Wow, I really didn't like this book.

The premise is great. The world is overrun by zombies. Has been for decades. People live in high-security cities. Everyone is paranoid about outbreaks. Our heroes are not soldiers or secret agents or detectives or scientists. They are bloggers. They are not uncovering the big secret behind the zombie plague or how it can be reversed or an alien invasion or anything "usual" like that. They are covering an election. So cool!

I especially like the scientific explanation and mechanics for the zombies. A protection for the common cold and a cure for cancer combined in unforeseen ways. Everyone is infected! Nobody gets cancer or the common cold. But when anyone dies, the virus activates and they become a zombie. You don't need to be bitten. Have a heart attack and come back a zombie! Of course any contact with the activated virus also activates your infection. If you get bitten, you become a zombie without needing to die first. This is fantastic!

Great ideas. But the execution really fell flat for me.

I think we don't usually get SFF books about bloggers and political campaigns because it's hard to find what makes these people and events exciting. I'm sure they are as exciting for the people living it as debugging a fascinating bug is for me (a programmer). But someone on the outside would have a hard time relaying that excitement. Unfortunately the book felt like someone who has never been close to a newsroom or a campaign trying to do this. "Quick, we have to publish this article!" "Look at the reader numbers!" "We are polling 1% higher now!" This layperson's impression of the world of news and politics is absolutely not enough to sustain a book even if you throw in zombies.

Due to this the book is boring. I read it very slowly. I'm okay with leaving books unfinished, but a zombie book two-thirds through? How could that be boring? I powered through, but it was boring.

The writing is just bad. "Poke/prod a zombie with a stick" is found on pages 9, 10, 108, 183, 280, 300, 324, and 452. I'm not counting the cases where someone actually prods a zombie with a stick. It's just the times when the recklessness/bravery of someone (Shaun) is light-heartedly described. I had too much of this joke on page 10. By page 452 I cannot imagine any reader chuckling along.

Another extremely repetitive scene is the blood test. You get tested when you enter an elevator. You get tested when you leave the elevator. There are very expensive single-use test units. But why?! The virus acts in a few minutes. The tests take a few minutes. A zombie cannot blend in with humans. It seems like you could just hold people up for a few minutes without a test and just see if they turn. I should have counted the number of blood tests described in the book. Maybe a hundred? None of them reveal anything unexpected!

The character interactions are nonsensical. Most importantly the interview with Tate, a presidential candidate. Georgia (the hero) acts a bit silly arriving intentionally 10 minutes late, because she thinks the chief of staff would make her wait 30 minutes otherwise. There is no chief of staff though, she just enters Tate's office directly. Tate doesn't make a big deal out of her being late, but she feels pretty smug about how her plan worked. (?) Then they discuss some policy questions like whether or not you can breed horses. (All large mammals are infected and become zombies on death.)

After that interview, they hate each other. It seems like the author wanted to write a scene where Georgia outsmarts Tate and produces an embarrassing interview. Tate holds a grudge for this. But there was nothing embarrassing in the interview. I've re-read it now. Seriously there's nothing.
Tate's unexplained grudge holds throughout the story and he is revealed at the end to be a cartoon villain serial killer.

Another example. Our heroes have just found a data stick hidden by a dead character.

"The plot thickes," I said. "Shaun, Becks used to be a Newsie. How's she with computers?"
"Not as good as Buffy-"
"No one's as good as Buffy."
"But she's good."
"Good enough?"
"One one way to find out." He held out his hand. I gave him the data stick without a moment's hesitation. The day I couldn't trust Shaun, it was over. Simple as that.

They are talking about whether someone is "good enough" to stick a USB stick in a computer and look at the files. But it's page 512. Georgia (the narrator) and Shaun are siblings and super (super) close. We have seen them do everything together and ready to give their lives for each other. Why would you not trust him to hand over a USB stick to another person?! I mean, she trusts him "without a moment's hesitation". But why write this down? I trust my wife without a moment's hesitation when she hands me a pen. Should I make note of that...?

These weird character interactions led me to grow to hate each character. They all think so very very differently from me. Or they are just badly written. This is a debut novel. So maybe that's okay, and later novels from Mira Grant are great? She's got awesome ideas and writing can improve with experience.