The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey

Melanie's life is really simple. She wakes up, waits for the soldiers to strap her to her wheelchair and then she is wheeled to class. She loves learning and her favorite teacher is Ms. Justineau. On Sundays she gets to eat and take a bath. Her routine never changes. She lives on base, safe from the hungries lurking outside the walls. But she has never been outside only knowing what she's been told. She has no idea who her parents are or if she has ever had parents. She has no idea how different she is from the teachers, the soldiers or the doctor conducting experiments on base. She has no idea that she isn't a child at all, but a hungry too.

So this was definitely a blame-it-on-Litsy read. Litsy, if you've never heard of it, is a social media app that is best described as goodreads and bookstagram having a baby. I love it and have been using it for over a year now. Everyone was talking about this book at some point. I'm not big on Zombies, I actually hate the concept, but I was willing to give this one a try. It was really good. Mostly it was smart. Carey came up with a concept that I found to be pretty original, interesting and believable. His reasoning behind the hungries existence was really scientific and ultimately terrifying. The way he chose to craft the plot, left the energy constantly running high as well as the morbid terrifying tone. The world building was detailed and well executed. There was an intriguing band of characters which covered the different "survival" tropes nicely and wasn't overbearing.

All in all this was a fun, scary but not necessarily horror dystopian read. It's a page turner with twist and turns that I found rather enjoyable. If you don't care for zombie stories, like me, it's still really easy to enjoy this novel. More so than anything I was entertained, anxious at some moments, angry the next and scared by some. I recommend this. It's worth the ride. I give this 4 out of 5 stars.