Publication Date: May 6th, 2025
Hardcover. 480 pages.
Since she was three years old, Anastasia Miller has been telling anyone who would listen that she's an alien disguised as a human being, and that the armada that left her on Earth is coming for her. Since she was three years old, no one has believed her.
Now, with an alien signal from the stars being broadcast around the world, humanity is finally starting to realize that it's already been warned, and it may be too late. The invasion is coming, Stasia's biological family is on the way to bring her home, and very few family reunions are willing to cross the gulf of space for just one misplaced child.
What happens when you know what's coming, and just refuse to listen?"
I'm always excited for new books from Mira Grant (Into the Drowning Deep has long been a favorite of mine), so as soon as I saw Overgrowth announced I knew I was going to have to check it out. This premise sounded pretty wild, and if anyone can tackle weird, it's Mira Grant.
Anastasia is an alien. She has known this since she was a kid, and she has made sure to tell anyone and everyone this fact, along with the additional information that one day her fellow aliens were going to invade Earth. Naturally, no one believed her. But one day, an alien signal is picked up by humans on Earth and suddenly it seems possible that maybe, just maybe, Anastasia has not been lying and/or delusional her entire life...
What a premise, right? I was certainly intrigued to see what Grant would do with it, and while I appreciated the story she created, I'll be honest that I was left feeling this story was a bit hit or miss for me.
I really liked getting to know Anastasia, or Stasia, and I enjoyed learning about how she has lived her entire life in this world as someone who believes/knows that she is actually an alien and isn't actually the same human as everyone else. It's also a fascinating dynamic to have her aware that there is an impending invasion set for Earth, but also to not know when or how or exactly what. She's clever and very perceptive, but also intensely introverted and prefers not to be overly social, and I appreciated hearing her thoughts and takes on the world and people around her. Stasia is also currently in a relationship with Graham when the story begins, and this was a couple I found quite lovely to follow. Their dynamic felt real and full of empathy, respect, and understanding. I particularly appreciated some of the background we got about some of their past relationship struggles and how they worked through them to be the strong couple they are today. I know this book isn't about their relationship and it's not a romance, but it is about the human race and I thought they provided a really good example of what human connection is and how empathy and passion can build even when it's not expected.
What I found didn't work for me with the characters was the fact that they felt much younger than they were. If I recall correctly, I think they are generally supposed to be in their thirties (?), and throughout this book I would've easily believed they were early twenties at most. And this also leads me to the fact that this book really felt like it could've been a YA story. I never say that as an insult or to disparage YA, but there is definitely a vibe these days in YA and a lot of tropes/types of characters that show up, and I kept having to remind myself that this was not, in fact, a YA story. It felt like a lot of the adult books that YA authors have now been writing, or a lot of the adult stories that show up in popular book box subscriptions, etc., where they are basically YA but just... older. The main positive I will say is that Grant is generally very good at writing characters, and that does appear to hold true here. No matter what age or perceived age people are in this story, they are typically fairly well-developed and have some interesting insights to bring to the story based on their own perspectives and experiences, which I always appreciate. Grant just knows how to build an atmosphere and develop some really compelling, complex characters.
I also think Grant generally handled this entire premise well, but the execution didn't always work for me. The pacing felt quite glacial at times, and it just didn't feel like there was always that many worthwhile things happening, but rather some filler here and there. This book's page count is in the high 400s, and I really don't think it needed to be. I would think, "surely this must be close to the end," and then realize I still had 20-30% of the story left. If I think back on the book right now, I couldn't even tell you what fills all of those pages. There is a lot of introspection by our characters to be sure, which isn't a bad thing, but also a lot of minor plot points or just very slow movement that didn't feel like it needed to be there.
What I did love about Grant's writing in this book was her tackling of some many themes and moral questions that popped up. For instance, what's the morality around aliens vs. humans? Is one inherently more full of worth than the other? Is that worth affected by whether one is able to feel more emotions than the other? What about invasions--especially if the ones being invaded aren't taking care of their planet? And what exactly is humanity--what makes up being a human? And how does that differ from other living beings? All of these and more are explored, and it's topics like these that are really why I read and love speculative fiction so much. We don't get to experience things like what happened in this book in our everyday lives (which is probably a good thing, don't get me wrong), so I always relish the chance to explore new ideas and questions whenever I can through creative stories.
Overall, I truly enjoy exploring the ideas in Mira Grant's brain and am so grateful she writes these stories to share them all with us. Overgrowth is a solid alien invasion sci-fi that I think will be a big hit for many readers.
