Hello, folks! A little bit of a bonus post for today! The lovely Shiyiya, who is fab editor of mine and fellow lover of Tamora Pierce and Newsflesh and musicals, commissioned me to read Fed, the alternate ending to Feed that Mira Grant released earlier this year. I didn’t even know this was a thing! EXCITE!
First things first: here’s the video, which covers the first three chapters of Fed.
If you have not read Fed before, have no fear! You can download the entire PDF right here for free. It covers the story from about chapter 25 through the end of the novel.
Fair warning: spoilers for Feed and through chapter 3 of Deadline after this point.
I wanted to put up this post since we’re in the midst of reading Newsflesh and to discuss the remaining chapters not covered in the video.
Let me start off by saying this: I greatly prefer what happens in Feed versus this ending, despite that I am MEGA SAD that Georgia dies in both versions. This is not a case of simply switching out Shaun and Georgia, though, and what was most fascinating to me about Fed was the fact that it created a brand new dynamic for the story. Obviously, getting a Shaun POV chapter where he gets hit with a dart is different, but it also makes the story mean something entirely different. Georgia always expected to outlive Shaun, and in Feed, we learn the price she paid for her pursuit of truth. And while she still pays that price in Fed, it’s not necessarily for the same reason.
Georgia’s final blog post doesn’t have the same gut-wrenching intensity, and then there is the issue of Mahir announcing Georgia’s death through his blog post before it happens in the book itself, so I was left scared and confused about how that was possible. It seems less effective to have her death revealed in this way and then mentioned again in the last chapter (which belongs to Rick) when he explains that she committed suicide. As agonizing as her death is in Feed, at least we get some closure about how it came to be, instead of a mention by another character.
Honestly, though, Fed‘s ending is simply way more final. I don’t know that I’d want to read another book if both of the Masons died in the first one. And while I’m certainly adjusting to Shaun’s violent personality in Deadline, at least he’s there. There’s a clear motivation for a second novel. While the switch to Shaun is jarring to me, I know it’s a journey I want to make. I don’t know that I’d want a Mason-less Newsflesh experience.
So, any thoughts y’all had reading Fed?
