The Girl With All the Gifts by M. R. Carey

The Girl with all the Gifts by M. R. Carey

Published: June 19th 2014 by Orbit

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr. Caldwell calls her “our little genius.”

Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant Parks keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don’t like her. She jokes that she won’t bite, but they don’t laugh.

Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children’s cells. She tells her favorite teacher all the things she’ll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn’t know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

I just want to say that I am an actual spanner. I completely forgot about reviewing this book because my son has had fever because of the injection he got and it just slipped my mind! I’m sorry. Anyway, I really enjoyed this book! I think this is the first book that I have ever read that includes zombies!! I was a bit worried about that aspect because I wasn’t sure how it was going to come across in fiction rather than on the big screen, but I think it was done pretty well… Also, can I just say, that ending?!? What the heck was that????

I really liked Melanie as a character. She was always so optimistic and bright and I absolutely loved her! I hated what the knowledge of what she is did to her because she lost her innocence somehow? She grew up way too fast for the age she was supposed to be and I hated the fact that she became as serious as she was. I did also enjoy the fact that she was a mini genius! I wish I was that smart at that age!! Also, what I didn’t get is why no one told her anything!! Like, she had to figure it out rather than someone being honest with her and it bugged me so much!

Parks was a misunderstood character for me. He was definitely someone who I disliked at the beginning of the book and he grew on me as the book went on. He was someone who you really had to understand to like and once you understood him and his motives, it was basically impossible to dislike him – purely based on the fact that he was the poor sod who was forced to make all of the tough decisions that no one wants to follow… which just makes him look like he’s horrible when he really isn’t. I did not like the story he had at the end of the book and I was pretty dang miffed!! After everything he went through for both himself and the group, that had to happen!!! Really?!? -.-

The Dr was also someone who I believe was easily dislikable, who was a character that I absolutely hated, but I could also understand why she became the way that she became. She spent basically her whole career trying to find a cure to the disease with instruments that aren’t really getting the job done and stuff, and then it ends the way it did! Seriously!?! That ending really does have me miffed. Caldwell was still a psycho crazy Dr who scared me and is someone I wouldn’t want to cross, but she has really been through it and I GET wanting to find a cure to something as horrible as this disease… especially when you spend your whole career trying to find the cure!

I didn’t understand any of the technical stuff. I think it was too complicated for me and it basically flew over my head – I think maybe the book would have been better had the author dumbed it down a little bit, for want of a better term.

All in all, I really enjoyed this book. I was worried about the execution of zombies in literature, but I didn’t need to be! Seriously, it was amazing! I gave this book 4/5 stars.