A great companion piece for fans of ‘The Girl With All The Gifts.’
Genre: Y/A, science Fiction, Dystopian, Horror
No. of pages: 400
Once upon a time, in a land blighted by terror, there was a very clever boy.
The people thought the boy could save them, so they opened their gates and sent him out into the world.
To where the monsters lived.
This was a romantic conclusion to the duology. ‘The Boy on the Bridge’ loosely mirrors the debut in the series. An intelligent teen taken under the wing of a scientist and educated as what is left of this dystopian world eagerly scrambles to find a cure for the Hungry plague.
I feel more accurately ‘The Boy on the Bridge’ is a companion novel rather than a sequel as the timelines overlap. ‘The Boy on the Bridge’ takes place a little before ‘The Girl With All The Gifts’ but also manages to pick up after so that you can conclude characters journeys from both novels. The writing style here is excellent, I really envy M.R. Carey’s wordcraft. However, I did not feel as driven with my reading experience. The narrative jumps perspectives with every chapter and the pacing was slow. We do get plot points in each chapter, but there was an element of intrigue or desperation that was missing for me. It did not get interesting until after the half way point, and even then the pacing was only at a clipped pace. There was no cinematic culmination.
Having said that, though, ‘The Boy on the Bridge’ pays off on fan service. It has all the elements from the first novel. I was hoping for some new insights regarding the Cordyceps fungus infecting the world and zombie-fying all of humanity, but alas, no maas. What we get is another road trip comprising of military and scientific personnel, and a wayward teen who is emotionally stunted. I feel awful saying that because the teen Stephen ‘The Robot’ Greaves is on the autism spectrum and somewhat of a savant. I only say it in that manner to illustrate strong parallels to that of Melanie from ‘The Girl With All The Gifts.’ It stopped me from forging a strong emotional connection to the protagonists – that continual switching of points of view and the emotional unavailability of the main character – it was too distant. So when something shocking did happen, I just rolled with the punches, not even an inkling of a sigh, gasp, or tear.
I really like this duology, its desolate tone, a world evolving and scratching for survival. I appreciated Carey’s writing and look forward to tackling another of his titles.
Overall feeling: Damn girl, that’s pretty good.
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Casey Carlisle 