The Girl With All The Gifts by M. R. Carey (4 stars)

This book has an interesting early reveal that if you come to the book in just the right way, i.e. without reading anything at all about it, is probably worth preserving. So I'm putting the spoiler warning right up front, since it's impossible to talk about otherwise. Consider yourself warned.

Having said that, I knew it was a zombie book before I started reading. I think it's actually very obvious before the reveal, but it's hard to judge that objectively. The start of the book is very strong. The idea of high-functioning zombie children being studied for clues to help a mostly-annihilated human population survive in the post-apocalyptic world is very novel. It feels more like a government-gone-crazy dystopia novel to begin with, especially as Melanie notices lots of little cracks appearing in the facade that the teachers and Sergeant Parks present.

After the Junkers storm the base in a brilliantly conceived attack, everything changes. The novel switches to Walking Dead mode, where survival means defending against attacks from both humans and zombies. This is definitely entertaining, and Melanie's encounter with a partially conscious zombie sitting on a bed, singing and leafing through photos is one of the creepier things I've ever read.

"The raven... croaked... as she sat... at her meal..."

It's so apposite to her thoughts, Caldwell is thrown for a moment. But he's not answering her, he's only singing the last line of the quatrain. She knows the song, vaguely. It's "The Woman Who Rode Double", an old folk ballad as depressing and interminable as most of its type - exactly the sort of song she'd expect a hungry to sing.

Except that they don't. Ever.

But the story seems to start losing its way, especially after entering London. Dr Caldwell goes somewhat nuts, and the madcap adventure with the armored vehicle bordered on slapstick with the car careening around through buildings with zombies attached. I get that this was supposed to be the last desperate actions of a species on the brink of extinction, but by this stage I felt like the book had lost almost all of its early promise.

The ending was fitting I think, and I liked the use of an actual zombie fungus as the basis for the infection. Overall there are great ideas here, the execution just wasn't that strong.

4 stars.