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  • The Girl with All the Gifts

  • By: M. R. Carey
  • Narrated by: Finty Williams
  • Length: 13 hrs and 3 mins
  • 4.5 out of 5 stars (7,822 ratings)
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The Girl with All the Gifts cover art

The Girl with All the Gifts

By: M. R. Carey
Narrated by: Finty Williams
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Editor reviews

‘Not every gift is a blessing.’ In M. R. Carey’s thrilling audiobook, Melanie is a special child – The Girl with All the Gifts. She has an unusually high IQ, and yet she does not understand why she is subject to such high security – cared for at gunpoint, locked in a cell, strapped to a wheelchair. She loves school and tells her teacher, Helen Justineau, what she plans to do when she grows up, but Miss Justineau just looks sad. Narrated by the wonderful Finty Williams, The Girl with All the Gifts is available for download from Audible.

Summary

Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award 2014

Not every gift is a blessing.

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 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 favourite teacher all the things she'll do when she grows up.

Melanie doesn't know why this makes Miss Justineau look sad.

Emotionally charged and gripping from beginning to end, The Girl with all the Gifts is the most powerful and affecting thriller you will listen to this year.

The phenomenal word-of-mouth best seller The Girl with all the Gifts is now a major film on widespread distribution starring Glenn Close, Gemma Arterton and Paddy Considine.

©2014 M. R. Carey (P)2014 Hachette Audio

Critic reviews

"A great read that takes hold of you and doesn´t let go." (John Ajvide Lindqvist, author of Let The Right One In)
"Brilliant... Gripping right to the end." ( Sunday Times best-selling author Carole Matthews)

What listeners say about The Girl with All the Gifts

Average customer ratings
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  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A stunning read

Any additional comments?
Having listened to hundreds of audiobooks, this is the first review that I've written … and I'm doing so only because my opinion is so at odds with the two-and-a-half stars that this book has been awarded so far.
I found this a thoroughly gripping and thought-provoking tale; a highly original take on, to be honest, a somewhat hackneyed genre. (I won't mention the genre, as the part of the joy is the gradual unfolding of the protagonist's identity.)
The characters are satisfyingly rounded and the plot both engaging and pacey. From the outset through to the final few minutes, I had no idea of the book's conclusion and, when it finally came, I was far from disappointed.
Mention must also go to Finty Williams for some beautiful characterisation and a warm and textured performance.
So, if I’m waxing so lyrical about this production, why has it been so poorly received elsewhere? Well, I have to admit that it's not the book I had anticipated; and this is due to the necessarily vague publisher’s description. (As I mentioned earlier, giving too much away at the beginning would leach the joy from the first section of the book). So, like me, perhaps other listeners didn’t end up with the book they’d anticipated but, unlike me, found themselves in too much of an unfamiliar setting to enjoy their surroundings.
So, without giving too much away, what you get in the box is a somewhat bleak post-apocalyptic drama, laced with plenty of warmth to balance the grit and revolving around an intriguingly textured central character. I hope that you find the surprises as pleasing as I did.

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193 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

worth it

I really struggle sometimes to find a book that hits the spot. Having been spoiled with Sanderson and Rothfuss, whose epic fantasies tick every box, it's regularly hard to find a viable alternative. This book was it. Not a true fantasy by my standards, rather it's of the apocalyptic variety.

Enough new stuff to keep me interested - and keep me thinking. Well written too. One of those books that will stay with me for many years, I'm sure.

It has a slight shock factor - probably hits different people at different stages. Well narrated.

Certainly worth a credit - even if not your normal genre.

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87 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

STOP WHAT YOU ARE DOING AND DOWNLOAD THIS BOOK

If you could sum up The Girl with All the Gifts in three words, what would they be?

time to think

What was one of the most memorable moments of The Girl with All the Gifts?

My house has never been so clean, I made up jobs to carry on listening, The whole concept of what we could become

Any additional comments?

I have not stopped thinking about the play of characters since I finished this. I forgot time and place and lost myself in this book.

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72 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

Couldn't stop listening

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Yes, definitely. You immediately get drawn into the main characters and I finished the book in 24 hrs

Who was your favorite character and why?

Actually the teacher. I found her to be both likeable and naive.

What about Finty Williams’s performance did you like?

The pace of the narration was perfect as was the pitch. I was extremely content to listen for hours on end.

Did you have an emotional reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?

Yes. I cried at the end. Not giving anything away but it was a satisfactory ending.

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36 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Cracking Story

Any additional comments?

An unexpected story, I wouldn't normally listen to a book where the main character is a child, but this was a real surprise as a fast moving story with an original theme
Well worth a read !

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27 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

....but I don't even LIKE zombie stories

I really don't like zombies; they are the least interesting baddies as far as I'm concerned. I got this book because of several reviewers (who've not let me down in the past) said they'd had the same reservation but had ended up loving it.

The story drops you right in the middle of events without exposition and the situation is gradually revealed. I liked that two of the main protagonists are middle aged women (their ages aren't mentioned but given the time scale of events they must both be over 40), and one of them a black woman. It makes a welcome change to have a slightly more diverse set of characters. I really like the characterisation too; everyone has reasons for behaving as they do and there's a bit with Gallagher that nearly made me cry.

There is violence and some gore but it's not gross or over the top.

Finty Williams is excellent particularly as Melanie.

I hope they make a film of this; I started mentally casting it almost straight away.



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20 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

A good old fashion end beginning of.......

Good plot, likeable characters; delivered by a great reader, that brings it all to life. I found it hard to put down and heard the entire story in one day.

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16 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
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    5 out of 5 stars

An interesting twist on a horror classic.

I loved everything about this book. The story was gripping from start to finish, the characterisation pulled me in from the beginning and Carey rapidly built a world I wanted to know more about. The genre was familiar but this was such a different take that it never felt clichéd, and the very British nature of the story also made it more haunting for me. And the ending - perfect.
I had never heard this narrator before but she captured the voices and the tone perfectly and really added to the novel.
I admit that I was sad that there was no new Felix Castor but if this is an example of what we can expect from Carey in the future then I'm very happy indeed.

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14 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    4 out of 5 stars
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    4 out of 5 stars

Unexpectedly addictive, unexpectedly different.

What do you get if you stick a scientist, a soldier (or 2), an humanitarian and a Zombie together in a race for survival? Answer...The girl with all the Gifts.

Like many zombie stories this book is set in a post apocalyptic world. Military rules and regulations apply to assure survival and in the middle of it all is Melanie who is about to discover her place in this forsaken world.

The difference with this book is that this is just the beginning. It's not all about how the world got taken over by zombies, death by gory death. It's about what happened after...decades after, and I found this a breath of fresh air in what is considered a over done genre.

This book is never at risk of being too unrealistic. It has tension and gore and at times quite chilling moments that made me uncomfortable to be listening alone. But it is all written so matter-of-factly that you do not doubt that, should this world become ridden with the un-dead, this is of course what would happen, it is the natural order of things when humans have been bottom of the food chain for 20 years.

With only a small character base you get to know all of them well and you know by the end of the book who you like, who you really like and who your really really don't like.

I was also pleased with the ending. I have read too many books recently that try to leave the ending to the readers imagination. I feel robbed of a conclusion most of the time and feel disappointed in the author for not having the courage of their convictions and following through to the end, whether people like their choice of ending or not. The girl with all the gifts gives an ending that I personally felt complemented the story brilliantly and I have been recommending it to anyone I know since I started reading it.

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13 people found this helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars

Delivers

There are some books that defy categorisation. This could be described as a genre story, and the genre will be very familiar to some listeners. The joy is the completely unexpected and fresh angle this book takes on every familiar story beat. Its not just that this is a new perspective on a familiar type of story, it pulls off an extraordinary feat in making that story both horribly believable and peopled with totally realised and imagined characters with complex emotions. And the writing is both spare and elegant in its power but lyrical and poetic in its description. Really good. And Finty Williams is a reader I will now seek out just for the pleasure of her performance.

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12 people found this helpful