The Girl with All the Gifts by M.R. Carey
Dear Mr. Carey,
I first heard about this book while discussing dystopian fiction with a co-worker, specifically our shared love for Station Eleven. At first, I was hesitant to buy The Girl with All the Gifts on her recommendation, because I wasn’t sure how closely our tastes matched (Station Eleven notwithstanding – who wouldn’t love that book?). Eventually, I took the plunge, and I’m so glad I did.
Melanie is ten years old, blonde-haired, and very bright. All her life, or at least as long as she can remember, she’s lived in a locked cell on the Base. Every weekday morning, Melanie is removed from her cell in an elaborate ritual that makes it clear that the people who have control of Melanie fear and distrust her. She’s made to sit in a wheelchair and strapped down, wrists, ankles and neck, while a gun is trained on her, then wheeled down the corridor into the classroom to learn.
Melanie doesn’t mind, because she loves class, but she doesn’t understand the reasons for all of these safeguards, which are also performed on her classmates, each of whom is also locked in a cell when not in class. Melanie’s whole world consists of “…the cell, the corridor, the classroom and the shower room.” The last place is one that the children are taken to on Sundays, fed a big bowl of wriggling grubs (their only sustenance) and then doused with a bitter chemical solution.
From her lessons, Melanie learns about all sorts of things – math and geography and poetry and mythology. It’s from mythology that Melanie learns the story of Pandora, the titular “girl with all the gifts.” Melanie particularly likes mythology because it’s usually taught by her favorite teacher, Miss Justineau. Melanie adores Miss Justineau with the painful devotion of childhood.
In class, the students also learn that the world they inhabit is different from the one they hear about in their lessons – those places no longer exist; the poetry is all from the past. The current world is made up of the Base, Beacon (which seems to be a larger, city-like encampment some ways away, on the other side of London), and the terrifying outside world, full of hungries and junkers. Someday Melanie hopes to be able to go live in Beacon, where she can be outside but still be safe from the hungries and junkers. Her wish is a poignant one for the reader, who’s probably already figured out what Melanie doesn’t know.
Spoiler: Show
I spoilered the above bit because from what I’ve read online some people think it’s a spoiler. I think it’s pretty obvious, but I was spoiled before I read the book so maybe I’m overestimating how clear it is.
About a quarter of the way through, The Girl with All the Gifts becomes a road story, as Miss Justineau, Sergeant Parks, a soldier named Gallagher, scientist Caroline Caldwell and, of course, Melanie try to make their way from the Base to Beacon, dodging junkers (humans who have chosen to live outside of what remains of society, and whose dispositions seem to be uniformly brutal) and hungries. It’s at this point that the story becomes really very compelling. The characters’ interactions and reactions to the dangers they face, what they learn about the hungries and about Melanie’s true nature kept me reading late into the night.
One of author interviews I read after finishing the book touches on something that was especially true for me: the reader ends up viewing the other characters in relation to how they relate to Melanie: Miss Justineau, in spite of her flaws (we find out a horrible secret about her mid-way through the book), is the kindest and most human to Melanie, so I loved her. Gallagher is a poor sap with a sad childhood (he was born after society disintegrated some 20 years before, or at least close enough that he has no memory of it). He seems to identify with Melanie on some level. Parks is complex – hardened but not, it turns out, ruined by all that he’s gone through. He’s actually capable of change, which seems like a miracle in such a world. Caldwell is as close as the book gets to a villain, treating the children of the base as lab rats to be dissected, with Melanie as her prize specimen. But from her perspective (the book is written in present tense third-person limited view), we get an idea of how she thinks and why she thinks that way. She’s not likable, but she’s understandable and often pathetically human.
The heart of the book for me (and I’m guessing most readers), though, was Melanie. I’m almost tempted to see her as a bit of a Mary Sue, which renders the title of the book sort of darkly, ironically funny. But she’s too fleshed out for Mary-Sue-dom, and of course she has what could be seen as a fatal flaw that keeps her from perfection. But she’s *so* lovable: she’s incredibly smart and brave and she wants so much to be good and worthy of love. Some of that is probably her age, but I also wonder if some of it has to do with her nature – with what she actually is. That factor intrigued me especially in light of the book’s ending.
So, the ending. It’s both devastating and hopeful. Melanie makes a choice that at first seemed ruthless and thus out-of-character for her, but the more I thought about it (and I thought about it a lot), it seemed fitting and right.
The Girl with All the Gifts was a compelling and absorbing read (albeit after a slightly slow start) and featured one of the most sympathetic heroines of recent memory. My grade is an A-.
Best regards,
Jennie
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I read this last year and I agree with this review. I can’t judge whether the spoiler is really a spoiler either, since I’m pretty sure the first description of the book I saw contained it.
What a heartbreaking and beautiful book. I still think about it even though I read it a while ago, and I recommend it to everyone I can. Thanks for the spot-on review.
I was surprised how much I loved this book. The audio book is especially well done, too. I often have trouble remembering more than the vaguest outline of books after I’ve finished, but this one has remained pretty firmly inscribed in my brain even after a year or so. Hopeful, heartbreaking, and lovely.
I agree that the spoiler is pretty widely known, and easy to quickly guess even for someone going in cold. But, then again, I’m one of those people who doesn’t mind about spoilers and it didn’t affect my enjoyment knowing from the outset.
And, I will say that the spoiler really affects other people’s willingness to try the book if they’ve heard about it in advance. I’ve heartily recommended it to people who’ve said, “No, thanks. It’s one of *those* books.” “But, but. . . .” I wish more people would have an open mind and give this gem a chance.
I listened to it on Audible, great narration. I would also recommend it. In fact, my husband just borrowed my copy (we just figured out how to do that on Audible) and he really liked it, too. It’s a book that I think about. It’s kinda haunting (in a good way).
I had this book out from the library last year after hearing raves from multiple sources, but then I heard that it was horror and chickened out of reading it. I don’t do well with horror. How scary is it?
@Susan: Yes, exactly. It’s not really one of “those” books – but it’s hard to really explain that without spoiling it further.
@Helen: I find it interesting (and gratifying) that so many people seem to have had my experience – the book stays with you in a way that others just don’t for me these days. I’ve thought about it a lot, and continue to think about it.
I’m interested for the film version – I was skeptical when I heard they cast a white actress as Miss Justineau but then I realized they cast a black actress as Melanie, so it seems sort of like a wash (rather than a whitewash). Not that I think the characters’ ethniticies inform the story much in this case, but given the dearth of good roles for black actresses it would have pissed me off enough that I would’ve been less likely to see the film.
@Janine: I think horror is probably the least accurate of the labels I’ve seen put on the book. It’s dystopian, and there is violence, but I don’t know that I think there’s more violence than in Station Eleven. I’m trying to remember the gore level of the violence but that part has sort of left my brain. It’s not endlessly descriptive, is about the best I can say.
The only thing I remember being squicked out about was something that I think is a spoiler, so it’s hard to explain, except to say that it might not squick other people the way it did me. Sorry, that’s maybe not that helpful.
I will say that the unpleasant stuff didn’t stay with me the way the psychological/relationship stuff did. That is so much more of the story, in my mind.
This book has sat on my reader for SO long, kept there by some irrational disquiet I can’t even name. But I’ll read it now and look forward to being captivated, as you seem to have been.
@Darlynne: Do it! :-)
@Jennie: I’m not that worried about gore or violence, but rather about how scary it is. Is it the kind of book that can give a reader nightmares? Did it make your heart race while you were reading it? Did you feel scared out of your wits? I have enough anxieties without deliberately inducing more in myself, so that’s what I want to know. Examples of what I mean: Station Eleven didn’t scare me, but Stephen King’s The Stand (before it got silly in its second half) scared me a lot.
@Janine: FWIW, no, I don’t see it as horror in that sense. It deals much more with humor behavior, thoughts and reactions than anything horrific or scary.
@Jennie: Thank you!
I’m not a big fan of dystopia or zombies (other than The Walking Dead), but this sounds really good so I just ordered it from Amazon. So thanks for helping run up my balance on my Amazon store card!