I’d seen a couple of my writer friends talking about The Girl With All the Gifts, by M.R. Carey, and thought I would give it a try. I’m so glad I did.
I haven’t read many zombie books, because they don’t really strike my fancy. But this book was a zombie must-read. Carey has a way with words and world-building, and it was simply a fantastic look at an end-of-world scenario in which life and un-life battle.
Here are three things that I enjoyed most about this book:
- The premise. There is a virus that has overtaken the world, and it grows in the brains of people and turns them into zombies. This is a premise that has been used for zombie-apocalypse stories before, but there was something about Carey’s rules that changed things. You’ll have to read it to find out why. But I will tell you this: The Girl With All the Gifts featured zombie children and humanized a very un-human group. It was fantastic.
- The characters. This book is told from multiple points of view, and the characters were all incredibly interesting. I found each one of them likable, believable, and honorable, no matter the mistakes they’d made in their pasts.
- The horror. This wasn’t your typical hide-under-the-blankets horror, but I also had some nightmares about zombies chasing me; they are, by nature, creepy. This might be more indicative of my own incredibly horrific imagination, but it has something to do, too, with Carey’s ability to draw out the tension and then ramp up the action so you were constantly on the edge of your seat. Toward the climax, I told my family they would have to deal with the fact that I needed to finish this book; otherwise I wouldn’t be able to get out of bed because of the horror of not knowing what was going to happen—and whether it could happen to me.
Here’s the first line of the book:
“Her name is Melanie. It means ‘the black girl’, from an Ancient Greek word, but her skin is actually very fair so she thinks maybe it’s not such a good name for her. She likes the name Pandora a whole lot, but you don’t get to choose. Miss Justineau assigns names from a big list; new children get the top name on the boys’ list or the top name on the girls’ list, and that, Miss Justineau says, is that.”
Such a great beginning for a fantastic book.
The above is an affiliate link. I only recommend books that I personally enjoy. I actually don’t even talk about the books I don’t enjoy, because I’d rather forget I ever wasted time reading them. But if you’re ever curious whether I’ve read a book and whether I liked or disliked it, don’t hesitate to ask.
