The Girl with All the Gifts

Boy, am I bored of zombies. And the Apocalypse. And zombie apocalypses.

The Girl with All the Gifts could be the book to change my mind about that. Carey focuses on a bright little girl called Melanie and immediately incites your curiosity about her situation. (Why is a little girl locked in a cell, etc.?) It just keeps getting better from there as Melanie and a few others, who are hostile or frightened of her to varying degrees, are forced to take a road trip together.

This is a Horror story of nature taking back the planet from humanity and how the few uninfected humans left try to carry on or fight against it. It's a unique take on the usual zombie-virus thingy that really fed my imagination.

What I appreciated the most was seeing the story from the view of each character in the small cadre. They've all been forced out of their reasonably (under the circumstances) stable existence and each has different goals and perspectives as they hope to get to a safer place.

First there's Melanie, child genius. She's been kept in a cell so long that she knows little about the world, where it's been or what it's like now but she learns quickly. All her knowledge comes from the limited education she received in her childhood confinement.

Helen Justineau is Melanie's teacher and mentor and the object of her affection. Her relationship with Melanie gives the heart and soul to the book. She's also a kickass heroine.

Leading the troop is Sergeant Parks, who along with Justineau is old enough to remember the world before the zombie virus hit. He's the usual tough-guy type, there to get the job done. He goes through the greatest character arc especially in terms of seeing Melanie as first monster and then ally.

Gallagher is the soldier under Park's command. Like Melanie he was born post-apocalypse and can't remember the world any other way. Probably the true innocent of the bunch, he is also the least judgmental of Melanie.

Last in the travel party is Doctor Caldwell, the antagonist to Justineau and especially Melanie. She's even less capable than Parks of viewing Melanie as human. Everything is about intellectual vanity and ego as well as knowledge and information for its own sake. She changes less than anyone through the story but she's also the catalyst for most of the action and the answers that come to light. As you're reading, you're not sure if she's going to be the salvation or destruction of all that's left of humanity. She's so crazy it could go either way.

The story has many unexpected twists that are exactly right: surprising and yet they feel inevitable. Melanie's destiny was clearly always to be the road between humans and the new merged beings but it's still interesting to see how we get there. Wonderful horror and suspense with good characters and conflicts.