The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Carrie Ryan
Dystopia is so in right now, thanks to Suzanne Collins magnificent Hunger Games series. I can't say I've read very much of it (although one of my favourite books of 2011 so far is Ally Condie's dystopian novel Matched) but I'm trying to change that and after a glowing recommendation, I ordered The Forest of Hands and Teeth.


I have to be honest; I was disappointed. The premise of the book sounded like it was going to be really interesting, although I was a little cautious about picking up a book about zombies; they're a bit too horror for me. Anyway, upon reading the book, I found myself bored, especially at the beginning. Nothing particularly interesting happened; Mary ran around a lot and pondered the existence of the sea. Now I don't knock this; there always has to be something in dystopian fiction for the characters to hold on to, something for them to fight for, but it didn't make for exciting reading.  When interesting things did happen, they seemed to take forever to actually occur. So much was left untold - I didn't have a clue what any of the characters looked like. What happened to the other characters once Mary left them? Why was Gabrielle the fast one? What exactly happened to bring about the Unconsecrated? Surely they should not have been able to go into the church; why didn't everyone hide in there?

Also, I did not connect to any of the characters at all. I couldn't help but feel disgust at how selfish some of the characters were, particularly Mary's mother, whom we never even meet properly. She struck me as incredibly selfish, leaving behind her two children to become one of the walking undead on purpose. Although it is never stated how old Mary is (another thing that frustrated me; they were like puppets, not characters) I assumed she was a teenager; why should she be expected to stop her mother from killing herself? Look what spawned from it. More death. Jed also drove me insane with the way he treated his sister, but he did redeem himself in the end. The Sisters were awful, awful people; a perfect example of religion gone wrong. 

There was nothing great about this book for me. The only characters I felt some kind of emotion towards were Marry, occasionally, but mostly Jacob and Argos, the dog. I am interested in reading the next book but I wouldn't buy it before I read it, as I did with The Forest of Hands and Teeth.


This one is 2/5 stars.