The Girl with All the Gifts Review

The Girl with All the Gifts

Author: M.R. Carey

Average Rating: 4.08/5.0

Personal Rating: 2.0/5.0

Amount of Pages: 416

Finished Reading: May

According to Goodreads:

Melanie is a very special girl. Dr Caldwell calls her 'our little genius'. Every morning, Melanie waits in her cell to be collected for class. When they come for her, Sergeant keeps his gun pointing at her while two of his people strap her into the wheelchair. She thinks they don't like her. She jokes that she won't bite, but they don't laugh. Melanie loves school. She loves learning about spelling and sums and the world outside the classroom and the children's cells. She tells her favourite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

My opinion:

I received an electronic copy of this book to review from NetGalley, but in no way does that have an impact on my views and opinion. 

I was basically blind going into this book. I had read the the summary on NetGalley, and read the summary from Goodreads. I thought this novel was about this little girl who had all this special talents and intellectual gifts.  

It wasn't like that.

Not even close.

This novel is a full fledged sci-fi novel. I clearly did not do my research, but I felt like the summaries were enough. They sounded intriguing, and I personally thought the story was going to be taken place in a mental ward, or some special building. 

Man, was I wrong.

I will be fair, and say that it wasn't boring. I just found myself very disturbed by what went on in the story. I want to never read about how to remove a brain from a skull ever again. I'm being dead serious. (Note the underline, italicized, and boldness of the word ever.) 

The story was written in third person, which I am not a huge fan of in general. I don't feel like writing in third person allows the author to properly portray how a character looks. I could never really develop that clear picture of the characters in my head. Having clear images of characters in my head is crucial to my reading experience, because when I read the book runs through my head like a movie. The two most important parts of a successful movie is the plot and the characters. If one is missing then the whole experience is basically ruined.   

This brings me to the inevitable time to rate the novel. I gave "The Girl with All the Gifts" a two out five. I know that's going to anger a lot of people, but hear me out when I say this book wasn't for me. I found it disturbing and disgusting. My stomach literally churned during some parts that I read. I am surprised that I even finished it, because there were a lot of times that I wanted to put it down. 

With all that said, this book is perfect for all the sci-fi lovers out there. I highly recommend all lovers of the genre to pick up this book, and read it. I don't think you'll regret it. However, if you're not into trudging through long scientific words or reading about rotting bodies releasing spores then this novel isn't probably going to make it to the top of your to-be-read list.