www.melissa413readsalot.blogspot.comI have had this book for quite sometime and just now getting it finished! It is very nice to finally get to a book and love it so much. I did read reviews before I got the book so I already know it's a zombie book and you will too if you read mine or anyone else review. But...wow.. there is fungus among us.. Yeah, I said that and not I'm not going to talk about it! :) These poor kids are brought in during the week to their class all strapped down in chairs. I thought, what in God's green Earth is going on here. The kids learn just like anyone else. Some are way more sophisticated than others. They have one really sweet teacher named Miss Justineau, she is so good with these kids. One of the children, Melanie, loves her so much and Miss Justineau is very fond of her too. There is an evil lady in the place named Dr. Caldwell. I understand why she does what she does, but there has to be another way or something for Pete's sake! Also, the kids are surrounded by the military. They are the ones that strap them down and cart them around. Anyhoo, some stuff goes down with the junkers (the jerks that survive by being idiots) and everyone from the lab all either get killed or who ever can get way from the lab gets out however they can. Melanie, Miss Justineau, Dr. Caldwell, Sergeant Parks and Private Gallagher get out and end up together, unfortunately, not all of them make it. BTW, the zombies in the book are called the hungries, I thought that was great. Now if someone would make one can call them the munchies, we will be complete! :) I loved this book and I loved certain characters! I really wish there would be another one, but this one ended on a happy note ..mostly. There could still be a possibility for another book if the author decides to make one. :)

Youd think by now we would have reached peak zombie, right? I mean, theres only so much you can do with a genre. But Carey mines the territory for new gold and finds it. The Girl with All the Gifts opens in the strangest classroom ever. (And as a teacher, Ive seen some pretty strange classrooms.) After the zombie apocalypse in England, some infected children have, for reasons unknown, been turned into zombies but have also retained their human intelligence. Melanie is the research labs star pupil. Along with her classmates, who are all strapped in their chairs to keep them from, you know, eating the human teacher, they go through lessons and read stories, so the scientists can try to understand what makes these bright young zombies tick. Melanie is not really aware of what she is, or why she is there. This school is the only life shes ever known. But she is aware that once in a while her classmates disappear into the lab and never come back. She fears she may be called to leave sooner or later, and she doesnt want to part with her beloved teacher.Then one day, Melanies world changes. Class is dismissed forever. Melanie will have to decide where she stands. Is she one of the humans? Or are the humans her food? The book does a great (terrifying) job describing the sort of fungal infection that could plausibly mutate into a zombie-type disease. The characters are great. The death count is high, like worse than Walking Dead high, and the ending is both terrifying and beautiful. Like zombies? Check it out!

5 of 5 stars at The BiblioSanctum http://bibliosanctum.blogspot.com/201...I confess, Im not very good when it comes to pulling information out of book descriptions. But all I know is, when I first heard about The Girl with All The Gifts, it piqued my interest right away. Here you have a story about a bright young girl named Melanie, who for some reason everyone seems deathly afraid of. Being held at gun-point while being strapped into a wheelchair just to go to class? Judging by level of paranoia with which shes treated, youd think little Melanie was Hannibal Lecter. The book jacket may be a little scarce on details, but theres definitely something strange going on.So it really shouldnt have surprised me when this book turned out to be Horror, and yet it did. Finding out about the genre, however, just made me even more excited to read it. And just when I thought things couldnt get any better, OH HELLO, THEY DO!By now, I gather its pretty safe to explain why I had myself a personal little freak-out when it hit me just what I was in for with this story. After all, the revelation comes very early on in the novel and is hardly a spoiler, not to mention the book has been out in the UK for months now and the cat is out of the bag. But avert your eyes now if you would prefer to know absolutely ZIP about the book going in. Anyway, my excitement levels exploded when I realized that The Girl with All The Giftshas zombies.And I havent even gotten to the best part yet. What makes this a great zombie book a great book, PERIOD is the science. Ah, gotta love science. Like I always say, if you want to see some scary stuff, look no further than Mother Nature. Heck, some of the most frightening, bone-chilling things Ive ever seen in film arent in horror movies, but are in those dang Planet Earth documentaries. Who could forget the Jungles episode and the importance of fungi as illustrated by the life cycle of Ophiocordyceps unilatertalis? Oh, the sheer horror of watching the parasite take over an ants brain before the fruiting body explodes out of the back of its victims head, all while Sir David Attenborough goes on calmly narrating in those smooth, dulcet tones. That sequence was beyond traumatizing but also fascinating. I remember being obsessed with the idea, thinking to myself, holy crap, someone pleeeeease write a zombie book based around this!Well, even though the video game The Last of Us might have done it first, M.R. Carey ended up granting me my wish. And he does it in such a spectacular way, wrapping this fantastic idea around a story filled with mystery, action, and lots of gut-wrenching heartbreak. The Girl with All The Gifts is everything I look for in a zombie book tight, energetic pacing with all the savagery, suspense and tension but its also so much more. For me, this book is the next step in zombie fiction, delivering on the survival and post-apocalyptic elements we all know and love, while pushing the envelope with new ideas and deep characterization.Due to its nature, its not surprising that the zombie-apocalypse survival subgenre tends to feature ruthlessness and characters with hard hearts who show no pity. But seeing the themes of mercy and compassion enter into the equation here is a nice change of pace. A lot of this is due to Melanie. If you also guessed from the description that theres something different about her character, youd be correct. Melanie is definitely a special little girl, and shes part of what makes this book such an exceptional, atypical zombie novel and such a joy for me to read.Even though I can probably go on for another couple pages about why I loved this book, I really dont want to give too much away. There are lots of surprises, including an unpredictable ending that truly stunned me. I loved this book to pieces. Haunting, powerful and poignant, The Girl with All The Gifts is a novel I would recommend highly and without reservation.