The Boy on the Bridge

March 27, 2017
Plausible science and solid prose and characterization elevate this dystopian thriller above similar works. In the same alternate future as Carey’s The Girl with All the Gifts, a fungus, Cordyceps, which began as an insect parasite, has infected people, repurposing their brains and turning them into “hungries,” mindless creatures with an appetite for human flesh. Carey moves quickly to engage readers’ sympathies for epidemiologist Samrina Khan, one of a group of scientists and soldiers on a research mission. They travel through the U.K. in a motor home, on a desperate quest for an inhibitor that could make people resistant to the fungus. In the midst of the devastating horror the world has become, Samrina learns that she is pregnant, news she considers “a high tide of wonder and dismay and disbelief and misery in which hope bobs like a lifeboat cut adrift.” This development radically complicates things for her, and her colleagues, as the plot builds to a satisfying conclusion.

March 15, 2017
Carey returns to the post-apocalyptic world of The Girl with All the Gifts (2014).The Rosalind Franklin, aka -Rosie,- carries five scientists, one very special boy, and their escort of six military personnel in her heavily armored belly trundling over the decimated landscape of a ruined Scotland, collecting caches of data left by a previous expedition. Their mission is to find a cure for the Cordyceps pathogen that, 10 years ago, began transforming people into mindless killing machines, dubbed -hungries.- Epidemiologist Dr. Samrina -Rina- Khan hopes 15-year-old Stephen Greaves, and his unique abilities, will make a cure even more possible. After all, Stephen is something of a savant whose intelligence arguably outstrips that of all the scientists on board even though he suffers crippling social anxiety. One day, Stephen ventures off from a sampling expedition and discovers a female child among the hungries, a girl with the speed and reflexes of an infected but who also seems to be intelligent. Stephen knows that his discovery could change everything, if he can only make contact. Meanwhile, Rosie's crew can't get in touch with Beacon, their home base, and Rina is harboring a secret that could endanger the entire mission. Packing 12 people into a vehicle with coffinlike bunks and one shower would be stifling during the best of times, and tensions are high, amplifying power struggles between the civilian commander, Dr. Alan Fournier, and his scientists and between Col. Isaac Carlisle and his soldiers, especially volatile sniper Lt. Daniel McQueen. Carey weaves a creeping dread into his already tense narrative and doesn't rely on cliched zombie tropes to drive it. Each crew member is compelling, but Stephen is the standout here, and his idiosyncrasies, of which he's painfully aware, only make him easier to root for, and Rina's love for him is an anchor. Just as they think they're close to a breakthrough, events force them to head for home, but they may not have a home to return to. A terrifying, emotional page-turner that explores what it means to be human.

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September 1, 2017

Teens still clamor for pandemic apocalyptic fiction-nearly as much as zombies crave flesh! Ten years ago, a parasitic fungus started hijacking the brains and bodies of humans with frightening speed, decimating England's population and turning those afflicted into zombielike "hungries." Now, leaders at a fortified settlement called Beacon are desperate to halt the growth of the cataclysmic Cordyceps. They send a second mobile armored vehicle to take six soldiers, five scientists, and a teenager on a Hail Mary mission to collect samples left behind from a first group that never returned and to learn what they can to save the human race. Carey effectively brings to life many of the dozen characters. Young adults will especially appreciate the brilliant Stephen Greaves, 15, who might be on the autism spectrum. He was permitted to join the crew at the behest of Samrina Khan, the group's epidemiologist and his foster mother of sorts. Readers will be engrossed as Stephen searches for data to understand the hungries and the fungus and looks for ways to combat them, such as the e-blocker he develops to stymie the hungries' acute olfactory sense. A villainous civilian commander, an unplanned pregnancy for Khan, backbiting among the soldiers, and Stephen's work with the hungries add up to an intriguing read. VERDICT Lovers of speculative fiction or sci-fi will devour this fresh take on the genre.-Suzanne Gordon, Lanier High School, Gwinnett County, GA

Copyright 2017 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

January 1, 2017

Carey, whose career launched with the word-of-mouth best seller The Girl with All the Gifts, again places a young protagonist in creepy, paranormal danger. Here, a community's cleverest boy is sent to confront the monsters beyond the gates. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.