The Girl with All the Gifts

This is the story of Melanie, an ultra-intelligent young girl who is living her life under the harshest of restrictions-she is muzzled, handcuffed and locked in a room most of her time. The adults in Melanie’s life aren’t particularly kind: Sargent Parks is the military officer in charge of her and Dr. Caldwell is unfriendly but thankfully makes few visits. Miss Justineau, however, is different. She’s Melanie’s teacher and she tells Melanie about the outside world and she reads to her and a dozen other kids, living a similar life to Melanie’s. Miss Justineau shows the kids what tree branches look like, poetry sounds like and story-telling feels like. Melanie wants to please Miss Justineau so very badly and is very acutely aware of her moods and feelings. The two will embark on a journey that will lead to friendship and, I dare say, love.

This story takes place in the future and I can’t tell you any more than that for fear of giving away the story line. It knocked my socks off! I’m sure by now, you won’t be surprised to know that I am not a science fiction sort of a girl. I want a good story and characters that I can relate to and, surprisingly, this gave me just that (inside a story of a world I don’t understand, nor do I ever want to). I truly enjoyed this story and was so happy to hit play on my audiobook. The only part that had me squirming was the part about the cat, but otherwise, this story is yummy (no pun intended-just read it, you’ll understand!) and highly enjoyable. Give this one a try.