The Girl With All The Gifts: The most original thriller you will read this year (The Girl With All the Gifts series)

ARC provided by NetGalley This book has an interesting spin on the post apocalyptical zombie theme. Even though there are lot's of tropes here like the overambitious scientist, or the badass G.I. Joe, but they are well enough done to not be too boring. The only character to stand out is Melanie, the ten year old girl, who introduces us to the story. The voice of a believable child character is hard to pull off and very well done here. Her unique views on the world around her are amusing. The plot moves along smoothly and has many interesting twists and turns, some predictable, some unexpected, with a very good ending. If you are a fan of this genre definitely give it a try.

Wow, what a disappointment! This book is an ode to the fungus that befalls humanity and and thus brings down the zombie-apocalypse. Moral of the story: humanity gets what it deserves for being a pathetic, emotion-driven fool. The plot is ridiculous. The only strong part is the beginning. A bunch of kids are held captive in a military base. Slowly the reader pieces together that those children are dead, men-eating monstrosities. Being hold there to be dismantled and cut up by the scientist, in order to find a cure. Very promising. The catch is, the kids are self-conscious, yet they lack self-reflexion. THIS is the key aspect that drives the story! Poor little zombie-babies :( ... As if. It deteriorates from this point on. The motives that are supposed to inspire character growth are vague and absurd, if the reader stops to reflect on it. (Just don't) Eventually shit goes south, our band of brothers flees the base and make their way to a safe zone, Beacon. On this quest they warm up to our main character, Melanie, the smartass zombie. Tho nobody can tell why she is smarter than the other 20 or so kids we meet in the beginning. She just is. All boils down to the fungus outsmarting humanity, 'cause humans are dumb. (For proof see the character of Justineau, the teacher.) The journey results in the most bizarre and despicable ending I ever read in the dystopia-genre. And while am ranting, last thing: Justeneau is NOT a strong female lead character! She is introduced solely by her looks. (+ Parks peeking at her vagina while she takes a piss. Private Kieran Gallagher having BDSM fantasies about her. Any more dehumanizing details anyone?) When the reader realizes the full scale of the state the world is in, Justineau is shown acting irrational and selfish. And it's the victim herself who makes her aware of her thoughtlessness. To show the reader why she is so self-centered, we get a tragic story and she is merry on her way jeopardizing every step the doctor makes to find a bloody cure, Sergeant Parks saving the asses of everybody and the zombie-kid being finally useful. well, she gets what she derserves in the end. Which in retrospect may be the moral of the story on a small scale. I'm all for strong characters being weak humans and all but this plot is carried by the decisions the male soldier, namely Parks, makes. Justineau is not an idependent character. She delegates the responsibility for all her fucksups to him, she isn't trying to help in any imaginable way to improve the situation. To top it all off she is on the verge to reject his advances because of his past. Looking for absolution in another human being and judging them by their failure to reproject the own ideal is despicable. Justineau is far away from being even a decent human being, let alone a female lead.

I completely expected something else. So the real plot was the first surprise. But there were many more: I had 2-4 ideas how the story will progress and how it will all end and every single one of them was wrong. They weren't even close so the ending took me off guard as well. Also I 'enjoyed' that the book was unpleasant to read sometimes. I mean I didn't like to read it but I liked that it was unpleasant because that is fitting to the setting and story.

Schon oft bin ich über dieses Buch gestolpert und wunderte mich stets, dass es sich dabei um ein Zombie-Buch handeln soll. Sogar nach dem Lesen wundere ich mich noch. Ich glaube, vor einigen Jahren (während meiner Zombie-Phase) hätte ich dieses Buch geliebt. Unterdessen ist diese Faszination etwas abgeklungen, aber trotzdem beinhaltet das Werk sehr viel, das mich berührt und zum Nachdenken angeregt hat. Vor allem Melanies Beziehungen zu den Menschen in ihrem Umfeld und ihre Entwicklung im Allgemeinen hat mich tief berührt. In einer zerstörten Welt keimt noch ein Stückchen Hoffnung, auch wenn es nicht so daherkommt, wie wir uns vielleicht denken mögen. Auch das Konzept des Pilzes und wie er auf die Menschen wirkt, fand ich sehr interessant. Melanies Schlussfolgerung am Ende des Buches kam unerwartet für mich. Und auch hier wieder - es gab mir zu Denken. Wohin entwickeln wir uns? Wer und wie werden wir sein? Es sind existenzielle Fragen, die hier gestellt werden und dieses Werk zu einer tiefgründigen Lektüre machen.

One of the best "Zombie" novels out there

It does feel like a better novel - adaptation to "The last of us" with an ending that I have never before encountered in the Zombie - Genre. A truly devastating read that definitely makes you question your own morals and what it truly means to give yourself up for the sake of others.

I’ll keep the spoilers to a minimum, although GR’s genre display already gives away a lot! No, don’t look at it now! Before reading I tried not to find out too much about the actual plot. Still, I had my expectations and the blurb implies some sort of supernatural or non-human aspect in the main character. However, I imagined something quite different from what this novel turned out to be. I was pleasantly surprised to find a post-apocalyptic novel with an actual new and interesting twist to it. I am not going to tell you the main character’s “secret” since it was what kept me reading in the beginning. You are dropped into this strange world where children are kept in cells and only brought out constrained to wheelchairs. I especially liked how the author established this world through the point of view of one of those children – Melanie, the protagonist. Her innocent yet intelligent voice makes for a very strange and intriguing entry point. However, once it becomes clear what is going on in this research facility and you get a fairly good idea WHAT these children are (again, not telling!) the plot turns into a fairly simple post-apocalyptic road novel. The middle part was therefore a bit slow for me and I actually thought about not finishing the book. I kept going, however; and it paid out. The ending is what absolutely saved this novel. Again, I won’t tell exactly what happened there – that would be plain mean. I am just going to say, that the twist at the end came rather unexpectedly and is of the brave and unconventional kind. I wanted to read the novel for the mystery and the strange premise and I stuck with it for the character development and the seemingly hopelessness of the situation they are in. I really liked it for it’s (for the genre) uncommon ending and the point of view of a child that has knowledge of a past she has no first-hand experience of; a past that is – of course – our present.

4.5/5 stars! Duh that was so much better than expected.

I picked this book up after it had been on my to read list for at least a year. That probably made for the most fascinating part because I didn’t know shit about the plot anymore (my brain can be a black hole). The first third was brilliant - with the little girl Melanie showing us around in her tiny world and me wondering if I can believe anything she sees and thinks and how I, as a grown-up, would classify that information. Being left in the dark for some time is a theme that I really like. I wish I could say that I loved the remaining two thirds as well. But hell no. It’s your standard zombie apocalypse theme all over again, even though I feel like Carey had some clever twists here and there. He just did not make use of it as he could have done if he had given himself the time (and pages) to explore the characters more deeply. I’m not sure what came first - this book or the walking dead etc. Anyway, this thriller did not age too well, I’m afraid. 2/5 - It was ok

This totally was not what I was expecting. To be honest from the blurb on the back I thought it was about some child genius who was in a asylum or something but it's not. Melanie is a child. She is strapped in to a wheelchair every day and taken to a room where a teacher gives her lessons. So what's going on? I loved Melanie, even thought she turned out different from what I was expecting. Such a brilliant story, it had a few twists and turns that I wasn't expecting, The only thing I didn't like was there was quite a bit of science chat from one of the characters and I had absolutely no idea what she meant. On the other hand thinking about it, it would have annoyed me for it to be changed so I could understand it. Totally recommend this!