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

Published by Orbit on June 10, 2014

There's been a worldwide infection. You're thinking zombie, right? Got it in one. The Girl with All the Gifts gives more attention than most zombie novels to the nature of the infection that creates a zombie plague, although why zombie infections always produce shambling has yet to be convincingly explained. Still.

A young girl named Melanie lives in a cell in a locked facility. She only leaves it after her jailers have strapped her to a wheelchair. They take her to a classroom with she and others like her learn random facts that are no longer relevant. All she knows of the real world is that a devastated place called London is not far away and a place called Beacon, on the sea and surrounded by moats and minefields, is safe from hungries. Other cities are as empty as London. Burn patrols do their best to keep her region free from hungries. Hungries shamble and eat people ... a zombie by any other name ....

Some of the hungries, particularly Melanie and her friends, are "high functioning." Meaning they are really really really smart zombies. They seem like normal kids until they start salivating at the scent of human flesh, but it that any reason to dissect them? Opinions differ.

Dr. Caroline Caldwell thinks of Melanie as a test subject. Sergeant Parks thinks of Melanie as a dangerous monster. Melanie's teacher, Helen Justineau thinks of her as a sweet little girl. Melanie isn't quite sure what to think of herself but she loves Miss Justineau.

Although The Girl with all the Gifts follows the standard run-and-fight-and-try-not-to-be-eaten plot of zombie fiction, it is a more interesting story than most. M.R. Carey creates clever images and scenarios that are a step above typical zombie fiction. The writing is surprisingly strong. In constructing a science-based zombie novel that has some literary value, The Girl with all the Gifts is like Parasite, although The Girl is a better book.

The hook that truly differentiates The Girl With All the Gifts from other zombie fiction is that Melanie is a likable, sympathetic zombie. Yes, she enjoys an occasional munch on human flesh, but only if the humans are bad, not like Helen Justineau, whom she really really does not want to eat even though she might be tasty. The reader is meant to cheer for Melanie and Justineau and even for a couple of soldiers, although not so much for Dr. Caldwell, who likes to dissect zombie children, especially if they are whizzes at math.

Carey walked a delicate line between writing a "feel good" story and a scary one. Melanie and Justineau couldn't be nicer, which means they aren't particularly realistic (not that a zombie novel is all that realistic). The darker characters at least benefit from greater complexity. In any event, the novel races to an ending that, if not surprising given its inevitably, is more satisfying than the climax of a typical zombie novel.

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