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

Click on the pic to get your copy via amazon or on audible here.

 

Here is my two cents.

 

I love this book.

I hate this book.

 

Here is what I loved about it.
The characters.  All of them from Melanie to Sgt Parks and everybody inbetween is peeled back like an onion to show you how a person does what they do because they believe what they are doing is right for them and the greater good.  It is the definition of the greater good that has the most punch in this book.

 

Melanie is the character we get to know the best but at 10 years of age she is less onion like than the rest.  She is the one who undergoes the biggest change though although that might not really be true.  The reader gets lulled in seeing Miss J as a human with very real human weaknesses, she is not the angel she is seen to be at the start.  Sgt Parks, a career soldier has a mission.  Keep the men under his command and the civilians safe.  That means kill any aggressors even if those aggressors is children.  But he himself goes through a massive change. Possibly almost a bigger one than the one Melanie has to face.

 

The world building
Oh my.  The author has an amazingly strong voice, I told my bookclub this book might very well be too well written, they did not understand my comment but dear reader.  Once you read this book I hope you get what I mean.  This place.  This world, is the one we see from the corner of our eyes and it is not a nice place.  One step to the side and it might very well be the place we wake up in tomorrow morning.

 

The plot.
Now for the note where I hated the book. 
It has a major flaw in logic right at the end.  If Melanie does what she gets Sgt Parks to help her with then the end CANNOT end like it does.  Cause Miss J is about to turn then.  Such discrepancies drives me bonkers.  But I do get it is fiction people and I do get a certain amount of licence....but seriously.

 

Other things I hated.  I hated being lulled and dragged around by the author.  Made to believe that what we learn about M and the other children in the classroom is know throughout the scientific committee at the school.  I mean, it is doctors giving these children lessons and as such the first mention of competition between students for the first place academia wise should have had red flags go up everywhere, cause I mean, scientists are sure to discuss their test subjects...well maybe in a perfect world.  But it becomes obvious soon that my own life experience does not hold up in this reality instead it is everyday normal life that lulled me into believing a set of actions took place that could have been a change agent but was not before it was too late.  So what is their too hate? My own shortsightedness, my own faulty logic.  I felt duped but soon got that I was not.  I duped myself. 

 

The voice.
Wow, this author is said to write comic books....Truly M R Carey, give up your day job because you rocked this even though I am still not sure if I hate or love this book and I love that about this book.  Making me feel so much.  Overwhelming me so much that even after I sat back and took stock I am still no closer to a YES or NO response.

 

The subplot.
Humanity is doomed.  If you are an optimist and need a wake up call. Read this.  Even in our darkest hours we manage to go darker still by choice not force. 

I hated what Melanie did at the end.  She was all too human and alien all at once.  For the greater good, I realized as I said in the beginning is a definition without a finite amount of choices.  You need a baseline.  Where you draw that baseline is totally up too you.

Do not ask me to recommned this book or warn you from it. 

All I can say is that a part of me wants to give it a 1* rating for the hate I feel towards my own stupidity and then being duped time after time.  The saner part of me knows that this amount of emotion is not that easily called upon and for that and that alone the author deserves a 5 * rating.  But that is not at all why he/she gets a 5 * rating.  Part of me truly did love this book.

I listened to this on audio and let me tell you Finty Williams rocked this.  She was Miss J, she was M she was Sgt Parks.  She popped this world and made it crackle. 

If you think the book has only three characters in it you are mistaken.  It has six at a minimum although at the start it has quite a bit more but the simplicity of Sgt Parks' belief system being rocked totally grabbed my attention.  Miss J not being an angel shocked me and M. Oh my I still do love this little girl and from now on always will.  How can I not? She is the voice of innocence.  Of sense.

 

Count the pups to see my rating.  Oh and if you have read the book let me know what you thought about it? I feel as if I am going mad with all these conflicting emotions and interpretations.

 

 

About the author

 

M.R. Carey

url

https://www.goodreads.com/MRCarey

born

in Liverpool, The United Kingdom

gender

male

website

http://www.mike-carey.co.uk/

genre

Fantasy, Fiction, Comics

member since

June 2014

 

About this author

Mike Carey is the acclaimed writer of Lucifer and Hellblazer (now filmed as Constantine). He has recently completed a comics adaptation of Neil Gaiman's Neverwhere, and is the current writer on Marvel's X-Men and Ultimate Fantastic Four. He has also written the screenplay for a movie, Frost Flowers, which is soon to be produced by Hadaly Films and Bluestar Pictures.

Also writes as Mike Carey

 

Review

Original, thrilling and powerful GUARDIAN Haunting, heartbreaking VOGUE A great read that takes hold of you and doesn't let go John Ajvide Lindqvist, author of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN Keeps you on tenterhooks as the action unfolds ELLE magazine A masterpiece SUN Complex,heartbreaking, hopeful and intelligently written ... Enigmatic and utterly gripping HARPER'S BAZAAR Scary, tense and fast-paced ... but with a heart-warming tenderness MARIE CLAIRE Brilliant ... Gripping right to the end SUNDAY TIMES bestselling author Carole Matthews Heartbreaking and shocking FABULOUS (SUN magazine) Both tender and devastating, a page-turner which kept me guessing up to the very last scene, as well as a meditation on what it means to be human ... Fantastically enjoyable Naomi Alderman, multi-award winning novelist A gripping, moving novel that comes highly recommended SCIFINOW It was hard to quit reading such a compelling, intense book i09.com I often forgot to breathe while I was turning the pages BOOKTOPIA A heartbreaking and haunting story that is beautifully written MINDFOOD

About the Author

M. R. Carey is a pen name for an established British writer of prose fiction and comic books. He has written for both DC and Marvel, including critically acclaimed runs on X-Men and Fantastic Four, Marvel's flagship superhero titles. His creator-owned books regularly appear in the New York Times graphic fiction bestseller list. He also has several previous novels and one Hollywood movie screenplay to his credit.