BOOK REVIEW: The Boy on the Bridge

Overall, I think The Boy on the Bridge is a better book than the original The Girl With All The Gifts. Sadly, since it begins in a time frame that is 10 years before that book and includes an epilogue that occurs 10 years afterwards, it seems unlikely that there will be a 3rd book set in a world where the Cordyceps pathogen leads directly to the death of 99.9% of all humans.

As with most post-apocalyptic fiction, the key feature of this book is depicting human behavior in the context of heightened significance due to the raised stakes of the survival of humanity itself after a human level extinction event.

In The Boy on the Bridge there is a cast of just ten named characters, with really 3 or 4 taking center stage. But in actuality the story really revolves around Stephen Greaves, the titular character who is an autistic genius, along with Rina Khan, a medical doctor who is part of a group attempting to find out what happened to a previous delegation and is trying to follow up on the search for a cure to the Cordyceps plague which has almost extinguished humanity and has almost certainly ended human civilization as we know it. The delegation is in a modified tank known as the Rosalind Franklin (or Rosie for short) and has a staff which is half military and half scientific.

The relationship between Stephen and Rina and their interactions with the other members of their mission as they make discoveries about the ways in which the pathogen is evolving and is central to the plot. Additionally, the crazy ways in which humans will not cease to put their petty self-interests ahead of the needs of the many (in most circumstances) is another key feature of the story.

Overall The Boy on the Bridge is extremely suspenseful as huge and important questions are raised (Will the group survive? Who will die next? Is humanity doomed?) and mostly answered by it's satisfying conclusion.

Definitely 4.5 stars on the Goodreads scale. 

Title: The Boy on the Bridge (The Girl With All The Gifts, #2).
Author: M.R. Carey.
Paperback: 400 pages.
Publisher: Orbit.
Date Published: May 2, 2017.
Date Read: October 17, 2017.

GOODREADS RATING: ★★★★ (4.5/5.0).

OVERALL GRADE: A- (3.67/4.0).
PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B+.
WRITING: A.