The Girl with All the Gifts

Very well written, character-driven book. The plot is somewhat meaningless and it does gets less less interesting about 3/4 of the way.

The setting is that of a post-apocalyptic zombie infested world. It starts in an isolated military base a few days away from what is perhaps the only known disease-free human settlement.

The army is in charge of protecting the scientists who are conducting experiments in order to find a cure for the “zombie” disease. A group of children are the subjects of their research, and some teachers were brought in to the base in order to give some psychological insight into the minds of those children.

For what I can tell of the main characters:

Miss Justineau is the heart of the team. She is one of the teachers in the military base, Melanie's favorite teacher.

She is the kind of person who would rather see everybody die rather then kill a single human being. Her answer to logical reasoning that contradicts her morals is to “punch them in the face”. It might sound like the sort of character I hate, but she was very well represented for what she is. I found her affection for Melanie hearth warming.

Sergeant Parks is the brute. He is a stoic soldier charged with the security of the base. At first he is presented as somewhat obnoxious, because he feels some animosity towards Melanie. But his personality is developed into a very pragmatic individual who reacts as best as he can no matter what the situation.

Dr. Caldwell is the brain. She is portrayed as the stereotypical cold and calculating scientist who cares for nothing but her work. Which is to save the world, by the way. She displays much detachment from her “subjects”, who she sees at nothing but biological specimens. She is very pragmatic as well, the kind of person who looses and arm, puts on a tourniquet, and goes on to what she was doing.

Private Gallagher is the young innocent one. He the other soldier in this group of main characters, although he is the less importance of them all.

Melanie is a combination of all the other characters traits. She is one of the subjects of Dr Caldwell's research. As a child, her personality is being developed throughout the story. She observes the other characters and “gets” something from each one of them I believe. A very interesting character.