Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

10 March, 2011 Reviews 3 comments

Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie RyanThe Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Series: The Forest of Hands and Teeth #1
Published by Delacorte Books for Young Readers, Gollancz on March 10th 2009
Pages: 310
Genres: Horror, Post Apocalyptic, Young Adult
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
Amazon Good BooksBook Depository
Goodreads
five-stars

In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future—between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

See this family?

family

Or this family?

other family

Take a good long hard look at all of their faces.

See how happy, how healthy, how loving they are. Imagine you’ve known them your entire life and that you love each one more than life itself.

Now imagine if you were one of the people in that photograph with them.

Now imagine that I told you and all those other people standing and smiling with you that I was going to kill you all so that I could go for a trip to the beach…

Okay, now you know the basic plot of The Forest of Hands and Teeth.

I’ve mentioned before that I have a love/hate relationship with zombies. On one hand, I love reading zombie books and watching zombie movies. On the other I will then spend two weeks wide awake clutching a baseball bat while waiting for the shuffle of feet and the moans of the undead outside my bedroom door.

zombie plan
I actually have something like this in my house…

I love the chase as things fall a part and slowly people are picked off one by one.

That’s the thing that’s almost a constant in the Zombie genre – is the psychological breakdown of the group. Usually in a zombie group, you’ll find the differing personalities and human flaws are what slowly kills the group – not so much the zombies.

The difference between most of the zombie media, and this book, is that usually you watch things unfold from the sole sane person who is trying to keep all the crazies from turning themselves into meat patties and throwing themselves to the horde.

In this story you get to watch the gradual mental breakdown of a woman until she’s willing to sacrifice anything and anyone just to live out a damn fantasy.

Okay, so I know the point of it is that there are dreams and dreams are important like freedom is important and you must always follow your dreams blah de blah blah!

Sorry, I’m a very pragmatic person.

Kill zombies first, fulfill life long dream of of seeing ocean second.

Yet, despite my utter hatred of the main character by the time I finished this novel, I still can’t give it less than five stars.

I can’t give it less than five stars because I spent most of this book gripping the bed covers in suspense. The characters were all great, realistic and interesting. Mary’s decent into madness was COMPLETELY understandable and very well documented and this book was very well written and paced very well.

Then, of course, I had the satisfaction of knowing that if it had been me – I totally could have survived better than them. And that, my friends, is the biggest satisfaction you can get out of the zombie genre.

Oh yeah, baby.

My Zombie Plan totally beats the crap out of their Zombie plan.

So what’s YOUR zombie plan?

Kat Kennedy

Kat Kennedy

Co-blogger at Cuddlebuggery
Kat Kennedy is a book reviewer and aspiring author in the Young Adult genre. She reviews critically but humorously and get super excited about great books. Find her on GoodReads.
Kat Kennedy

3 Responses to “Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan”

  1. Julie

    I like the review. I travelled to Argentina last year for a conference of novel critics and loved it. The good thing was that I was given one of those apartments in Buenos Aires right in the very center of the city so I was close to the conference hotel but also to all the tourist attractions!Cheers,Julie

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