Book Review: The Girl With All The Gifts

Although I didn't get any Amazon gift cards for Christmas, I did receive cash and I sure did beebop over to Giant Eagle to purchase a gift card for myself. Fuel perks and books? Win.

I loaded up my Kindle with a handful of books and decided that I'd get one more new one in and save the rest as items toward my goal of 100 books read in 2015.

Based on recommendations by a few girlfriends, I went with The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey. 

source | True Story: I had a little thrill when I saw the Joss Whedon quote. Worlds colliding!

Despite what my husband thinks (and, apparently, as my book reviews might suggest), I do not read solely YA novels. I love them, yes, but I do not exclude other books outside of this category. That having been said, I do not know if I would have found The Girl With All the Gifts on my own. It's dark and there's a pretty heavy scientfic presence.

Note: this book is awfully hard to review without spoilers - I found myself typing, saying "oh shit," and consequently deleting quite often. I think I managed to complete the post successfully, however if you find the review lacking substance, this is why. Also, for what it's worth, the reviews on Goodreads are fairly unedited regarding spoilers - I recommend looking it up on Amazon instead. 

Although the main character, Melanie, is young, the reader learns fairly early on that this is not a YA novel. The book also switches perspectives often enough so that the reader is aware that everyone is important. Each character has a vital role in the story, however twisted that role may be. 

Some of the aspects of the story are typical for what seems to be popular lately (that is not a complaint, as I absolutely love the overflow of post-apocalyptic stories), perhaps most notably a hodge podge group of people thrown together based on circumstance and Making It Work. That having been said, there are enough new aspects that make this story feel fresh. The scientific jargon and having an actual scientist as one of the main characters is one of the more interesting facets, as well as the setting. 

The story takes place in and around London and the descriptions of some of the events are so vivid that it required a lot of work on my part, as the reader. Not only is the terrain incredibly unfamiliar but what the characters see as they make their way is out of this world. I had to re-read descriptions until an image came together in my mind. This wasn't a bad thing - if anything, once I was able to put it together, I felt connected to the story. 

Something else worth noting is that I found this story fairly terrifying - not in a jumpy way, per se, but in a haunting way. M.R. Carey writes with no holds barred: there is gore, there is grit, there are intense descriptions of things that mad me squeamy (it's worth noting that I was significantly grossed out more than once) and, perhaps the scariest thing in any form of pop culture, the sense that This Could Happen. 

I give The Girl With All the Gifts an A-. I'm a fan of the type of book, I enjoy the style and tone with which it was written and I give M.R. Carey so much credit for writing a novel that stands out from so many others in its vein. I heartily recommend it to anyone who enjoys a good story, because that's what this novel is. And, although I typically hate people that do this, this book makes it worth it: the ending is amazing. It stayed with me and it made me think. 

Have any of you read this one? Do you have it on your To-Read lists? What was the last book you read in 2014?