The Girl With All the Gifts is a bit slow moving at first. We start with Melanie, a precocious young girl who is being raised in captivity on a military base. She, along with two dozen other children, have various teacher who give them a variety of lessons. Ms Justineau is Melanie’s favorite teacher in part because she reads Greek myths to the class. But this isn’t a regular school; the children are kept locked up in cells and they attend their classes bound to wheelchairs. […]
A gift that keeps on giving
I’m finally getting around to reading one of the books I got in last year’s book exchange! (And a book I am currently lending to a coworker!) I like it, but it’s not quite what I was expecting. It kind of reminds me of Isaac Asimov’s short story “The Ugly Little Boy.” In that story, scientists have pulled a Neanderthal child from the past to study it, almost like they are studying the children in The Girl With All the Gifts. Basically, the […]
Post-Apocalyptic Tale of Wonder
I’ve been meaning to read The Girl with All the Gifts since the film came out last year. As usual, I kept putting it off until one of my book clubs assigned it. This was voted as the Mocha Girls Read supernatural pick for October. I read nearly half of it in one day, finally finished it up in December. I’m glad that I did, still a wild ride despite hearing spoilers during the in person discussion. I’m not a fiercely against them when it comes […]
Out-of-body experiences would come in handy in a prison
I enjoyed this very much, but I think I hold Carey to higher standards, so it didn’t wow me completely. The Girl With All the Gifts was tremendous, and The Boy on the Bridge was great, and I looooove Felix Castor, so while Fellside was very good as a book on its own, it wasn’t quite what I was hoping for from a Mike Carey Book. Jess Moulson is a heroin addict with a crummy boyfriend. While in a drugged stupor one night, their apartment […]
Like revisiting an (alarming, homicidal) old friend
This isn’t exactly a sequel, but takes place at roughly the same time and in the same world as the phenomenal The Girl With All the Gifts. A terrible fungus has been released on the world, turning all who are exposed into “hungries” – basically zombies. The survivors have banded together, and a crew of scientists and soldiers sets out into the post-apocalyptic mayhem to gather samples, reconnoiter, and look for a solution. We follow this crew on their journey: a pregnant scientist (Rina Khan), […]
She’s up all night for good fun….she’s up all night to finish the girl with all the gifts
“If the road to knowledge was paved with dead children she’d still walk it” I read this book in two days. I stayed up at night, survived work all bleary eyed and then went home to read more. This book is tense, y’all. It opens with Melanie a smart girl, a girl dreaming about Greek mythology. She likes Pandora. She likes the name and the box and the hope that is unleashed with the evil. “And then like Pandora, opening the great big box of […]