level, thanks) and it worked. But we find out that they were probably having sex all through that book? *facepalm*
My overall reaction, to that point, was the feeling that the third was nowhere near as good as the first or even the second. The first was just mindblowingly good and the second was a lot of fun. I'm pushing through the end to this book because I want to see what happens but, damn, I'm going to have to grind my teeth every time Shaun and Georgia are in the same scene together because ew. (It really boils down to that, honestly.)
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Date: 2012-05-29 05:08 pm (UTC)But they didn't and that really put the final "No" on it for me.
Honestly, though, getting past the vague ick factor, it just felt incredibly unnecessary and slapped on - nothing really would have changed if they hadn't done it. I think that's really my overall issue with it.
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Date: 2012-05-30 03:16 am (UTC)Incest is a major squick for me, but I find myself oddly placated by Grant's assertions that they had themselves checked out DNA-wise and their fucked up family life plus their intense co-dependence on one another (only highlighted and triple underlined by Shaun's struggles in Deadline). I mean, I'm not excusing the fact that Grant's decision to go that route certainly crosses lines that most people wouldn't feel comfortable crossing given that George and Shaun were raised as siblings and there's just such a taboo against that sort of thing.
But I also feel like... you're probably not going to get the "this is fucked up" thing you said you were sort of hoping for. Mostly I feel this is because the book is written from George and Shaun's POVs and for them... it's not fucked up. Like, they look at it and they know other people would think it was fucked up, which is why they specifically say they never wrote anything about it down ever (and while I can't be certain because I haven't reread the first or second book, I feel like that was something that was stated in them - that there was one thing they'd never written down).
*ponders* I'm also not necessarily inclined to say that Grant just sort of tossed them together, if that makes sense. I'm paraphrasing what you wrote above, but it doesn't feel slapdash to me. Shaun's immunity is directly related to the fact that he and George were intimately involved with one another and he "caught" her immunity from her retinal KA. That had to've been planned, since the entirety of the second book was leading up to the discovery that he was immune and there's really only one way, apparently, that he got that way.
So while I totally agree with you that there's a major squick factor in the brother/sister dynamic that they were raised with - and the fact that they continuously refer to one another that way, which is sort of the sticking point for me after the kissing thing (though admittedly, that could just be because it's a really good cover for how close they are)... I don't think I'm as ew-ed by it as I could be. And I will also be 100% honest about the fact that I was totally fist pumping for them at like 6am this morning when they reunited. It was before the kissing, of course, but their interaction is fascinating to me and was prior to the "big reveal," as it were. I was also really looking forward to seeing how Shaun reacted to George's resurrection, given how horribly he took her death and how very seriously he was not coping.
And I quietly cheered when he asked Maggie for coffee rather than Coke. But I'm weird when it comes to details like that. :) I'll be really interested to hear what your opinion of the book was after we've both finished it. <3.