I love a good horror story, and this one did not disappoint. The Girl With All the Gifts starts with children in class at school and takes off from there. There is adventure, mystery, and of course the zombies (a.k.a. hungries). This book was a fun take on a post-apocalyptic world, and I enjoyed every minute of it.

The characters were brought alive through the writing and kept me hooked all the way to the end. I would recommend this book for anyone who loves horror or dystopian books.

This is a great take on a zombie apocalypse novel. The story is very interesting, and the characters are great! I was compelled to finish it as soon as I started reading.

I did not have a chance to read this book, but it is effecting my feedback rating. I am giving books 5 stars that I haven't read to improve my feedback rating. I am not recommending the book for my classroom or students since I have not read the book. There needs to be a better system of leaving feedback for books not read.

Wow. That was quite a book. I have to preface this by saying that I found this book misplaced on my Kindle from when I apparently requested it via Netgalley years ago and accidentally misfiled it. I had no idea what it was about and since I review lots of kids' books, I started it thinking it was a children's book.

It most definitely is not. Oh my goodness. By the first page I'd figured out that it wasn't the sweet read-aloud I was expecting, and it got pretty dark pretty quickly. It's a post-apocalyptic horror novel set in England. Horror is not my usual forte (to say the least), but this is a really well written one. The author, who apparently writes for Lucifer, Neil Gamon and Marvel projects, really knows how to write. As a writer and a lover of words, I appreciate great writing in any genre. Carey is a craftsman, like Stephen King in his good days.

I'm not going to say what this book is about since it kind of worked well for me to go in blind, so to speak. The main character is a 10 year old girl in a really bad place. She's brilliant and she's wonderfully written. We also see the world through a handful of other characters from all different walks of life, and they all come across as real, full characters -- eventually. Most are not overly likeable, but I don't know how likeable I'd be in that world either. And we do eventually get to really know them and see their humanity (okay, other than one).

The science is also a fascinating slant on things.

Dark and memorable. Melanie and these characters will stay with me, for better or worse.

Very engaging, eerie, thought provoking. Once I started it I was hooked and had trouble putting it down.

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I really like M.R. Carey books. I am fascinated by how I care so much about characters that are, in the end, zombies. I do not like zombie books or zombie movies or zombie anything. I just don't get them and I don't understand why they are popular. But M. R. Carey has made me care about characters that I think we have to classify as zombies, even though they are never called that. The way this world works is so creative and so enormously successful that I wish there was more to this world though I have a feeling this along with The Boy on the Bridge will be the end of it. Let's hope I'm wrong.

This was really well reviewed and so I thought I'd try it. I was given a print copy by the publisher in exchange for an honest review. I found it intriguing at first, but it wasn't really my cup of tea. I will say that it kept me engaged and I listened all the way to the end. I did find the characters believable and could relate to them so that was a plus. I had a problem with the idea that the infected children were able to break a window in an armored vehicle with a stone. Some parts felt predictable to me, but it moved right along. I think folks that enjoy horror and the zombie genre would be very happy with this tale.

I had to reread this book after reading The Boy on the Bridge just to get several facts straight. TBOTB was the second in the series but was set in time many years prior to The Girl Will all the Gifts.
Upon reread it was just a good as the first time and I really enjoy reading about the world as depicted. It is one of the best dystropic series I have read.

Wow. What took me so long to read this? This was spectacular. It brought to mind Justin Cronin's The Passage - a similar situation, and the same emotional intensity and psychological depth, with a little girl at the center of it all. Another truly literary riff on the zombie theme and what it means to be human. Outstanding writing, character development, plotting, suspense... its got it all. Highly, highly recommended for adults and teens.

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

First book in the Hungry Plague

3.25 stars

Melanie wakes up in a cell each morning and waits to be strapped in and rolled to the classroom. Melanie love stories and she loves the stories that Miss Justineau tells the class. Melanie love Miss Justineau so much, but she doesn’t like Dr. Caldwell. She especially doesn’t like how her classmates don’t come back after going through the double doors. That’s all I’m going to tell you about this novel because I think it’s really fun to go in blind or almost completely blind. If you look at the synopsis provided by the publisher it gives great hints to what this story is about and I’m sure you can guess. But if you don’t want to be spoiled and want to go in blind then only read this first section.


Carey offers a story that bounces in between intense and gripping and slow and full of infodumps. Most infodumps can be unbearable and overwhelming, but Carey does a great job of presenting them in easy and understandable ways that don’t feel overwhelming. This is not at all what I expected and I wasn’t pleasantly surprised, particularly in the beginning. I personally think the best parts of The Girl with All the Gifts are the beginning, the take over section, and the very end. Anything between the 45-85% could’ve been cut and I would have been perfectly happy with the way this story would have progressed. The biggest thing I would tell would be readers is that this novel is fun, gory, and intense at times, but at others, the pace changes and the story becomes slightly boring and redundant. However, it only falls into this every now and then.


Whimsical Writing Scale: 3

From here on out, I will be discussing the characters and that contains spoilers, so bye.
The main character in this story is Melanie. There are other PoVs and other characters, but this is Melanie’s story and Melanie’s world (which is kind of punny spoiler). Melanie’s character is one of innocence. She has been cloaked and hidden away from the truth of her nature… that she is a hungry- a zombie. Melanie’s urges are controlled with heavy douses of scent blockers and only be fed once a week. This is Melanie’s story of finding out who she really is. It’s a coming of age zombie story. I kind of love that concept. It’s so interesting and beautifully simple because coming of age stories are so popular, but when you pair it with the prospect of something paranormal it becomes unique. Melanie is a strong little girl and I loved her PoVs the most. She is hands down my favorite thing about this novel.


Miss Justineau also plays a huge role in this story and it in a way is as much of her story as it is Melanie. I wasn’t the biggest fan of her PoVs and she was more of Melanie’s green light than a human being. Even in moments where I should feel sympathy for her, I didn’t care too much for her character. However, she does have her moments. Like when she punches Dr. Caldwell in the face.


Dr. Caldwell is a sociopathic doctor hell-bent on slicing and dicing little kids for her research. If the zombie outbreak hadn’t occurred she would probably be a doctor with a God complex. Anyway, I wanted to knock her out as many times and Miss Justineau did, but that ending was so satisfying.


Sergeant Parks holds a tight ship at the compound and he seemed to be a real hard ass at first, but as the story progresses he begins to show simple compassions and understanding towards Melanie. I really began to like him and appreciate him.


There was also another character whose name I’ve forgotten, but damn did he go out with a horrible bang. Goes to show you should never abandon ship out of fear because worse things are waiting for the lone wolf.


Character Scale: 3.25

The Villain- This was done very well. Dr. Caldwell is the main villain in this story, but the hungries are another threat. However, Carey chooses to show the hunpgries in a different light, not only through Melanie, but through science and that was incredibly fascinating.


Villain Scale: 3.5

My favorite scene in this whole novel is a spoiler I was incredibly impressed by the zombie takeover scene at the base. It was intense, heart stopping, and a wild ride. Carey wrote an amazing sequence and it was by far my favorite aspect of this novel and I would recommend this novel to zombie fans alone just because of the sequence.


Overall, this was a fun novel. It wasn’t groundbreaking and I didn’t enjoy it as much as my friends on GR did, but I did enjoy and I do recommend it to zombie fans.


Plotastic Scale: 4

Cover Thoughts: I love this cover. The colors and Melanie are so freaking vibrant.

Thank you, Netgalley and Orbit, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
Orbit, 2014
Horror; 435 pgs
Source: E-Copy provided by the publisher via NetGalley

Thank you to all who voted for The Girl With All the Gifts as my July TBR List book! This made the perfect book to read on my plane ride to and from the East Coast. I had high expectations going in given all the praise this one has received from my fellow book lovers.

I became an instant fan of Melanie's from the very first page. Innocent and polite, an eager learner, and did I say innocent? It is clear from the beginning that she is not just an ordinary child. Why keep her locked in a cell with the guards taking extra precautions to keep their distance and protect themselves? Melanie has no idea who--or what--she is. This is the only life she remembers. She longs to be held and loved, dreaming of living a life in one of the fairy-tales she's been told so many times by her favorite teacher, Miss Justineau.

It does not take long for The Girl With All the Gifts to take off, finding our protagonists in survival mode. The novel is told from several alternating viewpoints, jumping from one to the other to offer a more full view the world in M.R. Carey's book. I really appreciated the depth of the characters and the attention to what each of them was going through, especially Melanie who, as innocence turns into awareness, must find her own place in this new world she lives in.

I hesitate to go into too much detail about the book, given it seems to be one best left to discover in the reading. As others have said, reading this book felt like watching a movie; I could see it playing out on the screen in my mind, one tense moment after the other.

This book was at times touching and other times terrifying. M.R. Carey pulls no punches in describing the direction humanity has gone in The Girl With All the Gifts. It's not a world I would want to live in.

I admit to being worried the ending would disappoint, but it didn't. It was a perfect fit for the rest of the novel. The Girl With All the Gifts is everything everyone said it would be. I thoroughly enjoyed it.

I have a love/hate relationship with this book. There were parts I loved. There were parts I hated. There were parts I wished would just get over with quickly because I was bored....so bored during them. I read this with a friend who said "Hey, let's start a book club" then failed to finish the book and drove 1500 miles to get away from it. Technically it could have been his summer job in Yellowstone that drove him from our area but the coincidences are too great to ignore.

The Good: I absolutely love zombie books. Even when the book doesn't come out and say "I'm a zombie book" I'm pretty much hooked and going to enjoy it on a basic level. There is something about an apocalyptic event turning people to mindless flesh eating monsters that can be terrifying and totally awesome at the same time. So props to Carey for writing a book that I was super excited for and for making the first half of the book amaze-balls! I was in love with the carefully laid out plot and the idea that the children were not exactly children but weren't zombies either. What an freaking fantastical beginning!

What else did I like? Melanie. I adored Melanie. I liked seeing things from her perspective and her ability to understand she wasn't like Miss J or the doctor. I thought her character was amazing and her growth during the book was well thought out. Melanie was the book, in my opinion.

The Bad: The entire middle of the book bored me to tears. I couldn't care less what caused the apocalypse. I hated all the science-y mumbo-jumbo and honestly, I thought Dr. Caldwell's entire part within the book was boring and annoying. She made the book almost unbearable to me. How were we to believe she was working on a cure yet she didn't know any more about the thing causing the apocalypse than we did and kept ooooing and ahhhhing over the weird zombie plants. Not to mention she was TSTL (to stupid to live) and almost got the surviving handful from the base killed multiple times.

In a Nutshell: My experience was this book....I'm loving this book. Love it. Love it. Love it. I'm going to totally tell everyone to read this book! What's going on...what happened to this book?.....zzzzzzzzzz.....wha...what?....Did I miss something? nope...zzzzzzzz.......oh good she's finally gone....Well that's an interesting twist....That's the end? WTF? I don't know how I feel about this. If only my Book Club Buddy, KJ, would have finished this book so I can discuss it with him!!!!!!!

Thank you to the publisher for the opportunity to read this book. 2.5 stars

It's been a long time since I completely devoured a book, finishing it in a day and a half. Even when I had to put this book down, it was in the back of my mind to get back to it ASAP. Loved it!

Wonderful twist on the trendy genre of zombie apocalypse. Seeing what is left of our planet through the eyes of a child made the experience raw and visceral. The children are more aware of the hows and whys than the adults surrounding them. Science sometimes means well but nature always finds a way to thrive.