In general, I am not a fan of literature involving zombies (Pride and Prejudice and Zombies excepted), but I picked up this gem after listening to Sean and Dietrich's emphatic recommendation on their podcast, The Library Police. Boy, am I glad I did! Despite the zombie-thing which I have, for some reason, been avoiding until now, this book has all the other elements of fiction that have sucked me in since I learned to read: a flawed-yet-likeable hero (in this case, several heroes) on a journey of self-discovery, a series of seemingly-insurmountable challenges that must be met and eventually overcome, masterfully amped-up suspense, characters I care about, characters I don't think I care about but end up rooting for, characters I want to see defeated...the whole shebang! The Girl with All the Gifts delivers these much-loved elements and wraps them up in a zombie-related ethical dilemma that sets this book above others of the genre, for M.R. Carey forces his readers to wrestle with the question "what makes us human?" through the lenses of characters who each must question and confront their own beliefs about this issue. Ethical dilemma aside, this book is an edge-of-your-seat, thrilling adventure story that is at once horrifying, heart-breaking, and inspiring. And the ending...WOW! I'll be thinking about this one for a long time...
No comments:
Post a Comment