The Forest of Hands & Teeth by Carrie Ryan is a young adult, post-apocalyptic zombie love story. Yep, it’s all of that.
Mary lives in a village in the middle of the Forest of Hands & Teeth. They are surrounded by a fence built before anyone can remember to protect them from the Unconsecrated. The Sisterhood ensure everyone leads a life of spirituality and the Guardians patrol the fence to keep the Unconsecrated at bay.
After a series of tragedies Mary loses her faith and begins to question the motives of the Sisterhood. She is also dealing with being outcast to the only family she has left while realising she will never be betrothed to the man she loves.
When the fence is breached all hell breaks loose. Mary must decide if she believes there is anything past the fence worth living for.
I was ready to love this novel. It was quite well reviewed and I am going through a big YA fiction phase at the moment. Sadly, I did not feel the love.
The story starts off well and getting the low down on how the village works was fun. They are old school: a man ‘speaks for’ a woman when he wants to begin courting her.
There was also a lot of action throughout and while I didn’t connected deeply with the characters, I did want them to make it to the end.
The most disappointing thing was that it tackles some great themes but they are bogged down by a Twilight-esque love story. There were too many over-the-top teen declarations of ‘I can’t live without you.’ This space could have been better used exploring Mary’s conflict with what love is supposed to mean and how you really know if you love someone.
The supporting characters are two dimensional and don’t challenge the protagonist enough. The ending was obvious and I had no doubt that things were going to be ok.
In short: I won’t be buying the sequels. If you are partial to some dramatic love and watered down zombie descriptions then this is the book for you. Really. I think there is a market for this kind of book but it certainly reads like a first novel.
2/5
It IS a first novel and there's something on-lineabout it being optioned for a movie. I've been reading enough dystopian YA novels lately (halfway through Shatter Me, having just finished Divergent) and am hanging out for some humour.
ReplyDeleteHmm, I think I vaguely recall an interview about this book on Radio National and I *think* I even did a panel with this writer at Aussiecon; she kindly handed me a bottle of water when I was coughing non-stop.