Melanie is a ten-year-old girl being kept in a secure facility somewhere north of London. Each day, she and several other children are taken to a classroom strapped into their wheelchairs, and all precautions are taken to keep them away from each other and the adults on the base. Britain has been infested by hungries victims of a fungus that penetrates the nervous system and takes over, destroying sentience and controlling the host body. For some reason, some children are not the mindless killing machines infesting the rest of Great Britain, and Dr Caldwell and her team want to know why. When the base is attacked by a horde of hungries driven by non-infected junkers, Melanie and a small group of adults go on the run south, towards the safe haven of Beacon.

Im not usually one to read or watch anything involving zombies. Its not just the fact that being eaten to death sounds like a particularly horrible way to go, but also that these apocalyptic stories often show a ruthlessness about human nature. Having to compete with others for survival, potentially having to kill someone that used to be a friend or loved one its all a bit much for my happy-fantasy-craving brain.

Despite my non-zombie preferences, this book really captured my imagination. Melanie is just a vulnerable little girl, discovering the wide world for the first time. Shes never been outside the bunker or even seen the sky before, so her wonder in the natural world is wonderful to read about. The adults in the group gradually discover their compassion as they travel with someone they originally viewed as a monster.

Apparently there is already a screenplay in progress for this story. It would be a pretty terrifying film Id say, but the story does read like a screenplay already. There is a fair bit of travel throughout this book so the pace tends to slow from time to time, but there were some very tense scenes where I was reading peeking between my fingers. The point of view passes between each character so we get to see the reactions to events through the eyes of each. This is part of what makes this book so interesting the way each character deals with discoveries and zombie attacks along the way, plus the way their feelings towards each other develop and change.

This is a stand alone book so for once there are no cliff-hanger endings and everything ties up nicely at the end. I was left feeling a little heartbroken but satisfied with the way everything turned out, along with a fervent hope that this sort of thing never actually happens!

The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey follows the loveable 10 year old Melanie on her escape from the army base that has held her captive most of her life (for captivating reasons that I wont give away). In a dystopian world, Melanie and the few that have managed to escape along with her must learn to work together and put their prejudices aside in order to survive. While perhaps not a work of genius, this book is an extremely fun ride that explores what it means to be human. Well written, suspenseful and original. I recommend!

"The Girl with all the Gifts" is a post-apocalyptic thriller which starts off interestingly, but soon loses steam as a multitude of action scenes swamp out the main narrative.

Although the narrative explored a fascinating concept - that of moral ethics in a dystopian world in which most of the population are hosting a parasite which makes them crave flesh - the poorly written and overly frenetic action scenes coupled with the fairly flat characters let down the promise of this novel significantly.

This book might appeal to those who love the post-apocalyptic genre already, but for me it was a letdown.