[Book Review] The Girl With All The Gifts

The Girl with All the Gifts / M. R. Carey (Powell's Books)
M. R. Carey masterfully balances narrative and exposition, sharing details and knowledge of the world the characters navigate with a purpose to the plot and the action immediately at hand.  The characters are convincing in their and sympathetic, even if unlikable.  I was quickly drawn into the story and stayed entranced through the end.

The Girl with All the Gifts is the story of the extinction of humanity, and just maybe what comes next.
See full review here.
I am not big into horror (my preferences for LARP settings aside).  I can read terrifying stories without issue during the day, but inevitably as I try to go to sleep my imagination goes into overdrive.  So for me to find a zombie novel about the end of humanity and love it is unusual.  The Girl With All the Gifts was like nothing I had ever read before, so I put it into the reading list as the July pick for the Virtual Speculation Bookclub.  I honestly don't have a really in depth discussion list, but I think it's a great book to read and share.

Discussion Fodder:
  • Did you have any expectations going into this book?  Were they confirmed, were you surprised?
  • What do you think of the setting and world building?  Do you find it believable or too fantastical? 
  • The main characters in the story are all products of their environment, all desperate and flawed.  What do you think of the characterizations and character growth?  Are there villains?
  • Melanie loves the story of Pandora, in what ways does The Girl With All The Gifts mirror the myth of Pandora's Box?  Do you think it's a fitting analogy?
  • The 'hungry' children clearly show intelligence and reasoning, yet they are viewed as not only inhuman but as unthinking and not worthy of names.  Do you think this is a defensive measure, or a state of denial?  Are the children human, or are they something completely other?  How important is the distinction between the children's ability to think and reason versus the full hungries' unreasoning instinct?
  • Did Melanie do the right thing by triggering the spore release?  Are the children humanity's last hope?
  • Zombies traditionally represent various societal flaws and fears, in particular overwhelming mindless consumerism and forced conformity/erasure of individuality.  How does The Girl With All The Gifts match or differ from these metaphors?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

[Book Review] Battle of the Linguist Mages

Image
Battle of the Linguist Mages   / Scotto Moore The description of this book caught my attention immediately , and a cover blurb from one of my favorite authors?  Sign me up! The book isn't quite what is promised, and that's not necessarily a bad thing, it's just that it has so much potential.  It's like how Ready Player One  reads a lot different in a post Gamer Gate environment.  (Also, to be fair, the description I first read when looking through review copies is different than what is up  now.) Now, don't get me wrong, the premise is phenomenal.  I love a good SF that takes seeds of the here and now and goes "what if?"  It looks at where VR gaming is now, where streaming and MMOs are now, the balance between real life skills and game controls, and launches into a believable continuation.  Then we get a little seasoning of magic and more.  It made me laugh and has some neat ideas that it develops. But writing and tone wise, it feels a lot like Ready Playe
Read more

[Book Review] When Sorrows Come

Image
When Sorrows Come (October Daye #15)  / Seanan McGuire Previously reviewed: Rosemary and Rue Once Broken Faith The Brightest Fell Night and Silence The Unkindest Tide A Killing Frost After... we'll kindly say many books of dodging the inevitable, Toby's finally getting married.  In her defense, at the start of the book even she did not know the date chosen for the event.  There's a little too much significance in this marriage to allow for a simple document signing in front of the local Justice of the Peace.  A marriage between a member of the Divided Courts and a King of Cats, and of course Toby has been anything but "just" a changeling for some time now.  A hero of the realm, daughter of a First Born, king-breaker, kingdom maker, finder of lost things, and, most importantly, one of the few members of Fairie that understands crime scene investigation and procedure. This is  October Daye, of course something is going to go Horribly Wrong, likely involving blood, w
Read more

[Book Review] The Olympian Affair

Image
The Olympian Affair (Cinder Spires #2)  / Jim Butcher  Previously Reviewed: The Aeronaut's Windlass It's been a long haul waiting for book two, and one that I didn't think was going to end.  In 2016, I described book one as an "air-ship filled rollicking adventure that brings to mind a mash-up of Shakespeare and The Princess Bride.  We have heroics, tempers, swashbuckling, dastardly villains, battles of wits, revenge, and maybe a little true love on the side.  This tome drops you into the story from page one and seems much shorter than its 750 pages." So where are we in 2023? Before reading this, I strongly advise you reread book one.  The cast is large,  the book thick, and the two main warring governments are Spire Albion and Spire Aurora , so if you're like me and names blend together, remind yourself of who everyone is and the stage that has been set. The Olympian Affair  is a story of the maneuvering and politics after the war has started but before it ha
Read more