The Forest of Hands & Teeth

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That's just the way life is. Some days you wake up and the beach is clear and you forget about everything that surrounds us. And some days you wake up and it looks like this. That's the nature of the tides. I don’t think I’ve read a zombie book that I didn’t like. Sorry about the spoiler because yes, The Forest of Hands and Teeth is as story about zombies but it’s very gracefully written, you sometimes forget there are zombies in it. Carrie Ryan definitely has an effortless way of bringing art out of her words. Her writing seems to have this hypnotic effect on me and I just had to keep reading. The book never really explained why the Guardians existed nor much of what they did. I actually want to know more about the creepy Sisterhood that everyone listens too. I don't get why they were in charge.

If you like clever, fun adventure fantasy for 8-12 year olds, definitely read the Map To Everywhere series (co-written with her husband, John Parke Davis). Ahem...... alright, so before I get to what I didn't like about this 3.5 star book, let me start with what I absolutely adored: It's been a couple of hours since I finished reading this and I still can't believe how truly remarkable The Forest Of Hands And Teeth was. In my view, this defiantly has the potential to be one of the best debuts of 2009, if not the best. Not Using the "Z" Word: In Mary's village, zombies are called Unconsecrated. In Vista, they're called Mudo. Fence + Zombies = that adds up to them finally managing to break through the fence, suddenly... doesn't it?

Unfortunately, Ryan also has a desire to write about teenage angst and lurve. While this worked well in The Forest of Hands and Teeth, it’s old hat by now. At this point the zombie scenes and the supporting characters are meant only to hinder the romance and heighten the angst. Teenagers talk philosophically about the nature of life, love and death and manage to be the only good guys amongst many of the survivors we encounter. *yawn* I didn't really like any of the characters. I kept thinking I would. Nah. Jacob and the dog about the only two that showed sense enough to get out of a paper bag.

More filler YA garbage. It had potential I guess but the writing quality, the plot quality, the dialogue quality, I just can't.This book is very well-written. Fluid and suspenseful, I had a hard time putting it down. While it did have some zombie-slaying action, it wasn't the focus of the book. Instead what kept me going was the sense of mystery and doom. Nothing good ever happens to Mary and the questions just kept coming with little-to-none answers. Mary was an unreliable narrator and a little crazy. All what the reader sees is first filtered through her eyes. She selfishly clung on to her dream of the ocean and refused to settle for anything less, even when it cost her the people she cared about. But hey, she is still one of the few chracters alive at the end, and the only one with a chance at a life, so she must have been doing something right. The rest of the characters wouldv'e gotten eaten long ago if Mary wasn't there to drive them. All the main character Mary cared about was going to the ocean. And told us constantly. There was almost nothing else in her empty head and her characterization was so one dimensional it was putting me to sleep. Then there was her love for Travis, lets put "love" in quotes because even though she told us she loved him it seemed nothing more than a childish obsession with something she couldn't have. When she finally did get to live with him, she ignored him, she barely talked to him, neglected he was around her, didn't even tell us what was going on. (I mean are they kissing? Are they having sex? Are they doing nothing? I don't know. I'm so glad she filled us in on what it was like living with her supposed ~love of her life~ hold on let me stop to roll my eyes okay there we go.) Because her character is so flat we don't really hear much of what goes on save for her tunnel vision over the ocean and nonsensical diatribe. She's one of those famous characters that makes odd jumps in logic for no reason whatsoever and you're like wait how did you get from that thought to the other?