Wow. 
 Mira Grant is a fantastic writer, and why I hadn't read her before I do not know. Parasite reminded me of Sara's Face by Melvin Burgess with the video transcripts and the excerpts from literary sources. 
 This book freaked me out, it made me squirm, it made me think. It made me stop and think. I didn't need convincing about the overuse of anti-biotics and biocides and how the sterilisation of our environment is bad. I already knew that. But now I'm just going to go ahead and chuck out every nasty cleaning product in the cupboard. Boiling water, lemon juice, vinegar and sodium bicarbonate will do for me. 
 And then I'm going to go out and get some anti-parasitic shit for me and my family and my dogs and my neighbours cat. And I'll probably hand them out to everyone I meet. 
 The story builds slowly. You really get to know the characters. Sal isn't my favourite character in the whole wide world, but there is a reason she is how she is. I love the different paces - it's not all super fast, there are more mellow spots too. 
 There is a thread of mystery all through the story but it's been pushed aside often by Sal in favour of something more important (to her) and the fact that she doesn't want to deal with it. I love when characters direct the plot. 
 That ending was something else. This book kept me hooked right until the end. And I thought I had everything worked out and I knew what was going to happen, but it was still shocking, so shocking. I just sat at the end, gazing down at my kindle, wanting to read more yet knowing I wouldn't be able to handle it, not right away. 
 Sometimes humanity is the reason we can't have nice things. 
 I received a copy of this for free via NetGalley for review purposes.