Deadline (Newsflesh #2) by Mira Grant {Thoughts On}

Title: Deadline (Newsflesh Trilogy #2) 
Author: Mira Grant (website and here)(Twitter)
Publication Date: June 2, 2011
Publisher: Orbit (website)(Twitter)
Source: library loan
Rating: 5 out of 5

WARNING: if you have haven't read the first in the series, be aware that there are spoilers. Read my review of Feed here instead.

Summary from Goodreads:

Shaun Mason is a man without a mission. Not even running the news organization he built with his sister has the same urgency as it used to. Playing with dead things just doesn't seem as fun when you've lost as much as he has.
But when a CDC researcher fakes her own death and appears on his doorstep with a ravenous pack of zombies in tow, Shaun has a newfound interest in life. Because she brings news-he may have put down the monster who attacked them, but the conspiracy is far from dead.
Now, Shaun hits the road to find what truth can be found at the end of a shotgun.

Oh wow. I wanted to start this one as soon as I finished the first one and that's saying a heck of a lot. I rarely want to read the second book in a trilogy without a bit of break in between. Although I was a afraid that I would like this one a little bit less what with George gone, I was delighted with how she....wasn't.  It was a great way of getting a great character present.

Since Shaun was the narrator of Deadline, I enjoyed his character more than I did before. He has a way of speaking that is jerkish but still on target and usually quite funny.  His progress from beginning of book to end of book was well done and highly believable. 

Becks is a character that I didn't really enjoy in the Feed but feel like I got a better grasp on in this one. There was more to her than met the eye at first glance and her storyline was interesting. She was badass.

Although Feed was highly political, Deadline focused way more on the scientific aspects of the Rising. I'm not the best in science and math so some of it went right on over my head but it was still enjoyable. Grant's world building is stellar. The details in these almost 600 page books are amazing. And even though they are almost 600 pages, they don't feel like they are. The stories move at such a fast pace with such a sense of foreboding that the pages fly right by.

I was afraid that Deadline could't possibly be as good as Feed by oh my word, it was. Another 5 of 5 for me. I'm not sure how Grant manages to keep up the pace over that many pages but the twists and turns are outstanding. And that ending was even more GAH! than the first one. I have Blackout waiting on my pile but as much as I want to see how it ends, I also don't. I want to drag it out a bit more so I'm putting off reading it right away just so I don't have to leave that world and those characters. That is the highest praise I can heap on the series.