Review: The Boy on the Bridge by M. R. Carey

I was fully expecting to enjoy this book a lot. But that did not happen. Instead I ended up disliking it a whole bunch. Sigh. Which is the most disappointing. Because I was really excited about reading this one. Was hoping it would be exciting and awful and so good. But it wasn't any of those things, not really.

I enjoyed The Girl With All the Gifts a little bit. I gave it three stars. I had some issues, but I was interested in the story. And so I was very excited about this book set twenty years before that one. Because the small summary sounded pretty thrilling. But oh, that summary is a lie. And I'm so very disappointed by it.

Two stars for this book. I wish I knew what to say about it. And I'm hoping I will find the words to talk about it all. But I'm already growing bored. Ugh. The summary makes it sound like this book will be about a boy, sent out to the monsters, aka the hungries, aka the zombies. But this is a lie. First, this boy is fifteen years old. Second, they are twelve people sent out in a very large car thingy. Third, the boy wasn't even supposed to be there, another one had to force them to let him come. All of which I'm really disappointed by. Thought this would be an amazing story. But it wasn't. This whole book was mostly just beyond boring and full of annoying science writing that mostly made no sense. And that I mostly read through without understand any of it. So tiring.

I suppose I should have realized that this book wouldn't be able a boy at all, considering the first book wasn't really about the girl much at all. Sigh. But I still thought this book would be exciting and awful. But it wasn't. At least, very small parts of it were. I liked the ending a lot. Because it was finally pretty brutal and exciting too. But the last twenty pages were not nearly enough to save this book for me. Though that epilogue made me want a third book, maybe, if it would be possible to make it more exciting. I doubt it.

This book is written from many point of views. And I'm not going to begin to talk about them all. There aren't really that many characters, as there are only twelve in this moving thing. And they don't all have a point of view, only some of them. One thing that I did like about this book, was that there were hints about The Girl With All the Gifts included. As that one takes place twenty years after this book. Sadly, I do not remember all the details of that book, ugh, but I remember some, and I liked the small hints that I noticed.

The boy in this book is a point of view character too. But oh, I did not love Stephen Greaves at all. But I suppose that he was an interesting character to read about, at times, and that I could have loved him. But I just didn't. He's fifteen years old, and he has tons of issues. I liked that he doesn't like being touched at all. I liked that he didn't like many people. But some things about him just bothered me. Like how he gets if he tries telling a lie. And how he keeps lying and messing things up in the whole book. Sigh. Not good.

Then there were a few of the other characters. There is a doctor, Rina. She has sort of been a mother for Stephen for years now. They are pretty close. But yeah, I didn't love her either. Aw. But I did like her a lot. She's also pregnant, seven months now, they have been on the road for that many months, supposed to be out there for twelve. Not good. But interesting to read about too. I was curious about her and her baby, but it got to be a bit too much too. Sigh. Didn't care for the baby daddy at all, sadly. He was just boring.

And then there was McQueen. And gosh, I hated him to pieces. He has such nasty thoughts all the time, and he keeps messing up too. He's a soldier. And I wanted him dead every time I read his name. Ugh. But there was one character that I liked more than any other. The colonel. He was an awesome man and I wanted to know more about him badly. I disliked how many hated him and tried to make him mess up and such. But I did enjoy reading about him. But even he was not special enough. Not one of them were.

This book is for adults. Which I am. But I found it to be beyond boring and I can't really see anyone else enjoying it either. Even though this book is about zombies. Even though there are those very amazing children zombies too, which are so special to read about, and I wanted even more of them so badly. But that wasn't enough to save this book. Most of the characters were boring as hell. I tried my best to like them. But it was impossible. Just about nothing happens for most of the book, which was so depressing.

I suppose I really should talk about the plot for a bit, because I haven't mentioned what the point of this book is. There are twelve people sent out on a mission that's supposed to last a year. They are to collect samplers from the hungries, to try to see if there is anything new, to try to search for a cure. The world ended ten years ago. And there aren't many humans left at all. I did like that part of the story. But it's such a small part. And I did like reading about the hungries. But this book was too much boring and science.

And not even good science. Ugh. Their mission was all kinds of boring to read about. Because for so long nothing happened at all. Sure, there are a few moments here and there when things got a bit exciting. But they didn't last. And I'm pretty sure I'm going to forget about this book pretty fast too. It could have been amazing, though. But it wasn't. Have now written way more than I wanted to. So now I'm done. The Boy on the Bridge was simply disappointing. Wouldn't really recommend that anyone reads it. It's not worth it.

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