Melanie's world is very small. There is the cell, the corridor, and the classroom. Sergeant and his people move her from place to place in a chair with straps. Saturday and Sunday have no lessons, and on Sunday the children are fed and showered. She thinks that she would like to leave this word one day, but it might just be that she is wrong.
The Girl with All the Gifts represents Mike Carey's move into 'grown up' writing. It's not his first novel, but the switch to initials distances this book from his others, asserting a different authorial identity. His past work is mostly in comics and paranormal adventure; The Girl with All the Gifts is a grim, post-apocalyptic road novel about a small group of survivors crossing a hostile Britain.
The bulk of the novel is made up of the interactions of five self-loathing characters in the claustrophobic setting of a trek across enemy country, and the evolution of the relationships between them. None of the characters are particularly likable, but the combination has a kind of alchemy that makes them work as a unit where they would not as lone protagonists. It's not a fun book, but it is effecting and it manages to break new ground despite belonging to a popular subgenre (which I won't specify for the sake of spoilers).
The Girl with All the Gifts is well worth a read, but it is pretty grim and is pretty rough on its child characters.
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