Set about 20 years prior to The Girl With all the Gifts. I was never quite sure of the timeline and it is not truly a factor. It is enough to know that it was several years prior.

Set about 17 years prior to The Girl With all the Gifts. This is the timeline I was able to surmise. The beginning and the end are all action and exciting. The middle was all about learning our characters with a few fully developed and a few like the "redshirt" characters on Star Trek.
I see many reviewers were put off by the lack of development of the "redshirt" characterization. That's life folks. We get to know the characters that move the story along and we don't get to know any more than role played by the undeveloped members of the cast. In this respect Carey went beyond most writers which should be praised. Everyone had a job and a name and a purpose.
Greaves is the main character and I feel that I know him well and he is unforgettable. That is all that counts. Dr Shan was his connection to this world. Everyone else was background.
No, this book is not quite as 'good' as TGWATG. How could it be. It is a prequel and a damn good one. We bring a future knowledge base with us as we read this book. We, the readers, know more than the characters. Again, well handled by M. R. Carey. I am leaving this book desiring to know even more about the children and for this reason I need a pre-prequel to satisfy all my questions about their development. Well played. (less)

Prequel to Girl with all the gifts this takes place 20 years earlier . Scientists and soldiers traveling from London set out to find a cure to the plague . Scary and emotional this is a page turner filled with tragedy and hope . If you loved Girl with all the Gifts this is a brilliant companion to that book

A bit slow moving, but gave insight to the background of world of TGWATGs. Interesting and well developed characters.

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to preview the book.

JUICY!!! This book has so many components to it!!! The characters are a pure representation of a cross of people. The smart one, the kind one, the instigator, the weasel (and a first class one, he is - always looking for a way to save his own A double S) (SMH), the really smart teenager with no common sense, included with lots of power struggles. And this is just what's going on in the all terrain RV like tank that the people from Beacon are traveling in. That doesn't even mention the danger of the living dead (Hungries) that are everywhere outside.

I loved the first book, "The Girl With All The Gifts" and this one????? OMG, it was even better!!!! I am soooooooo looking forward to the next one!

Kudos to the author on an even better second book!!!

Thanks to Paola Crespo, Orbit Books and Net Galley for providing me with a free e-galley in exchange for an honest, unbiased review.

The Girl With All the Gifts easily became one of my five-star reads of 2014, the year I read it. But I hesitated to pick up this chronological 'prequel' because I couldn't see how Carey could recapture the fabulous combination of innocence, self-discovery, world-building, and disaster that characterized the first book. Sadly, he doesn't.

In this book, a team of twelve is headed off in the Rosalind to retrieve samples from the Charles Darwin expedition, as well as conduct their own research, in the hopes of finding a cure for the fungus destroying humanity.

There's a lot of parallels with the first book here: an isolated group of people, an ostracized/under-socialized teen, an older female mentor, the threat of the 'hungries' and junkers, the spirit of scientific inquiry. But like one of those black-and-white optical illusion illustrations, it generally serves to highlight the ways in which it can't compare.

"He actually prefers to see Greaves as a kind of black box--like the hungries. There may or may not be a person in there, but either way it's not his problem. He only has to deal with the output."

The writing is usually solid from a technical level. I didn't outline quite as much as I did in 'Girl,' but I generally enjoyed the phrasing and imagery. The trouble is there is a lot of focus on the autistic genius youth, Stephen Greaves, and his preoccupation with the science and his belief in absolution through his contribution, coupled with physical descriptions of what the team is observing.

"He needs to do it because each day has a shape and the waking-up ritual is one of its load-bearing components."

Though I feel like there wasn't much action, truly it should have been enough to keep me engaged. But I really wasn't. Perhaps part of it was because the mystery of both the hungries and the fungus is a forgone conclusion. But I think more likely is that the characters are predictable and rather shallowly constructed. There's the joint leaders, Colonel Carlisle, the honorable soldier who lost his honor by following orders and won't be caught doing it again and Dr. Fournier, the head scientist, incompetent and a toady, who displays little to no leadership. Dr. Samrina Khan is our primary female narrator and only emotional connection for Stephen. There's John, a science dude who kind of thinks he might love Samrina; Penny, a science lady; and Akimwe, another science person. Private Sixsmith, who usually drives. Private Phillips, Private Foss and Lutes are virtually indistinguishable. McQueen is the only soldier who really stood out for me as he had a more complex role and internal life than any of the rest.

"It's an unfortunate habit to find in a leader, but to be fair nobody thinks of him as one."

Given those characters, the person(s) that are involved in a (mild) (view spoiler) are entirely unsurprising. The next best thing, then, is to hope for a level of character insight that brings internal or external tension to the story. And it doesn't. I wasn't horrified by any of the conflicts because it was pretty clear why/how the screw-ups were going to happen, not the least of which is our isolated and practical-challenged young hero. I was never emotionally invested enough to care when it did happen (see Jurassic Park).

I'm just realizing this, but I've read a number of stories lately with an isolated group of people in a supposedly tension-filled situation (thinking of Six Wakes. I don't always identify with or admire the characters (see Starfish and Into the Drowning Deep), but somehow there's enough tension to keep me engaged. I should have cared about who survives the mission of the Rosie, and I kind of did, at least enough to skim to the end.

Who should read this? People that really want to know more about the world of The Girl With All the Gifts, and who don't necessarily need horror, zombie or suspense elements. Despite the bizarre nomination on Goodreads for 'Best Horror,' it really isn't. There is a 'Epilogue: Twenty Years Later' that has a nice confluence of the two books, as well as a positive-vibe resolution.


Two and a half stars, rounding up because it could be a book I'd return to in a different mood.

Many thanks to Paola at Orbit Books-Hatchette Book Group for an arc

This book took me a really long time to get into. Maybe that was because I read it so long after the first, but I think it was because I was expecting it to be similar. Instead it was a whole new set of characters. There was a lot of politics and hidden dynamics which made it hard to know who to trust. About halfway through I finally started to care about what happened next and I was really fascinated by the end. Really dramatic ending too. Thanks for the chance to read this one.

What I liked: The world building was incredible, the story intriguing. This dystopian novel is beautifully written. There's a lot of detail and lyrical language.

What I didn't like: I found this book to be slow. I didn't connect with the characters in the way that I wanted to, and I found myself skimming. I still wanted to know what happened, but I didn't want to read all the words to get there. And when I did, I was disappointed in the ending.

This story is a prequel to The Girl With All The Gifts. In this book, a group of scientists has gone on an expedition to study results of tests in an attempt to find a cure for the plague that has turned much of the population into zombies. The two main characters are Stephen, an autistic teen genius, and Dr. Khan, a pregnant scientist who has acted as Stephen's mother for years. When Stephen sneaks away from the group to observe the hungries, he encounters children that are hungries, yet have still managed to retain thought processes. There are political elements and danger and infighting among the crew of the Rosie, the large tank like vehicle that they are traveling in. Readers who enjoyed the first book should enjoy this one as well.

You may not immediately recognise the name ‘M. R. Carey’, but Mike’s recent book, The Girl With All the Gifts (2014), was a runaway success here in the UK. Initially one of those books whose reputation grew via word of mouth (or perhaps these days that means via social media) interest and sales rocketed when it was highlighted as a ‘Book of the Week’ on one of the national BBC Radio’s most popular radio shows.

It quickly became one of those ‘must-read’ books, with many readers who don’t normally read ‘that sort of thing’ surprised by how much they enjoyed a really good read of what is, basically, a contemporary zombie tale.

It was made into a movie in 2016, which garnered moderate box-office returns but great reviews and a BAFTA nomination for Mike for Outstanding Debut by a British Writer, Director or Producer.

So what has this to do with The Boy on the Bridge? Well, Boy is a book set in the same world as Girl With All the Gifts, but it is an earlier time – when the creation of zombies, here named ‘Hungries’, and the decline of civilisation, known as The Breakdown, has not been that long ago.

It is also a surprisingly good novel that raises the high standard set by GWATG.

The story begins with a tank-like research vehicle, The Rosalind Franklin (aka ‘Rosie’) travelling through the ruined landscape of Britain trying to find the solution to determine a cure for the virus which has struck the world.

The crew of the vehicle are an odd and disparate bunch who are forced to work together for the greater good, so to speak. There are a group of scientists, led by Dr. Alan Fournier, who are looked after by a group of military soldiers, led by Colonel Isaac Carlisle, whilst on their dangerous mission. The relationship between the two factions is fraught and rarely good. Two disparate groups, forced to work together, is not an easy situation, even when the chances of them discovering a solution look increasingly slim.

The tension is increased by further complications. The two leaders of the scientists and the military do not get on with each other, each jostling for supremacy, determined to try and keep some remnant of civilisation intact. One of the scientists, Doctor Samrina Khan, has fallen pregnant and is now due the arrival of a baby imminently. Under her care is Stephen Greaves, an autistic teenage boy whose intelligence has so far created the anti-bacterial gel that stops humans being attacked by the Hungries. He finds social situations extremely difficult and puts his own life in danger trying to deduce a cure to the virus. He may however have stumbled across a possible solution when, on one of his sorties, he meets a semi-feral group of children who seem to survive living without protection among the Hungries.

I must admit that that brief description does not sound like an exciting novel. My first thoughts were that it reminded me of being on a long coach journey with no escape, surrounded by people you didn’t like and who clearly didn’t like you.

But the skill of the writer is to draw us into the situation, to make us feel for the characters and make us imagine we are there. Mike manages to convey the feelings of the protagonists with surprising depth and yet skillful precision. I was most impressed with his creation of Stephen, an autistic genius who, like Melanie before him, is an outsider, a character with a gift but one that most others do not quite understand.

There are parallels here that mirror GWATG. For example, Stephen is mentored by ‘Rina, as Melanie was taught by Miss Justineau. Again, there is conflict between the scientists and the military, although the skill of the writer is to create relationships that are not quite as simple as that might suggest. The leader of the Military, Colonel Isaac Carlisle, is not the usual jingoistic militarist we expect, but instead a rather sad character who has done horrendous things in the past for the greater good and yet even now tries to hold everything together, despite the world collapsing around him. Rosie is the same vehicle from GWATG, and Beacon, the home base in GWATG, is there in Boy as well, although both are subtly different, earlier variants of something we recognise from Girl.

Mike has an unerring skill of quickly creating characters you understand, even if you don’t always like them, and is terrific at then putting these people into situations that may initially seem mundane but soon become anything but. When Rosie’s crew attempts to return to Beacon, we find that things have changed from when they left. A military coup has led to a shift in power with repercussions for those in Rosie, and may have served to hasten the decline of the survivor’s circumstances further. Only Stephen may hold a solution to the virus – but if it is, can it be made useful in time as the world falls apart around him?

If you liked Girl With All The Gifts, you’ll love Boy on the Bridge as much, possibly more so. When I read GWATG, I couldn’t put it down. This is also the case, if not more so, with Boy on the Bridge. Though it starts slow, the book skilfully builds to an unstoppable end.

The ending is as good as I expected, though the Epilogue is a real surprise, going beyond the first novel with something rather of an I Am Legend feel, but surprisingly optimistic.

In short, The Boy on the Bridge is everything I had hoped for, and then some. The characterisation is great, more complex than I expected and extremely perceptive, the tension skilfully applied and artfully used. Mike has managed something very difficult – to take something the reader may think they already know about and then create something that builds on, but also improves on, what was already great.

If you enjoyed The Girl with All the Gifts, you will enjoy M.R. Carey's The Boy on the Bridge set ten years earlier. It is not as fast-paced, but the third person omniscient narrator gives fascinating insight into the internal thoughts, opinions, and secrets of each of the major characters.

Although Samrina Khan and Stephen Greaves share the limelight as dominant characters, the novel is something of an ensemble cast. Twelve people, a mixture of military and scientists and one adolescent boy, are sent out from Beacon in the armored vehicle/science lab named the Rosalind Franklin. Their mission is to find something that will enable humans to survive the hungries, those infected by the Cordyceps plague. Is there any place where the plague is inhibited by environment? Any way to develop a cure or vaccine?

In the close confinement of Rosie, the armored vehicle, tensions mount, personalities clash. Month after month, the crew faces down hungries, takes samples, perform experiments in the lab, but fail to find any positive information to fight the Cordyceps pathogen, which unchecked, will mean the end of the human race.

I don't want to say much more because I liked reading it without any spoilers or preconceived ideas. The book works perfectly well as a standalone. If you've read The Girl with All the Gifts, you already have insight into the world Carey has created, but it isn't necessary to understand or appreciate The Boy on the Bridge.

The structure and archetypes are similar to the previous novel, the style is terse and analytical (well, you are privy to the thoughts of military personnel and scientists, not writers or artists), yet even these these left-brain characters occasionally have their moments, and Carey includes some vivid descriptions of setting. I liked the present tense omniscient pov that gave insight into the reasoning of each of the characters, whether I liked the character or not.

And then there is an epilogue. Another excellent installment in this dystopian world, and I want more.

NetGalley/Orbit Books

Science Fiction/Dystopian. May 2, 2018. Print length: 392 pages.

The Boy on the Bridge by M.R. Carey is a tale set in the same post-apocalyptic world as The Girl with All the Gifts, but in a time about 20 years prior to that book. It can easily be read as a stand-alone novel.

First, let me thank NetGalley, the publisher Orbit Books, and of course the author, for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

This is the story of the Rosalind Franklin, known as Rosie, which was the second huge travelling research station, equipped with state-of-the-art biology and chemistry labs, as well as scientists and military personnel, that was sent out in search of answers. Although it has bunks, a kitchen, and a shower, it is not exactly a motor home. This mobile lab was equipped with flame throwers, was fully armored, and rode on caterpillar treads, so that it could withstand both the hostile terrain and the “hungries”. The plague that changed humans into flesh-eating monsters has been running rampant for 3 years, and the hopes of the world are resting on two of these mobile labs to find the cure.

It is unknown what happened to the first lab. Rosie’s sister vessel, the Charles Darwin, never made it back. It is assumed that Charlie was ambushed by junkers (outlaw bands of survivalists), the crew killed, and the vehicle dismantled.

Rosie has a team of 12, and their main mission is to retrieve a cache of specimen cultures that the Charles Darwin team left behind. The Scientists are lead by Dr. Fournier, a coward who barely leaves the Rosie, looking only for applause from his bosses back in Beacon for a job well done. The military leader is Colonel Carlisle, who wants to do everything by the book. However, when you put two groups together, their agendas will sometimes clash. Put them together in close quarters, and their personalities will definitely clash. Add the danger of contracting an infectious disease, as well as secrets being kept, and watch what happens. Then add politics to the mix. There are more secrets than we know.

One of Rosie’s occupants is pregnant. Dr. Samrina Khan hopes to give birth after the mission. Another is the boy genius/savant that Dr. Khan rescued after his parents were killed. Although he has an eidetic memory, he suffers from severe social anxiety, and may have a touch of aspergers or autism. He did, however, create the e-block which can be spread on your body to hide your scent from the hungries. Unfortunately, he prefers to be alone, and to do his research away from the others, keeping his findings secret. The team and the government are hoping for more genius discoveries from young Stephen. But he may not be willing to share. Especially when he finds a group of children who are not quite what they seem.

I really liked the world that M.R. Carey created. There are so many pitfalls, but there is so much hope. I admit that I enjoyed The Girl with All the Gifts more than this book, but The Boy on the Bridge did have its moments. It may not have been as exciting and fresh as the first book, but the characters of Rina, Stephen, and the young girl he meets definitely kept my interest. As well, although it’s not frightening, it is rather intense.

If you enjoyed the first book, this one will make you think. It is not a sequel, and it is not really a prequel. It is, however, fun to discover a nugget or two from The Girl with All the Gifts in this middle of this one. It almost makes me want to read TGWATG again!

The Girl With all the Gifts was one of the best apocalyptic novels I’ve ever read, so I was thrilled to get this prequel to the story. About 20 years before the events in Girl, the Hungries plague is still in its infancy and scientists are working hard on a cure. They get help from a very unlikely source, an autistic teenager named Stephen, who discerns that the Hungries still have vestiges of feeling and humanity. He also develops the scent blocker that allows humans to get near the infected without being attacked. Stephen teams up with Dr. Samrina Khan as they travel in their mobile lab Rosie. If you haven’t read this series, you must. It’s head and shoulders over the mindless zombie stories out there

3.5 stars rounded up

I recently watched the movie adaptation of [book:The Girl with All the Gifts|17235026], which had been on my TBR forever. I really enjoyed the movie, but not enough to make me want to see if the book was any better, so I was happy to delete it from my every growing list.
Then I saw that this book was a sequel that came out last February...so much for that brief moment where my TBR was one book lighter!

I wasn't able to find this in my library yet, but for some reason it was still on NetGalley, so after a few days wait for approval, voila, I was able to continue the series.
Interestingly enough, it's its own separate story with a whole new cast of characters, but taking place in the same time period.

The first half of the book was rough for me. With no back story on these characters, it was hard to get invested in their mission. The shining star of them all is Robot/Greaves. Without him this probably would have become a DNF.

But half way through, the tension started to ramp up and continued at this pace until the end. The ending was fantastic, although I really would have liked to how things ended up for <spoiler> Rina's baby, and I was also hoping that there was a chance Robot had survived and was able to live with the feral children</spoiler>

All in all an entertaining read, and I look forward to finding out how this plays out on the silver screen.

ARC provided by NetGalley

While I enjoyed The Girl with All the Gifts a bit more than this one, it was still an exciting story set in the same world, that was compelling and a lot of fun.

The Girl With All the Gifts was one of my all-time favorites of 2014 and I was filled with trepidation when this prequel was announced. Sure, there was a story that could be told but did it need to be told is the real question. The Boy on the Bridge is a prequel story that tells of the original mission of the Rosalind Franklin, the mobile science lab that Melanie essentially hijacks in Girl. Knowing the end result of the mission will lead any reader to understand that there can be no happy ending, only a story to be told. It’s bittersweet to see this new crew of scientists searching the world for a cure to the hungries, still filled with a chance of hope for the few surviving individuals of the world.

“Things don’t end, after all. They only change, and you keep changing with them.”

The Boy on the Bridge wasn’t nearly as compelling as I had hoped or anticipated. The writing was oftentimes overly technical which resulted in a definite detachment from the emotional tale at its center and it seemed as if Carey was writing it as something that had already passed rather than something happening presently. I often found myself wondering if my overall opinion would have been different if this had been released prior to Girl. If I had been more interested in discovering these intriguing details of a widespread infection if I didn’t already know the outcome. I’m not really sure. I don’t feel Carey was being opportunistic by writing this but simply chose to expand on this fascinating world he created, and that’s fair. It’s also fair that I simply didn’t care for it and think Girl was solid and complete enough to stand on its own, but it is what it is.

I received this book free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

One of the best zombie books out there!!!

I loved this sequel to The Girl With All the Gifts. Since we knew of the discovery of the abandoned Rosie at the end of The Girl With All the Gifts, we assume the team who of scientists and military who pilot her will have a deathly fate. When I first started reading this book, that thought weighed on my mind until I got caught up in the characters' lives... their emotions, their motivations, their struggles. Then the ending didn't matter anymore. Regarding the ending, the only thing I will say is I was surprised. And I LOVED how The Girl With the Gifts was tied into the book at the end. It was just like the cherry on top.

"Once upon a time, in a land blighted by terror, there was a very clever boy."

Stephen was very clever but even he could not make this book great for me. Let me start by saying that I LOVED "The Girl with all the Gifts" I thought it was AMAZING and I loved the POV chapters and of course, Melanie. Stephen is a 15-year-old autistic teen who has discovered that the "hungries" have maintained some of their humanity. He finds this interesting and compelling as he observes and ultimately interacts with them.

A team of scientists and military personnel are on-board, Rosie, which is basically an armored RV/motor home/lab, looking for a cure for the fungus that turns people into zombies/hungries. Rosie is where they do research, have sexual dalliances, stab each other in the back, make power plays, have resentments - you get the picture. Basically, the joys of living in extremely close quarters for months on end.

There are several characters in this book, but the main ones are Stephen and Dr. Samrina Khan. Khan and Stephen have a unique relationship. She rescued him when he was younger, and she is the only one allowed to touch him. Khan loves Stephen and feels responsible for him and his safety. Stephen is a unique 15-year-old and he is dedicated with finding the "cure". Both of these characters are "troublemakers". Dr. Khan is pregnant, and Stephen goes off on his own and conducts his research. He puts himself in danger to observe and interact with the hungries.

There were parts of this book that were just "blah" for me and parts that were really great - the great parts were mainly at the end. The story dragged in the beginning and did pick up stream. I liked that this book was not only about the hungries and finding the cure but also about humans trying to survive and the things they did for and against each other. I did not find that any of the characters in this book shined or stood out as they did in "The girl with all the gifts". I rooted for and wanted more of the characters in this first book, and although; I liked Stephen and Khan, they did not wow me. For most of "The Boy on the Bridge” I was hoping for the story to get better and even when things did pick up at that point, I was left feeling meh. Perhaps, part of this was me having such high expectations as I loved the previous book. I wanted this one to WOW just as much. I'm sad to say that it did not.

Good not great.

Thank you to Orbit books and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.


See more of my reviews at www.openbookpost.com

The Boy on the Bridge takes place approximately 10 years after the book "The Girl with All the Gifts". It is about a group of scientists and military that are assigned to go out and find a possible cure for the plague that turns humans into what they call "hungries". The main two characters are Dr. Samrina Khan and a young boy she took under her wing, Stephen Greaves. Stephen is on the spectrum and is probably around 15 years old. He is the one who developed the scent blocker that allows humans to mask their scent from the hungries. He is a genius but nobody knows the full extent of his abilities. Dr. Khan feels that having him with the group may give them insight into a cure for this disease. The crew is in a vehicle affectionately nicknamed Rosie. It is the same type of vehicle that we see the teacher, Miss Helen Justineau, surviving in from the first book.
We find out almost immediately that Dr. Khan is pregnant which will likely get her into trouble with the military since that type of fraternization was not allowed. It also presents many problems in the future about how a baby will affect this group and their directive. On one of the first stops they make to collect samples, Stephen sees an anomaly. A hungry that does not behave the way a normal hungry should behave. He does not share this information with the rest of the crew and sneaks out the next night to do his own research. What he finds is astounding and could affect the world and it's very survival.
For some reason I did not expect to like this as much as the first book but it is seriously just as good. I would highly recommend it to anyone who enjoys the zombie/apocalypse genre. Thank you NetGalley for allowing me to read the book and give my review.

I absolutely adored this novel. When I first came across The Girl with All the Gifts, I had no idea what it would turn into. This is a companion novel set in the same universe, and we get to see a bit of the characters from the original novel. I'm not usually a fan of "zombie" novels, but this was done so gracefully that I couldn't help but fall in love with the characters and the story.

M.R. Carey's writing is so intellectually stimulating for me, and it's in the best way. I really felt like I was a part of this post apocalyptic world that he created. There was just enough information and scientific talk from the characters to keep me intrigued and learning more without feeling like an info dump.

I have found a new favorite author, and I can't wait to read more. Highly recommend this and the first novel in the companionship, even if science fiction or dystopia is usually not "your genre."