This is a tough one for me, since I have, at various times, enjoyed each of them, but, also, each of these tropes became oversaturated at some point or another! If I had to choose, right now, I would choose werewolf by elimination, because I overdosed on vampires and I never really liked zombies, although there a couple of zombie books I liked a lot.

I was never a fan of Twilight. My YA vampire romance catnip were the Morganville Vampires and Vampire Academy - those were the ones that my daughter read, and that I read along with her. Oh, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer, on television, of course.

Now that I've put some distance between myself and far too much sexy vampire fiction, there are a few series that I'm interested in again, though! The Chelsea Quinn Yarbro St. Germaine series has been recommended by several of my friends here - including Linda Hilton, whose bookish taste is impeccable. The first book, Hotel Transylvania, is on my list of possibles for this years game of Halloween Bingo, unless someone who knows the series recommends a different starting point! I also have a copy of Anno Dracula on my kindle that has been there for years, and that looks like something I would love!

Moving on to zombies, they just didn't appeal to me. Sexy vampires are silly, but there is nothing sexy about a zombie. On the other hand, World War Z is worth reading, and The Girl With All the Gifts is excellent, with a great ending. Too many authors blow the ending, and Carey nailed it.

There are exactly zero is one possible zombie books that I am sufficiently interested in to plan to read for Halloween bingo at this point, although I'll keep my eyes on the posts for something that might interest me. No, wait, there's Feed by Mira Grant. I might read that one!

So, that brings me to werewolves, which brings me to urban fantasy. Urban fantasy is replete with shifters of all sorts, and I pretty much lump werewolves with shifters. My favorite shifter has to be Mercy Thompson, who is actually a skin walker (shifts into coyote form), not a werewolf. I read the hell out of Mercy Thompson and keep meaning to do a reread! And I can't mention shifters without pointing to Kate Daniels, which may be the actual best UF series ever written. 

It's predictable in some regards, but that isn't bad necessarily: more suspense than horror. The science is poor and the reliance on guns is just stupid when zombies respond to sound. But I quite like Melanie: I'm looking forward to seeing her in a more active role.

Gonna make a giant generalization here and say that it’s easy to make a creepy dystopian. I mean, that’s kind of the baseline, right? We want to be chilled and unnerved by this vision of a near-future that has just enough recognizability to feel like what’s in store for us should we fail to get our collective act together.

Then there are the books that take it one step further into heart wrenching emotion. (Hunger Games and Feed trilogies, I’m looking at you.) The books that not only devastate us, but uplift us, because even when things are at their bleakest, humanity will find a way to love, and laugh, and hope.

Enter The Girl With All The Gifts. I’m not going to give away spoilers, though things are revealed pretty quickly. The future this book presents is chilling and bleak and in the hands of a lesser author, that would have been the entire takeaway.

However, the heart of this book is the relationship between Melanie and her teacher Miss Justineau. This relationship pushes the book into the realm of the truly great in this genre.

Melanie is a lens through which our understanding of all the adult characters is filtered. The naive student ends up teaching us more about humanity and ourselves than could have been imagined by anyone at the start of the novel.

There is a second book, but this story feels complete in and of itself. So if you’re looking for your next great read, pick up The Girl With All the Gifts.

Melanie takes the reader on an exciting, suspenseful, and unexpected journey that explores the meaning of what it is to be human.

There are surprises that I don't want to give away, but let me say this book is an amazing read that you shouldn't miss.

This review can also be found Carole's Random Life in Books.

Wow! This was a bit of a surprise for me. I don't really know why it was a surprise since I have heard wonderful things about it but it was. I guess I went into this book thinking that I would probably like it but I had no idea how much I would end up enjoying it. Once I started listening, I was hooked and I wanted to know more about Melanie. I spent hours at a time listening to this book and enjoyed the experience immensely. This is a zombie story that I will not be forgetting anytime soon.

This book is told from Melanie's point of view. She is a very bright girl but her experience at the start of the story has been very limited. I really enjoyed seeing the world she know through her eyes. Melanie's entire existence is limited to her cell and her classroom. She knows the rules and how things are supposed to be. She knows exactly what to expect from day to day.

Melanie was a fantastic character. I would never have imagined that she would turn out to be so easy to relate to but she was. I loved the way she worked out problems in her mind and how observant she was of everything going on around her. She was able to work things out very quickly and made the people she was around re-think some of their beliefs. All of the key characters in this book were really well developed and added something important to the overall story.

I thought that Finty Williams did a fantastic job narrating this book. This was the first time that I have listened to her narration and I wasn't sure of her voice as the book first began. I was over any reservations that I initially had pretty quickly and her voice became Melanie's voice. I thought her voice was very pleasant and she brought a lot of excitement to the story. I was able to listen to this story for hours at a time and never tired of her narration.

I would highly recommend this book to others. It is a different kind of zombie story that was highly entertaining and hard to put down. I would not hesitate to read more of M.R. Carey's work in the future.

Initial Thoughts
This falls somewhere between 4 and 5 stars for me. I was really pulled into the story from the very beginning. Melanie really got to me early on in the book. All of the key characters in this book were really well developed and the story had a lot of excitment. This book really kept me guessing until the very end. Finty Williams did a wonderful job narrating this wonderful book.

Book source: Audible purchase