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

The Girl with All the Gifts by M. R. Carey was available immediately for download from my Libby app and it met a requirement for the reading challenge I was doing, so I went ahead and grabbed it. 

Twenty years after a fungus attacked humans and turned most of them into hungries (zombies), there are some children who are infected, but seem to be able to communicate and learn. Melanie is one of those children. We soon find ourselves on a high-stakes adventure as Melanie and four humans try to cross an England full of hungries and dangerous humans. How will this end?

There's an interesting twist in the zombie story here that I won't give away, but at its heart, this book is basically arguing that humans are more dangerous than the zombies. Carey does a great job of introducing us to the five main characters, developing their backstories fully, even as we don't always agree with or even really like the characters. 

This book is really long, though. It's over 450 pages and I think it could have used some scissors to cut away the somewhat repetitive scenes while the group is on the move. 

An okay book, but not one I'd highly recommend. 3.5/5 stars

Lines of note:

The truth is the truth, the only prize worth having. (location 1953)

Do you think this is true? Sometimes I think ignorance is bliss.

Yesterday she thought that the hungries were like houses that people used to live in. Now she thinks that every one of those houses is haunted. She’s not just surrounded by the hungries. She’s surrounded by the ghosts of the men and women they used to be. (location 3054)

Interesting. I frequently say "my body is my temple," so this analogy really worked for me.

She’s as big as four-fifths of five-eighths of fuck all, but she takes no bullshit from anyone. She even talks back to the Sarge, which is like watching a mouse bark at a pitbull. Frigging amazing! (location 3188)

I always try to note animal metaphors.

Things I looked up:

caryatid (location 209) - a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar

alarums (location 2172) - archaic term for alarms

She thinks of an old painting. And When Did You Last See Your Father? (location 2968)

William Frederick Yeames, 1878

catechise (location 3148) - to instruct (someone) in the principles of the Christian religion by means of question and answer; to put to question or interrogate

recce (location 3197) - a slang word for reconnaissance

lèse majesté (location 3395) - the insult of a monarch or other leader; treason