Reviews with content warning for Sexual content - The Girl With All the Gifts

Reviews tagging 'Sexual content'

The Girl With All the Gifts by M.R. Carey

12 reviews

holyteeth's review against another edition

4.25

Not sure how to feel about this book.

It had an extremely strong start, and the first half of the book was, in my opinion, an incredible show of craftsmanship. Each character voice was distinct, the prose was full of connecting strings and metaphors and callbacks, the imagery was fresh and solid, and the constant relations to mythology had me very excited for what came next. Carey is very good at writing children and it really added to Melanie's pov, and being in her head really drove the horror of what was happening home.

The second half was... disappointing. Not bad, but it felt like it was from another book entirely. There were a lot less Melanie POVS, which in my opinion was a huge loss for the book, as it completely changed the vibes of the story and took away the strongest thing about the narrative.
I'm far from a prude, but I also really really think the book could have benefited from less sexual content. There wasn't a lot of it, but going from the first half of the book being from a child's POV or focusing on a child to the second half of the book full of people constantly thinking about sex or masturbation or nudity was a big change in vibes and personally I was not for it. In addition, it got tiring very fast to jump from the POVs of the women characters, who were having genuine thoughts and worries and actions, to the POVs of the men who were both constantly thinking about how hot their coworker was and how much they wanted to have sex with her in detail. Why was it written like that? And from both of them? It got tiring very quickly. I can't believe we got less Melanie for that.

The ending felt... abrupt, and a little rushed. I definitely think that would have benefited from more Melanie chapters, too, so we could see her evolution and thought progress.

I was not a fan of the way the feral children were handled, and felt it undermined the themes of the book thus far a bit. Also, was not huge on the fact that apparently they just... left behind like 20 kids locked in an underground bunker, even though both Melanie and Helen allegedly cared about them. Not even one mention of them at the end? Come on.

Overall, despite the fact it's hard not to feel a little disappointed at the way it fell off in the second half, I enjoyed the book. If it had kept up like the first half the entire way through, it could have been my favorite book of all time. Alas, it'll have to settle for 'book I quite enjoyed.'

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unlivinh's review against another edition

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dark emotional reflective medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Dr. Caldwell and Ms. Justineau could’ve had earth-shattering toxic yuri romance but M.R. Carey is a coward

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wrensreadingroom's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

5.0

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blewballoon's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

This was even better than I expected! Such a well written, compelling story. I went in pretty much blind and I definitely recommend reading it that way, the suspense and unraveling of information is great. I listened to this on audiobook that had some soundtrack music and sound effects, which was also expertly done. The narrator was perfect, and the added music and sounds were subtle and added tension and atmosphere. I would have given it 5 stars if it weren't for

The army guy's having unpleasant fixations on sexualizing women. I really hated reading those parts, they added nothing to the plot and made the characters voicing them seem excessively stupid.

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vayalanay's review

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dark mysterious reflective tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.75

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ghostlyprince's review against another edition

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dark reflective tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

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shieldbearer's review against another edition

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dark emotional sad medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

An extremely strong showing from Mike Carey, who I know from his work on X-Men. The characterizations were very well done for the most part- most of them are quite layered. The worldbuilding was strong, and the reviewers asking questions about motivations and "evolution" clearly didn't pay attention because those things were explained in the text.

Ultimately, a few small things did knock this book down by a star for me. For one, I would have

at least switched the fates of Parks and Gallagher, though I also think you could make an argument for Gallagher's survival being more interesting than his death given the detailed backstory and internal conflict he's given. His interaction with the status quo at the end of the story would have been extremely interesting IMO

Part of this may be because I didn't particularly care for Parks, but this is also because Parks doesn't really have anything interesting going on.

For another, I feel as though

the Hungry children were too easy to corral at the end.

The questions of the long-term viability of Melanie's plan didn't bother me because that's not the point of the story.

Finally, and most glaring IMO,

I feel like Sparks would have encoutnered pregnant hungries if they are able to sexually reproduce. I just have a hard time believing this aspect without a little extra narrative support - especially given how often fatal pregnancy is, and how the fungus wrecks so much of the body and shuts down a lot of its systems. Even mentioning a pregnant hungry in the crowd would have helped. I also can't say I'm a fan of the whole "sex is a human instinct" theme. I expected there to be adult hungries like Melanie that showed up later, if they specified that only the kids were the unique ones earlier I somehow missed it.

Either way, I definitely recommend this even if I feel some elements could have been treated with a bit more care- which is about what I would say about his work on the X-Men, as well.

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