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The Girl with All the Gifts
I really liked this book. Highly recommended. Reminded me a bit of The Southern Reach Trilogy.
So, at first I didn't think I'd be able to read this book. Y'all know I really struggle with child harm and endangerment, and I almost decided to nope out of this one at the beginning. I'm glad I stuck with it.
The basic premise is that a kind of fungus that infects ants in the rain forest learns how to infect humans, essentially killing them and turning them into zombies, and starts a global apocalypse. Zombies are pretty much everywhere, so reading a different take on the zombie trope was very refreshing. The book is set in Britain, and small enclaves of humanity still exist in a world full of hungries (zombies) and junkers (humans who have eschewed the military-run compounds).
In one of these compounds, a little girl Melanie is being kept in horrific conditions along with a score of other children. Over time, the reader learns along with Melanie that she is actually a sentient hungry and she's being studied in order to figure out if a cure can somehow be manufactured.
Over the course of the novel, we figure out why Melanie and her cohort are different and the implications of that difference. I won't spoil the ending because it's a doozy of one, but it's a completely satisfying one. I'll be happy to talk about it in comments with people who've read.
The writing here is very well done--beautiful turns of phrases, evocative images. It's tightly plotted. All the POV characters have distinct voices. Everything is explained satisfactorily with no plot holes.
I also like how sympathetic most of the characters become. I started out hating Parks and ended up really respecting him by the end. I never could do anything but hate Caldwell; she's a stone cold bit of work. But all the rest of the characters were multi-faceted and interesting. Caldwell is interesting; she's just a horrible person. I suppose Helen is, too, but the difference is that she knows she's a horrible person and Caldwell doesn't.
I hear they are making this into a movie which I don't think I could ever watch because of the subject matter, but the book was fantastic.
So, at first I didn't think I'd be able to read this book. Y'all know I really struggle with child harm and endangerment, and I almost decided to nope out of this one at the beginning. I'm glad I stuck with it.
The basic premise is that a kind of fungus that infects ants in the rain forest learns how to infect humans, essentially killing them and turning them into zombies, and starts a global apocalypse. Zombies are pretty much everywhere, so reading a different take on the zombie trope was very refreshing. The book is set in Britain, and small enclaves of humanity still exist in a world full of hungries (zombies) and junkers (humans who have eschewed the military-run compounds).
In one of these compounds, a little girl Melanie is being kept in horrific conditions along with a score of other children. Over time, the reader learns along with Melanie that she is actually a sentient hungry and she's being studied in order to figure out if a cure can somehow be manufactured.
Over the course of the novel, we figure out why Melanie and her cohort are different and the implications of that difference. I won't spoil the ending because it's a doozy of one, but it's a completely satisfying one. I'll be happy to talk about it in comments with people who've read.
The writing here is very well done--beautiful turns of phrases, evocative images. It's tightly plotted. All the POV characters have distinct voices. Everything is explained satisfactorily with no plot holes.
I also like how sympathetic most of the characters become. I started out hating Parks and ended up really respecting him by the end. I never could do anything but hate Caldwell; she's a stone cold bit of work. But all the rest of the characters were multi-faceted and interesting. Caldwell is interesting; she's just a horrible person. I suppose Helen is, too, but the difference is that she knows she's a horrible person and Caldwell doesn't.
I hear they are making this into a movie which I don't think I could ever watch because of the subject matter, but the book was fantastic.