Review: The Girl with All the Gifts

The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The Girl with All the Gifts is one of those books I picked up due to the hype. I’m extremely weak willed when it comes to books, giving in to peer pressure and picking up what is popular. When it came to the M.R. Carey book so many people seemed to love, I found myself putting the book off for a very long time. In the end, I made myself pick it up. There was a time when I was interested, a time where curiosity wanted to know more, and it was time to sate those feelings.

In all honesty, this book was more of a three-point-five-star rating rather than the three-star rating I gave it. I spent a bit of time debating where I was to round up or down, but in the end I decided down was the way to go. Whilst there were some moments when I considered giving this a four-star rating, as a whole it wasn’t quite enough for me to round up. There were more of the three-star moments than the four-star moments, for me, hence the rounding down.

You see, the story did interest me. I love a good zombie novel where the story focuses upon something other than the standard running for your life as your friends are eaten by the infected. There is some of that for those who enjoy such a thing, enough to keep such people appeased, but it also offers quite a bit more. I experienced flashbacks to a few other zombie novels where the eating of brains was not the main focus, the kinds of books where we’re given a good dose of science or a deeper insight into the human condition. Despite these momentary flashes of other books, I would not consider this to be an attempt to mirror such books. This one has a number of unique aspects, many things that will leave you interested to see what comes next. Not to mention the ending – it certainly does not go in the direction you would expect of it.

For me, what prevented me from truly enjoying the story is that I was never as connected to it as I had expected to be. I was interested by the events, I was curious about what would happen to the character, and I was happy to read more; however, these feelings failed to reach what I had been hoping for. I wanted to know more about the events, but I was not engaging with them. I wanted to know what would come of the characters, but I did not care about them. I was happy to continue reading, but I didn’t feel any overpowering compulsion to keep the book in my hands until I was finished. It held my attention, but it wasn’t anything that really screamed out to me.

I can understand why many are such fans of this story, sadly it simply wasn’t for me. Having read so many great things, having heard so many great things, I think I just wanted a little bit more. The Hungry Plague books have potential, I cannot deny that, but The Girl with All the Gifts was not enough to have me picking up the other book.

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