The Girl with All the Gifts (4), M. R. Carey

Update: You guys! I finally did the .2 second google search to figure out how to add a spoiler button. Welcome to 2015, blog. Or 2000. Whatever. I am awkwardly slogging through my backlog of books that I never wrote blog posts about because I'm reading a really "good" book that is too long ("good" = beautiful/intriguing/incapable of holding my attention with the surplus of shiny unicorns surrounding my tiny brain). So things may be minimalist for awhile. 

ALSO: Apologies to the 10-12 people who have been clicking on my blog post when it comes up for the last TWO MONTHS. I like to believe its the same 10 people who desperately crave my book reviews, who click each time. To you ten, I apologize. I thought if I scheduled a post for every week it would mean that I would actually write the posts, at last. Instead I wrote papers. Lots of papers. I also read lots of books. So I still had a couple weeks of empty blog posts when I stopped it today. And I read like 20 more books. The Stack of blog posts is looking as insurmountable as The Stack of to read books I have on my shelf. 

Today, I am recovered and may write more posts. I may also do the things I should be doing, the jury's still out on that one. If I ever catch up it will be a Christmas miracle. I assume, if it happens, it will be around Christmas time. 

I got really excited about this book when I stumbled upon it on Goodreads and read the entire 5+ chapters excerpt in one sitting. But then I didn't buy the book for awhile because I was poor and in the middle of eight books and I think I was in finals.

Melanie is the brightest girl in her class. Every day soldiers come to her room to escort her to her classroom. Some days her teacher is one person, some days another. The best days are the Miss. Justineau days.

It's more fun if you discover what this book is about as you read it, but if you're not that kind of person, I will talk more about what's going on at the end of this post. So skip that if you want to read the book with a fresh outlook.


Click below if you want the first couple chapters of the book spoiled for you. It's more fun if you don't know...

Melanie and the other children are zombies. They are locked into wheelchairs so they cannot attack the humans. They shower in chemicals and eat maggots once a week. The humans that work with them get sprayed down with chemicals to block their scent so the zombie children don't want to attack them

Reading this book from a self-aware zombie's perspective was fascinating. Having a zombie/human student/teacher relationship to discuss the love we have for each other was so great. I devoured this book.

The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey

Out TODAY! 6/10/14

"Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her 'our little genius'. Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad."                                                               - Goodreads description, because it's too good to try and do my own.

So, this is pretty uncharacteristic of me, but I haven't actually finished this book yet.

Wait, that is actually SUPER characteristic of me. Once I went on this LONG rant about how AMAZING Angels & Demons was and how much I appreciated that Dan Brown was depicting a priest as a good guy (as opposed to The Da Vinci Code)...and then the next page I read all insanity broke loose and everything I said was wrong.

Whatever, take this with a grain of salt because I only read the 10 chapter excerpt that's free on GoodReads right now. But I was just browsing Goodreads, deciding what to read next while taking a break from all of the three books I'm currently reading (more if you count the ones I haven't admitted to myself I've abandoned). The Girl with All the Gifts looked interesting, and I saw there was an excerpt, so like any good procrastinator, I clicked on it. And WHOOPS looks like I'm not getting anything done till I read this lengthy excerpt of a generous 10 chapters.

It's so good you guys. It kind of reminds me of Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, but with more of a horror/SciFi element. It's got the perfect amounts of thriller oh-god-whats-going-to-happen-next and actually-makes-you-question-society-and-humankind.

*Real review out tomorrow 8am! Historical fiction/romance*