Audiobook Review - The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey @michaelcarey191

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
Narrated by Finty Williams
Series: The Girl With All the Gifts #1
Publisher: Hatchette Audio
Publication Date: June 10, 2014
Date Read: August 30, 2017
Length:  13 hours 4 minutes
Source: Audible purchase
★★★★★

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 Parks 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 favorite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up. Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

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My Thoughts

Wow!  This was a bit of a surprise for me.  I don't really know why it was a surprise since I have heard wonderful things about it but it was.  I guess I went into this book thinking that I would probably like it but I had no idea how much I would end up enjoying it.  Once I started listening, I was hooked and I wanted to know more about Melanie.  I spent hours at a time listening to this book and enjoyed the experience immensely.  This is a zombie story that I will not be forgetting anytime soon.

This book is told from Melanie's point of view.  She is a very bright girl but her experience at the start of the story has been very limited.  I really enjoyed seeing the world she know through her eyes.  Melanie's entire existence is limited to her cell and her classroom.  She knows the rules and how things are supposed to be.  She knows exactly what to expect from day to day.

Melanie was a fantastic character.  I would never have imagined that she would turn out to be so easy to relate to but she was.  I loved the way she worked out problems in her mind and how observant she was of everything going on around her.  She was able to work things out very quickly and made the people she was around re-think some of their beliefs.  All of the key characters in this book were really well developed and added something important to the overall story.

I thought that Finty Williams did a fantastic job narrating this book.  This was the first time that I have listened to her narration and I wasn't sure of her voice as the book first began.  I was over any reservations that I initially had pretty quickly and her voice became Melanie's voice.  I thought her voice was very pleasant and she brought a lot of excitement to the story.  I was able to listen to this story for hours at a time and never tired of her narration.

I would highly recommend this book to others.  It is a different kind of zombie story that was highly entertaining and hard to put down.  I would not hesitate to read more of M.R. Carey's work in the future.

About the Author

M. R. Carey has been making up stories for most of his life. His novel The Girl With All the Gifts was a USA Today bestseller and is a major motion picture based on his BAFTA-nominated screenplay. Under the name Mike Carey he has written for both DC and Marvel, including critically acclaimed runs on X-Men and Fantastic Four, Marvel's flagship superhero titles. His creator-owned books regularly appear in the New York Times bestseller list. He also has several previous novels, two radio plays, and a number of TV and movie screenplays to his credit.

Author Links: Website | Goodreads | Facebook | Twitter