Overgrowth by Mira Grant

 “All a seed truly needs to sprout is time.”

Anastasia Miller insists her whole life that she is an alien here to kickstart the invasion of Earth by an alien species of plant people. She advertises it to everyone she meets almost as soon as she meets them. Of course nobody believes her, it’s outrageous and crazy. Her roommates Mandy and Lucas accept her for who she is, extraterrestrial or not, and her boyfriend Graham loves her unconditionally. But nobody really understands until an astronomer intercepts an alien signal from outer space and things begin to change.

The first thing that really pops out of my head on the subject of Overgrowth is how when people realize the aliens have been among them the whole time, they turn on each other. People begin accusing neighbors and friends who are “a little out there” of being aliens, even attacking them. They’re rioting in the streets and looting. I don’t think this behavior is outside the realm of possibility of what would happen in a real-life scenario.

I like how torn Ana was throughout the book. She was raised by humans, led a human life among them, and despite her oddities she was even loved by some of them. After hearing the alien signal, she begins to revert to her original self and that includes her thoughts of dominating the human race. She doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her friends and family and fights to protect them even as she helps plot the end of the world as we know it.

I think the only other alien invasion novel I’ve read and enjoyed was War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells and it is referenced heavily in this book. MG includes quotes from WotW and references it through certain events in her book. While WotW was written as a metaphor for European colonization, I will say this book isn’t quite that deep and is maybe a little derivative.

This book has a foot in the doors of both sci-fi and horror. Definitely sci-fi light though, no real scientific explanations or revelations included, just a good old fashioned alien invasion. How horrifying it is is up to the individual reader. I’ll say it was dark, but for me, it was not nightmare inducing. It was chock full of suspense; I couldn’t stop turning pages, but light on hope, offering little chance of success at repelling the alien invaders.

I can absolutely see it being a tough read for anyone with an aversion to horror, but enjoyable for sci-fi fans needing an ET fix.