The Forest of Hands and Teeth

 Coming at this book after reading so much in the YA dystopian genre, this one seemed to fall flat. It could be that many of the books I have read in the genre have built upon this one making it seem less, or it really isn't that great of a book, at least for pleasure reading for adults, perhaps young adults will be more forgiving. 

The book, as well as our main character, seem divided between freedom from the village to see the ocean and the love story. Every time Mary became clear in her choice and need to leave, she'd see or think about Travis or Harry and wallow about her poor life and how much she wants to be with Travis. By the time they had finally left the village this had become quite annoying. As a side note, the love triangle was there and annoying, yet at the same time so unnecessary to the later part of the story. 

Unfortunately, I disliked all of the characters except Jacob and the dog. It isn't just the fact that they had flaws, I love flawed characters, but it felt like none of them truly had a personality, rather a set of actions and emotions they had to complete and do before the end of the story. Also, no matter what they did wrong, there was always something to redeem them later, which I found to be optimistic. 

Yet, I read until the end easily because I wanted to know what would happen.

This is not a series I will be continuing and as for recommending it to people, I think I would do so sparingly since there are other zombie YA books out now. 

decent zombie-horror-ya. why is everything a goddamn series?

ugh I read a zombie book!!

Luckily it wasn't really about zombies.

http://www.frowl.org/worstbestsellers/episode-26-the-forest-of-hands-and-teeth/

It was really slow but the ending definitely has me intrigued to finish it. The whole Travis/Harry thing just seemed to drag on & was pointless since she ends up alone now. Seemed like Ryan just felt like she had to be like Twilight and have a love triangle. He's hoping to a better sequel, I had super high hopes in this book!

Alright, I read this book in one sitting. I've been wanting to read it for a while now and had really high hopes for it. Unfortunately, this is the most god awful book I've ever read. I love dystopian novels but this just doesn't cut it... at all.

The protagonist, Mary, is a selfish, insatiable girl who puts her dream of seeing the ocean before anyone else, getting people killed along the way. People actually read this book and call her a heroine. It is just straight up disgusting anyone would think of this girl as a hero. She is stupid, selfish, and irresponsible. She is never happy with anything or anyone. People die because of her stupidity and she acts as if she doesn't even care because all she cares about is getting to see the ocean, something she doesn't even know if it really exists or not.

Everyone else in this book are happy just to be alive. But not Mary. She needs more. She always needs more. She has 2 men in love with her, and i don't understand it. She isn't happy with Harry, and finally get to be with her true love, Travis. But then she isn't happy with him because she wants to see the ocean. It takes him dying for her to finally appreciate him. That is NOT the actions of a hero. A hero puts everyone else before their self. A hero doesn't make stupid decisions on whim, on something they aren't even sure exists.

I love zombie books but I actually hate this book. Everything about it is just awful. The writing is somewhat bad. There is hardly any dialog. The characters are underdeveloped. It seemed no one else, except Cass, had a mind of their own and were just another extension of Mary. The plot has holes and a lot of things are discovered but never examined properly. Overall, you just don't get a really big feel of what living in the village was like. You get more of a description of the ocean than their village which is really sad considering we already know what the ocean looks like.

In the end, she ends up getting to live her dream and finally see's the ocean. Go figure.

The Village + any generic zombie film - shotguns + obnoxious nuns = Forest of Hands and Teeth.

Very quick read that I'm sure teens will latch onto though. Carrie Ryan does excel at making the reader sympathize with the narrator. I was so glued to my dislike of one character I couldn't even change my mind when I was supposed to consider him an okay guy again.

There's apparently two sequels to this I don't see the significance of. Not every YA book needs a sequel. That's certainly not a gripe specific to this book though.

Spoilers

I did like how the second village was a glorified Ewok town in the trees. If you're going to be surviving the zombie apocalypse, making for the trees is brilliant.

This was just an OK read for me. It was interesting and kept my attention, but the story and characters needed a bit more flushing out.

I had a hard time rating this book. The author writes well, I felt the prose was graceful and the pace worked. But I am tired, sick and tired as a matter of fact, of reading young adult fiction where the main character is a selfish, obnoxious girl. The concept of this story is intriguing. A town isolated after the Return surrounding by a forest and the Unconsecrated (which are zombie like flesh eating monsters that humans become if they are infected) is the setting for a young girl with an inquisitive mind wanting to know if the stories her mother told her about the ocean are true. I loved the Sisterhood, very interesting group, but the author fails to let the reader in on any secrets. They leave without discovering anything. I could live with the secrets of the Sisterhood if Mary was not such a selfish girl. She desperately wants Travis but when she gets him it is not enough. She discovers there is more than just her village but that is not enough. Nothing is ever enough for her and even in the end she does not seem satisfied. I am giving this two stars not because of the writing but because I did not like the characters or their development or more precisely the lack thereof.