The Girl With All The Gifts

Title: The Girl With All The Gifts
Author: M.R. Carey
Genres: dystopian, zombies

Ten-year-old Melanie lives in a maximum-security prison, not for anything she has done, but for what she is – a hungry (a zombie). Melanie has no memories of her parents or her life before the prison compound. Although Melanie is a curious child, loves Greek mythology, and is the smartest student in the school, Melanie and the other children are not the typical hungry/zombie- they look and behave like normal human children, until they smell a normal human. Once they smell a human an uncontrollable urge to feed comes over them, so the adults at the prison shower themselves in a mixture of chemicals to hide their scent.  

Melanie’s favorite adult is her teacher Miss Justineau; Helen Justineau treats the children kindly, reads lots of books to her class, and makes learning fun. Helen’shumane  treatment of the children concerns Eddie Parks (security guard) and Dr Caldwell (research scientist). We later find out that the children will never use what they learn, the classroom setup is basically a giant psychological experiment by the ruthless Dr. Caldwell to research how these special zombie children learn and live. Dr. Caldwell’s sole purpose in life is to find the mode of transmission and a cure for the hungry disease, and she is willing to kill zombie children to do so.  

As if this clash of personalities and moralities wasn’t enough, the compound is attacked by a mob of hungries one day and Melanie, Helen, Eddie, Dr. Caldwell and Private Gallagher flee from the compound to the English countryside seeking the city of Beacon, the rumored safe zone south of London. While on the run they must protect themselves from hungries and junkers (pillaging and violent humans). This journey is the first time that Melanie has been outside of the compound and her first foray into the outside world. As she fights the urge to feed on her fellow travelers, her lessons with Miss Justineau take on new meaning. Eventually there is a showdown and our group finds the answer to the zombie problem but it will change the course of humanity forever.  

*You can view the trailer for the movie adaptation here: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4547056/?ref_=vp_back