The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

"Opening The Forest of Hands and Teeth is like cracking Pandora's box: a blur of darkness and a precious bit of hope pour our." --Melissa Marr

"Dark and sexy and scary. Only one of the Unconsecrated could put this book down."--Justine Larbalestier

"...elegantly written from title to last line."--Scott Westerfeld

"You've never complained about a book this much in your entire life."--My Mom

When I saw this title at my local indie bookstore I was super duper excited. I'd heard great things. Awesome authors had praised it highly... And yet it was monumentally disappointing. But I'm getting ahead of myself here. Let's talk about the plot.

Life for Mary and those around her is one of constant fear. Fenced inside of her tiny village in the aftermath of The Return (insert ominous music here), her life defined by the death that lurks just outside her door, Mary dreams. She dreams of finding true love (rather more easily said than done in a place where marriage is about commitment and continuation, not love). Even more than that, though, she dreams that someday, despite the stern edicts of the Sisterhood and the threat of the Unconsecrated, she will find a way to escape the village within the Forest of Hands and Teeth and find the vast, neverending expanse of water--known as the ocean--that her mother always told her about.

Then, on a day like any other, Mary's mother gets Infected, shattering her fragile existence. Turned away by her brother and spurned by the boy who had said he would court her, she is thrust into the hands of the Sisterhood. It is there, serving a God in whom she does not believe, that Mary falls in love, finds out a thing or two about the Outside, and learns horrifying secrets about her village and its past.

Essentially, it's a post-apocalyptic zombie book. With some love shapes thrown in. Just for fun.

Now on to the, shall we say, numerous problems I had with this book. Where oh where shall I start? I think I'll go list-mode on this thing.

1. It has the same problem that Dollhouse has. As in, eight episodes into the series they have a "special event" episode. As in, they don't take nearly enough time developing the world/the characters/the status quo. Ryan's writing gave me next to nothing to care about. I found the protagonist shallow and uninteresting and the world more flat than round. The whole time I was reading I wasn't even attached enough to care when Mary's loved ones got eaten/beheaded/hurt. I wasn't creeped out or happy or sad throughout the whole thing. I hate feeling apathetic about a book.
   
2. Repetitive. It's like Ryan realized that she hadn't given quite enough detail to her world and so decided that maybe we'd think she did if she said things a couple of times over.
   
3. I could see each plot twist from ten miles away. In the rain. Despite my decidedly less-than-perfect vision.
4. There was a lot of "OMGZ I love this person wait no maybe not (hey other guy, how you doin'? *eyebrow wiggle*) wait yes I do but does he love me? Yep (and so does that other guy), but I don't actually love him enough and OH NOES! this tragic thing happened but oh well there's always the ocean if it really exists which it HAS to and..." from the protagonist.
   
5. And all of her brushes with death were pretty much the same.
6. And the book reminded me of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village (alternate title [rejected cause it would have killed the appeal]: "One of the Worst Movies Rae Will Ever See" [It's pretty much a bad knockoff of Running out of Time by Margaret Peterson Haddix (Which, as I recall, totally rocked.)]) except with zombies instead of pig-wolf monsters that are really the village elders.
   
7. This one's kind of a spoiler but whatever... THEY NEVER EXPLAIN THE ZOMBIES!
   
8. The end sucked eggs and I'm afraid there's going to be a sequel.

I wish I had better things to say about this book. Really, I do. I mean, there were a few good parts... some good lines... and, er, stuff. I could see the feminist undertones it was trying to have, and the statements about society it was trying to make. Overall, though, I found little to redeem it. Sorry, everyone who liked it.

Please don't kill me *wince* but I have to put it at the bottom of the pile.


Disappointed-ly, scathingly, sorrily yours...

PS: If anybody cares to enlighten me about the greatness of this book, be my guest. I'm interested to see why people liked it. And I would dearly love to be wrong.