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

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

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Since Mary Wollstonecraft examined medical ethics and the God complex in her tale of the Modern Prometheus, science fiction and horror have worked toward a calling higher than simply scaring the pants off readers. M.R. (a.k.a., Mike) Carey’s new book about a post-epidemic Britain (for spoilers’ sake, I’m leaving out details) accomplishes this task admirably, looking looking at topics such as research ethics, how our experiences impact our behavior, and, at the heart of the story, what makes us human. By telling the story from the viewpoints of multiple characters, we see each person’s perspective on the same events. Most of the time, one cannot classify any one individual as wholly good, wholly evil, wholly dumb, etc. Everyone has their initial impressions turned on their heads in some way, whether we’re talking about a scientist who learns her research is headed in the wrong direction or a teacher who realizes there’s more to the authority figure she despises. This novel is a thinking person’s horror, and the last 15 pages or so themselves are worth the price of admission. The Girl shook me in new and not-altogether-good ways (when I finished I had to look at puppy pictures for 10 minutes), but I loved it anyway.



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Sisters, by Raina Telgemeier

Sisters by Raina Telgemeier

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Older sisters everywhere will nod their head in understanding and solidarity as they read Telgemeier's autobiograpical graphic account of her childhood relationship with her younger sister, a sort of follow-up to Smile. The story moves between a family road trip from San Francisco to Colorado in Raina's early teen years and various points in the sisters' history prior to that journey. Like many such relationships, the Telgemeiers' involves conflict, disappointment, frustration, but also occasional flashes of tenderness and understanding. At the same time we see the larger issues facing them: their parents' troubled relationship, the addition of a younger brother, the younger girl's prickly personality. Sisters makes me want to sit and sip cocktails with Telgemeier while we trade stories about our horrible and wonderful younger siblings.

Disclosure: I received an electronic ARC of the book from the publisher for review purposes.



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