Breeding Ground - Sarah Pinborough

Genre: Horror
Synopsis: Life was good for Matt and Chloe. They were in love and looking forward to their new baby. But what Chloe gave birth to isn t a baby. It isn t even human. It s an entirely new species that uses humans only for food and as hosts for their young. As Matt soon learns, though, he is not alone in his terror. Women all over town have begun to give birth to these hideous creatures, spidery nightmares that live to kill and feed. As the infestation spreads and the countryside is reduced to a series of web-shrouded ghost towns, will the survivors find a way to fight back? Or is it only a matter of time before all of mankind is reduced to a Breeding Ground?

*** 

Review: In some ways, this was a fun and pretty well-written read. Nothing overly original, but an interesting spin on common constituent parts with some decent characters, including one or two I loved. However, the things that I did not like about it impacted sufficiently on my overall view of it to knock it down to a 'It was okay' rating. The biggest problems were how terrible a human being the narrator was, being gratuitously extreme, and lack of explanation for anything.

The narrative draws attention to itself, as though it is a journal or unmarked series of diary entries, stating that the narrator is leaving his version of events in the hope that someone someday will read what has transpired. However, it reads like a novel, and there is one part of the book where the narrator literally goes, 'I feel like I need to write everything down and be honest', and then goes on to describe in detail I've seen only in Fifty Shades a several page long sex scene. Now, I don't mind sex in books at all - I don't even mind that degree of sex. But I don't think anyone would describe sex like that in a document about how the world ended. It's not required reading for anyone. If he hadn't drawn attention to the purpose of his narrative immediately before, I might even have forgotten sufficiently for it not to feel so.... bizzare. It was just bizzare. Also, Matt's complete inability to rein himself in around women, and his apologetic nature regarding such 'because he's a man', is actually offensive to men.

Aside from that, not a huge amount really happened. The more I think about it, the more unsure I am what I liked about it at all. I must have liked something though, coz I finished it pretty easily.

It was okay.

Rating: 2/5

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