Story Time: ‘The Girl With All The Gifts’ by M. R. Carey

Like spreadsheets and paperwork for your imagination

The low-down: The front cover claims this is "the most original thriller you will read this year." I counter-claim "YOUR FACE IS MADE OF LIES!!!"

[Warning: Spoilers a plenty]

Review: Marketing People! I’ve had it up to here with you! I feel suckered and lied to, how can an industry be so unscrupulous??? What am I going to find out next, that there’s no such thing as Russian talking meerkats?!?!?

These scum-bags pretty much repeatedly kick you in the face with the message that this is not your average zombie novel. Well, let’s explore that for a second shall we?

What a typical zombie story looks like: Flat, clichéd characters forced to trek through zombie-infested territory, with little hopes of survival.

What this story looks like: Flat, clichéd characters forced to trek through zombie-infested territory with little hopes of survival but with the added twist of a sort-of-but-not-totally-batshit-feral little zombie girl along for the ride.

Hey Scum Bags - ONE ORIGINAL ELEMENT IN A SEA OF CLICHÉS DOES NOT AN ORIGINAL STORY MAKETH!!!!!!!!!!

It starts out well, there’s these kids on this army base and they're kept in cells and have to get strapped in to wheelchairs by soldiers before sitting in otherwise normal school classes so at this stage you’re all, ‘WTF?’ Then there’s this mad scientist cow who experiments on the kids too and you’re like, ‘WOAH! NOT COOL!’ Between the teachers, the students, the scientists and the soldiers there's an interesting range of characters and relationships to be explored. But at this point I sigh big because if the book had just stayed here in army-base-wtf-world it could have been quite fascinating. But, shoot forward just a few pages and we’re out in zombie-land with a rag-tag bunch of walking clichés.

Let's Meet the Team:
  1. Jane Everywoman, the try-hard-to-be-badass-but-actually-kinda-lame heroine who’s not perfect but who’s doing her best, gawd dammit!
  2. Captain Army Archetype, solider hell bent on survival cos aint no-one gonna die on his watch. Says ‘shit’ a lot, you know, like all manly soldier men do.
  3. Mad-scientist woman, will stop at nothing to be generally villainy in the name of science. Also pretty incompetent to boot because if you've cut a dozen kids brains open and not found anything useful then maybe it’s time to admit you suck at science and just put the scalpel down?
  4. Corporal Cannon-Fodder, the pissy pants young soldier with a heart of gold and a sad barely-passes-for-back-story back-story. You know why you’re here, kid. Go get eaten already.
  5. Then there’s Melanie, the girl, you know, with all the gifts? She’s actually okay and not all cliché and boring. So that's something. Although her "gifts" extend as far as 'can have conversations' and 'can manage to not bite people when she tries really, really hard.' So similar to that of any normal toddler, basically.

Each character has a back-story of pretty much one thing that happened to them ever and nothing else, so there are wanted men on Crime Watch that are easier to relate to than these walking, talking bits of cardboard! Apart from Melanie (ironically) none of the characters seemed like real people and I found it really hard to give a shit about any of them, in fact, by about halfway through the book I was hoping for a swift massacre.

The book also makes zero sense, often making tenuous leaps in a matter of pages from something like, 'We have to avoid the cities, that's where all the zombies are!' to 'We have no choice but to go directly through London’ you know, THE UKs LARGEST CITY? So basically a Homer Simpson level-of-lazy attempt at building some drama there then? Yeah, pretty much.

Then there’s the 'Hungries,' the books super-original word for ‘zombies’ because, you know, this is totally not your average zombie novel? These supposed death monsters can be outwitted by simply being veeerrrry quiet and walking really slowly... oh and some super deodorant called E-blocker rubbed in to your pits and your junk. Some creepy little kiddy zombies show up towards the end and they actually seem pretty dangerous and interesting but they turn up so late in the book that you'll already be too numb from boredom to really appreciate them.

I'm not sure HOW exactly but I've read some rave reviews for this book so if you want to go ahead and tell me how wrong I am, do feel free. I just- Eurgh- I don't know, if you're really in to zombies and stuff then this might be a must read for you, but if you're looking for something fresh and interesting, this ain't it. If you a want heart-warming zombie story then save yourself some time and watch Warm Bodies on dvd instead. Or if you want a truly original gothic novel then check out ‘Let The Right One In’ by John Ajvide Lindqvist. That shit’s incredible.

Verdict: Meh.