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.
The Girl with All the Gifts is a sensational thriller, perfect for fans of Stephen King, Justin Cronin, and Neil Gaiman.
Review of 'The Girl with All the Gifts' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
If you liked the world of the videogame "The Last of Us" then you should definitely pick up this book. It also seemed like with s couple awkwardly inserted love interests, this could easily have been another young adult trilogy. But it didn't go that way and a short book but with a fully realized word is refreshing when endless sequels and 1000+ page books that leave you without any sense of closure dominate current publishing.
Review of 'The Girl with All the Gifts' on 'Goodreads'
4 stars
The story itself was decent, but the characters were so well-written and complex, that the story became gripping for having them in it.
Another thing that impressed me was the vocabulary. I wish there was a breakdown of, I dunno, the vocabulary index of this book. I'm reasonably sure there were more unique words in this book than in the last five I've read. Simply wonderful.
Review of 'The Girl with All the Gifts' on 'Goodreads'
3 stars
I often wonder about the star rating system since the voters are "preselected" from the set of readers who are predisposed to like the particular genre in question. I am not a reader of zombie novels. Other than Sean of the Dead, which was tongue in cheek, I am not even interested in zombie movies. If you notice I have recently read [b:The Country of Ice Cream Star|18666000|The Country of Ice Cream Star|Sandra Newman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403540185s/18666000.jpg|25591193]The Country of Ice Cream Star, you might think I am a fan of apocalyptic novels (I rated it highly) but you'd be wrong. I was totally the wrong person to read this.
I read it because someone recommended it to me and I trusted them, not thinking through their interest in this genre.
That said, I liked it for what it was: Interestingly observed, character-driven, sci-fi with some unexpected plot twists.
What if a zombie were …
I often wonder about the star rating system since the voters are "preselected" from the set of readers who are predisposed to like the particular genre in question. I am not a reader of zombie novels. Other than Sean of the Dead, which was tongue in cheek, I am not even interested in zombie movies. If you notice I have recently read [b:The Country of Ice Cream Star|18666000|The Country of Ice Cream Star|Sandra Newman|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1403540185s/18666000.jpg|25591193]The Country of Ice Cream Star, you might think I am a fan of apocalyptic novels (I rated it highly) but you'd be wrong. I was totally the wrong person to read this.
I read it because someone recommended it to me and I trusted them, not thinking through their interest in this genre.
That said, I liked it for what it was: Interestingly observed, character-driven, sci-fi with some unexpected plot twists.
What if a zombie were self-reflective? Thought about her (in this case) life? What if a zombie had compassion/empathy for others? What if a zombie didn't know they were a zombie? What if they thought they were human? What if they thought they were prey but discovered they were predator? And, if that's not enough, how would this affect their relationships to others, human and zombie?
So that's the main underlying premise, but add in some action and adventure, love and hate, science and humanism.
If you're spoiler-averse, better stop reading now.
At a certain point, it occurred to me that Melanie, our main character, wasn't just a zombie, but in other ways was a superior human being. That maybe this could be the future of the race. But then I thought: that can't work because the fungus in its adult form kills the host.
And that issue was never really resolved for me. Did I miss the part where that was explained away?
