The Forest of Hands and Teeth

by Carrie Ryan

Paperback, 2010

Publication

Ember (2010), 336 pages

Description

Through twists and turns of fate, orphaned Mary seeks knowledge of life, love, and especially what lies beyond her walled village and the surrounding forest, where dwell the Unconsecrated, aggressive flesh-eating people who were once dead.

Media reviews

School Library Journal

The story is riveting, even though it leaves a lot of questions to be explained in the sequel.

User reviews

LibraryThing member Lark-Avocet

I really liked this book for the first few chapters. In fact I was so excited about it that I nearly finished the book in one day. However, the more I read past the half-way-point, the more disappointed I got. This book had everything going for it until the main character suddenly became so selfish

and callous that I felt she had as much humanity in her as the zombies who chased her. Every time she got something she had previously been desperate to get, she suddenly decided she really did not want that anymore and just threw it away like a piece of trash. She left a wake of desperation and suffering behind her that rivaled anything a zombie could produce. Basically, the main character totally fell apart and became a vapid idiot that would throw her own grandma in front of a bus without a second thought. Seriously disappointed.

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LibraryThing member lenoreva

Mary lives in a village cut off from the rest of the world by a fence surrounded by the Unconsecrated filled forest. The sounds of their hands scraping and their teeth gnashing is so familiar, that although it serves as a constant reminder of their isolation and uncertain future, it fades into the

background of the townspeople’s existence as they go about the business of simply surviving.

But Mary is not happy with the status quo. She’s heard her mother’s stories about the ocean, about a happy time before the zombie apocalypse. She yearns for that which is forbidden by the ruling Sisterhood – for knowledge, for true love, for freedom. But is she willing to risk everything for a chance at a different kind of life beyond the forest of hands and teeth?

This novel is bleak and oppressively claustrophobic, but if you can get past that, you are in for a heartbreakingly beautiful story about daring to dream no matter what. About following your heart. About making every moment count.

There is a lot I’d love to discuss in more detail, but I don’t want to spoil it. For those of you looking for scenes of bone crushing zombie action, you will definitely not be disappointed (although you will have to be patient for more than 100 pages). For those of you wary about reading a “zombie” book, don’t be scared. The narrative might not be sugarcoated, but it’s far from being “horror” in the scary movie sense.

Mary’s story will resonate with fans of impossible romances set against perilous backdrops (think The Hunger Games or Twilight). This is one that will stay with me, and the big tease at the end has me chomping at the bit like a super zombie to read the follow-up.

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LibraryThing member br13evbi

When I first heard of this book, it gave me a certain spark within myself. My ELA teacher recommended it to the 8th Grade at my school. He said "it might sound lame", but really, I was just thinking about running to grab it before anyone else would!! A book of zombies, survival, love, hope, and a

dream that keeps you alive. This book can really reel you in... I was hooked!:)
Mary, a young woman, lost her father to "The Unconsecrated" when she was young. She has lived her life looking after her mother, and looking at a certain someone whom she cannot seem to get her hands on. Mary is forced to join a holy group, The Sisterhood. There, she meets that special someone, who then shows her that she can't be something that she isn't. A terrible event causes their village to cease, and forces a group of survivor's (including Mary) from their home and find somewhere to settle, and not be haunted by the hungry moans of The Unconsecrated. Love tension begins to form between them all, and Mary is having to insist upon herself to stay alive and see what her mother used to tell her in stories. Sooner or later, Mary is forced to ask questions... 'Are we the last survivor's on Earth?', 'Are my mother's stories true?', 'What am I really here for', Why did this all happened to us?!'.
The Forest of Hands and Teeth, is a must read book for all, well leaning towards a girls side, young adult book! Believe me, you won't be disappointed with the outcome!!

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LibraryThing member Custardkisses

Is love enough to complete you?

Mary, the story's protagonist, exists in a post apocalyptic world where most of humanity have become a zombie race known as the Unconsecrated. Living in a small isolated village, and believing themselves to be the last of the unturned, Mary and her people live under

the rule of a sacred Sisterhood. The Sisterhood are tasked with protecting this surviving pocket of humanity, keeping order and unbeknown to the villagers guarding a few deep and dark secrets. Mary has been raised with her mother's tales of the ocean, a vast and salty expanse of water of which the only evidence was a photo now long since lost in a village fire. When Mary’s mother is bitten and subsequently infected she chooses to become one of the Unconsecrated instead of being killed. This puts in place a chain of events for Mary that has her challenge the rules of her village, the ways of the sisterhood and ultimately her entire way of life. Mary soon embarks on a path of discovery, to discover the answers to the secrets, to discover herself and to discover this mythical ocean told to her by her mother.

Let’s start with what I liked about this book. It was engaging, it had good pacing and that ‘it’ factor which prevents you from putting it down. It’s a refreshing break from the onslaught of Vampire books flooding the YA market right now, still has that supernatural element that brings all the fantasy lovers to the yard yet delivers something outside the box. It’s also good to see a zombie book aimed at girls. Much like the immensely popular The Hunger Games this book requires its Heroine to fight for her life in a dystopia where no protection will be afforded to you just because you’re a frail teenage girl. No strapping werewolf or sparkly vampire steps up to the plate to rescue and protect her. Mary does pretty much all the stunt work herself.

The first person narrative worked and it didn’t. It seems to be the in thing in YA fiction right now and to be honest it’s just not my cup of tea so I may have a built in prejudice. It had its places where it worked, particularly at the start of the book. The abrupt tone and brevity of the sentences worked to show us Mary’s grief and numbness. Though as the book wore on her continuing in this style had the effect of casting Mary as rather distant and unsympathetic in character. It also prevented us from seeing inside any other characters heads and as Mary turned out to be a little on the shallow side I could have done with the variety.

Overall I just wasn't feeling it for the main protagonist of this book. She came off as immature to bordering on mentally deficient in some parts. There was one scene where Mary and the object of her affections Travis were holed up in a house on a platform, because zombies can’t climb apparently. Isolated and alone with your true love, a horde of flesh eating zombies literally pressing in at your door and what does Mary do? Does she make the most of their confinement and use the time to develop their relationship? Does she put her head together with him and perhaps devise a clever escape plan? No to both. Mary locks herself in the attic day after day and broods. She sulks, she feels sorry for herself, she’s morose to the extreme. She plays dress up with some frilly frocks she finds in a trunk and has an epic emo moment where she writes her feelings out on notepaper, attaches them to arrows and then shoots them into the heads of the amassing zombie horde.

Mary came across as having very little compassion for anyone other than herself. People gave up their lives for her, Travis, her brother, even Harry would have risked all for her safety yet all Mary was interested in was seeing the Ocean. Despite hundreds of zombies and their unrelenting objective to eat her brains Mary still found time to sulk due to having her feelers hurt by pretty much all of the characters at some point in the story. Dear Mary, get over yourself.

Throughout the book Ryan tried to set up a love triangle between Mary and the two brothers Travis and Harry. She failed horribly. The romance had no development. As there was little in the way of character development there was no real interest in seeing either brother win her affections. We are told in a few sentences they grew up together. That’s the extent of the history you get on them. No explanation as to why they both find her so alluring or vice versa, other than Travis has nice eyes. Considering the underpinning theme of this book is seeking your own destiny and not settling for safe, combined with how pointless the love triangle was when all was said and done, then I have to wonder why she bothered at all. It seemed to be a redundant plot bunny that went nowhere.

Very few of the characters had any real depth, I felt no connection to them, they almost all had walk on parts. Character development was on the thin side in this book.

My main critique of the book was that there was just not enough information to make this universe plausible. What information we were given left more questions or seemed too improbable to be believable. Like how they made clothes, where they obtained reading and learning material, how they avoided incest. The books Mary came across on her journey all seemed so old that they disintegrated to dust so what were they using to learn from back at the village, because they weren't illiterate. Surely they would have the same aged literature as elsewhere so unless they were producing their own books you would assume the villages paper products where fast becoming dust too. If they produced their own where were did they obtaining fresh ink and paper from? Did they even have a printing press? Did they have any industrial machinery? The whole isolated tiny village thing with no outside connection just didn't bode, there weren't enough details provided for it to be credible. It was little things like this that nagged me right through the book. I needed more details, more background information, more answers. I can only suspend my belief so far.

The zombies themselves didn't make sense either as far as zombies go. They walk around and exist just fine with limbs hanging off, bones sticking out, fingers broken off to stubs yet an arrow to the noggin kills them dead... again. Fire will kill them, drowning in a river kills them; an axe in the chest kills them. The plot holes are glaring.

The most absurd condition of all was they are kept out of the village by a chain link fence. I realise zombies are not the cleverest supernatural creatures ever to be thought up but a chain link fence, that's it?

I found the ending to be very abrupt and unsatisfying and hardly an ending at all really, more like a lead in for the next book.

The moral of the tale; Is love enough to complete you? Will marriage and babies and the love of a man make you happy? If not don’t settle. Get out there and follow your dream. Get off the beaten path and make your own way… even if there are hungry zombies after your brains.

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LibraryThing member sarah-e

(some spoilers)
This wasn't as fulfilling a book as I thought it would be. This was a fast read with exciting zombie chases I really enjoyed, some super-secret nuns I really enjoyed, and a whiny fickle-headed protagonist I despised.

The details building up the Sisterhood and their role in society set

up a great plot. It was set to be a sinister survival tale - like (M. Night Shyamalan's movie) The Village meets The Hunger Games - but it didn't meet any of my expectations. All character building details, all information about the puritanical society, everything about the sinister nuns, all romance/family/friendly-type relationships, and anything else in the first hundred or so pages before the breach could be ripped from the book and thrown away because after the zombie attack they're never mentioned again. All we're left with in the second half of the book is this annoying girl who is obsessed with making herself happy, and those around her miserable. I don't really even get how she was the main character - individual happiness shouldn't be anyone's priority number one in a world full of zombies. At first she's obsessed with finding a world outside her own, and when she finds it and realizes that the whole rest of the world is full of zombies she's still consumed with selfishness and this strange desire to make only herself happy. She destroys the lives of everyone around her in a desperate quest to prove a point that no one is arguing. I think just about every other character in the book was more interesting than the main character. And there's a sequel. Yikes.

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LibraryThing member ctmsjero

This was one of the best books I have ever read. Even though i could not relate to Mary in a lot of places i still felt her stuggles and understood her.

Mary is probally the strongest character i have ever read about. She lives in a terrible world and faces tons problems. For one she is surrounded

by the walking dead. The Unconcecrated can be heard everday pulling at the fence that seperates them from living humans. She is the odd girl out in a way. When no one asks for her hand in marriage she turns to the life of the sisterhood. She learns tons of new things that she really shoundn't know.

While there her best friend's fience is brought into the hospital at the sancuary. While he is recovering Mary falls in love with him. She can't get over the fact that she will never be will him. Personally i would be heartbroken if i never got chosen to be married. I can see how she feels, but l would not get so attached to him that he is all i would think about. I think he is the one thing that is constant in her always changing world.

The idea of the living dead only being held back by a fence scares me. If they break through every one would die. Carrie Ryan did an amazing job describing the dead people. Even though they scare me i was amazed at how much i felt like i was there. The way she described every aspect of that village was amazing. In my head i had a daigram of this village and i knew every place that you could go. I liked every word in this book because they fit together like a puzzle.

Mary is very interested in life out side the fence. I loved how she found the path out of the city. It was the only thing that saved her life and the others. She always needs answers and i like that. She reminds me of myself. I like to have answers to my questions so i have a better out look on life.

I love this book a recommend it to anyone that likes horror and the living dead.

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LibraryThing member titania86

Mary lives in a post-apocalyptic world, surrounded by the Forest of Hands and Teeth and the horrific Unconsecrated. Everything in her village is controlled by religious zealots called the Sisterhood. Marriage and having children have nothing to do with love and everything to do with continuing the

human race. Both of Mary’s parents have become Unconsecrated and her brother will no longer allow her to live in his house. Her only choice is to join the Sisterhood unless a man expresses interest in marrying her. Her dreams are bigger than all of this. She longs to see the ocean her mother told her about, but that no one in her village has ever seen. She has a burning curiosity and a drive to be more than what her village will allow. Will she settle and accept her fate or will she somehow escape?

Carrie Ryan has crafted a completely unique zombie novel. When I think of the zombie apocalypse, I think of the breakdown of society and the government. This book goes past the initial phase with generations of people living with the zombies and creating a new way of life. This setting seems more suited to the medieval era. The oppression of women and the general backwards thinking of the villagers, coupled with religious fundamentalism really angered me. There were so many things that were kept from the villagers by the Sisterhood that I don’t know how they could stand to live like that. Most of the other people there were resigned to their less than satisfying existence in order to survive. The Sisterhood isn’t above leaving people in the forest to be eaten if they make too many waves. Through about the first half of the book, I really wanted to throttle some characters in the book. So many of Mary’s problems could have been solved if she could make her own decisions and decide what she wanted to do with her own life. I’ve read many reviews that complain that Mary is selfish and unlikeable, but I completely disagree. What teenager doesn’t dream of bigger and better things? In her society, it just seems unattainable.

There is no shortage of zombie mayhem in this novel. There are also both slow and fast zombies. The slow zombies are the ones seen in most movies that shuffle about. The fast zombies in the book are a new development, which makes sense because of how long it had been since the initial zombie uprising. Plus, the problems with muscles atrophying are addressed as well. It has always been my complaint with fast moving zombies that there would come a point when the zombie wouldn’t be able to move anymore. These zombies are also unique because of what they represent. In George A. Romero’s movies, they are frequently about the mindless consumerism that is popular in America. These zombies are a symbol for the oppressive social constructs that consume any happiness that Mary and her friends would have had.

I absolutely love The Forest of Hands and Teeth. A zombie fan might find the first half of the book slow, but the second half totally makes up for it. I was engaged for the entire novel, on the edge of my seat for most of it. I would recommend this to any zombie fan.

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LibraryThing member Meggle

Generations after a zombie outbreak the survivors of the human race are living in a small village protected by nothing but a few fences. Mary is a young girl living in the village who sees the fences as much a barricade to her freedom as they are the town's only defense against the undead. When the

fences are breached, Mary and a few other survivor's escape through a forbidden path into "the forest of hands and teeth" not knowing where or what the path leads to. I'm sad to say that I wasn't all that impressed with this book. It had a promising start but went downhill after the town was breached. The romance aspect of it was rather disappointing. It ends with a lot of unanswered questions which I have to agree with some of the other reviewers was quite frustrating. And I have to add how could a flimsy fence keep out a whole horde of zombies for any amount of time much less generations especially when they can reach an attic by piling on top of themselves within a few minutes!

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LibraryThing member isigfethera

I wasn't expecting much from this book, and it sure lived down to my expectations. The romance was disappointing, and I think this had potential to be a better book without it. And with a different main character. It felt like a case of telling not showing- you know that Mary is different, that she

thinks of a world beyond her home fences, she is a thinking, feeling, strong girl. At least, that's what you're told. From what I could see, however, she was a sulky and dim character, disliking the strict regulations of home but unable to go against them in the matter of love, to find a solution that would make her and two friends very happy. You could kind of see her as a less charismatic and resourceful Scarlett O'Hara.

I think the ending redeemed it a little though, it wasn't happy, it wasn't easy, it moved away from romance. However, since it's got a sequel, it could yet turn out that way...

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LibraryThing member tbert204

I'm not a big fan of zombies, vampires and other undead stories, but Ryan pulled me into the first couple chapters with pained characters that are trapped not only by the Unconsecrated zombies but the rules of their society. They're told who to marry and what to do. I sympathized greatly with

Mary's plight, her loss of family and love. Watching her mother turn into an undead was gut-wrenching. And then she's forced into serving the church and a God she longer believes in. The author does a great job of developing the tough-loving Sisterhood, hinting at secret chambers, conspiracy, and a world beyond the fence. At times, the narrative was slow but I was fully invested in Mary and her world.

But when I reached the middle of the book, when the characters escaped their zombie-ravaged village, after they saw friends and neighbors "turned", when they struck out to find escape, the book lost me. It revealed no great surprises and few revelations. The love-struck triangle got old. The Sisterhood was written out. There was a lot of zombie moaning, blood, and running. The author was good at setting up a scene, but nothing much happened. Most of all, the ending fizzled instead of finished.

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LibraryThing member lectus

I am ambivalent about this book. The story is good (escaping from the walking dead) but it bored me to death! I can't even quite explain why I was fed up with it. I reckon it will make a good movie, though; teenagers running away from the crazies (like that other movie).

LibraryThing member krau0098

I have read a number of other books by Carrie Ryan, The Map to Everywhere which I loved, and The Daughter of Deep Silence which was okay. I have had this book in my TBR pile forever and finally got a chance to pick it up. It ended up being okay. It’s well written but starts out a bit slow and

wasn’t all that original.

Mary lives in a village surrounded by a fence. Inside the village the Sisterhood rules all and the Guardians patrol the fence. Outside the fence the Unconsecrated will stop at nothing to break in and consume human flesh. Mary is getting to an age where she either must be asked for by a young man in the village or join the Sisterhood. She is forced to join the Sisterhood but found unsuitable for that work and when her childhood friend Harry asks for her she becomes his betrothed. However the only problem is that Mary took care Harry’s brother Travis while she was in the Sisterhood and both feel deeply in love.

Mary’s love troubles suddenly become inconsequential when a strange fast moving Unconsecrated breaks into the village and rips their lives apart.

This book starts out very slow but does pick up pace towards the end. The tone in the beginning reminds a lot of the movie The Village. Over half of the book is about Mary in her little village dealing with her day to day worries and concerns. Things do pick up towards the end but the pacing is strange. First Mary is completely obsessed with her love for Travis, then she ignores him in her quest for the ocean her mother told stories about, then she is obsessed with him again and then ignoring him. It was like Ryan couldn’t have Mary be in love AND eager to seek out the ocean at the same time...it was weird.

I thought the characters were a bit bland as well and didn't really engage with them. Mary is selfish and determined to fulfill her needs and obsessions; she doesn’t think about long term consequences and her actions were pretty stupid and poorly thought out. None of the other main characters really grabbed me and engaged me either; they were all just kind of blah. This book was full of characters who were selfish and short-sighted and generally annoying.

However, I did enjoy the world here and am curious to learn more about it. I felt like as soon as the story started to actually get interesting the book was over. Although let’s be honest the idea of secluded human societies in a post-apocalyptic zombie infested world isn’t really all that unique...it’s been done many times before.

Overall this is a decent read for those who are looking for a dystopian YA zombie type of book. I found the world intriguing but thought the book was a bit slow and that the characters were unlikable and hard to engage with . I am unsure whether or not I will read the next book in the series right now; I kind of want to read more about this world but I am worried that the 2nd book will be as slow and boring as this one was.

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LibraryThing member strongpieces

The premise of this is right up my alley: dystopian YA fiction set in a post-apocalyptic zombie future, in a small, religious village with secrets, surrounded by a forest where the zombies live. In a manner of speaking. The ingredients are all there for a great novel, but they just don't come

together. The problem is our protagonist, Mary. We start off with Mary already an orphan and her brother turning her back on her as she joins the Sisterhood, the village's religious organization. All Mary does is think about how she wants to leave the village, whine about not loving the boy she's betrothed to, but his brother, and wonder what's beyond the forest when all evidence of an outsider is erased by the Sisterhood. Once I hit a hundred pages I realized nothing had happened. All I had read about was Mary doing dumb things and whining about her life, and not even the promise of answers for all the mysteries of the Sisterhood was enough to keep me going. I really wanted to like this book, too.

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LibraryThing member seekingflight

This started for me with great promise, with a protagonist, Mary, living in a post apocalyptic world that discourages her from questioning the way the world is, saying it will only make her unhappy. The mysterious Sisters try to convince her to resign herself to doing what’s necessary to ensure

the survival of humanity, which in her case, means being a good wife to the man the Sisters think she should be with, and a mother to his children, although she’s in love with someone else. I was less engaged in the second half of the book, however. I was bored by the all too familiar love triangle motif, and felt that there was too much action that didn’t seem to go anywhere …

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LibraryThing member delphica

(#30 in the 2009 Book Challenge)

YA novel, set in a post zombie apocalypse world. Mary is a teenager living a Medieval Times-esque village that is entirely surrounded by both a forest, and a fence, which serves to keep out the roving undead. The villagers have no sense at all of the world beyond

their little patch of creepy forest, a fact that drives Mary nearly mad with wondering what else might be happening. The delicious best part is that when Mary is not contemplating the meaning of her life among the zombies, she obsesses over the teenage boys who are competing for her attention. This would be great for people who liked World War Z but found themselves wishing it had more teenage girl anguish. Because really, isn't gazing into the deep yet sorrowful eyes of a teenage boy the very most important thing you can do when preparing to fend off rotting, animated corpses? One interesting point -- I know a lot of people are talking about how dippy Twilight is, because Bella is such a passive nutjob, among other reasons, and in contrast, this is a teen horror/romance that has a very strong female character, who puts her fate into her own hands, even to the point of making considerable mistakes because she is so impulsive and quick to take action.

Grade: A-
Recommended: Well, if you like teen horror drama, this will be right up your alley. If you are more of a straightforward zombie fan, the zombie world in this book is extremely well-crafted and intriguing, but the boy crazy antics will make you chew off your own arm.

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LibraryThing member macart3

Cool theory on what would happen to the surviving human population after a zombie attack. Good for a first novel. An author to watch for.

LibraryThing member Tristan_Bruce

The most accurate way I can describe this book is the movie The Village meets 28 Days later. Sounds intense right? It definitely is.
The driving force in this book is fierce determination, faith and a girl named Mary who's biggest dream is to see the elusive ocean her mother told her stories about

as a kid. Add a beautiful love story that's the most selfless I've yet to read about and the looming of death that you aren't just aware of, it's something you see, hear, smell and can physically touch since anyone can remember. You're left with a book you can not put down and thrusts every imaginable emotion on you.
That is literally all you need to know. Read this book, you won't regret it.

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LibraryThing member idroskicinia

This book is the first one I read about zombies, and I was super excited! After reading a lot of books about vampires, werewolves, dystopian stories, angels, demons, etc, etc, etc… this one looked really good for me to complete my collection of YA books of all kind of themes. But this book wasn't

what I was expecting.

The story started really good, and for a moment I thought I had found a great book. ( BTW It made me remember The Hunger Games) So, the first one hundred pages were read immediately. We met Mary, the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her mother, and how her life changes completely after one big decision…. and she is not happy about that… she is not happy about what is happening with her life.

But that's when the story starts to fade a little bit… (Well, a lot) I don't wan't to talk about the plot or spoil anything, but after a while, I got bored reading Mary thinking about the same thing all over and over again. She was frustrated, so did I. I didn't find any development in the story, and I ended forgetting was this book was really about… Wait a minute… It was about the zombies…. or the Sisterhood… and their creepy secrets? And it was so obvious. Everything!

This story is not a complete YA book if there isn't any love story. The problem is I don't know where the romance came out of. (Nowhere, I suppose) The first day, is one side love, the next day, they love each other, and they can't live without each other. Of course, they cannot be together for some stupids reasons without sense, and also there are two other characters to complete "the square". It isn't a love triangle after all.

Ok… What I think about this book? A waste of time. The way it started was awesome, but the rest was awful, and I hated Mary and the rest of the characters. They were not real, and I didn't enjoy the story at all. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

1/5 Stars - I didn't like it

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LibraryThing member SavvyEscapades

I have never read a more hauntingly poetic horror story than this novel. I think zombies are interesting from a symbolic standpoint, but I have never been adamantly on Team Zombie. I'm not a super blood and guts horror girl. The good news is that you don't have to be in order to enjoy this

book.
Ryan's descriptions and the social structure of the village are very similar (in my mind) to M. Night Shamalan's The Village. Ryan has developed a complex society that the reader can see arose directly out of the rise of zombies, but she also respects her readers enough to not spell things out for us. She sketches the outlines and lets us fill in the blanks. I think this would usually bother me, but Ryan's prose is so beautiful that it doesn't bother me at all. Here, let me show you the first paragraph:

My mother used to tell me about the ocean. She said there was a place where there was nothing but water as far as you could see, and that it was always moving, rushing toward you and then away. She once showed me a picture that she said was my great-great-great-grandmother standing in the ocean as a child. It had been years since, and the picture was lost to fire long ago, but I remember it, faded and worn. A little girl surrounded by nothingness.

The entire book is just as beautiful and flowing. Usually I can't handle things that are excessively sad (and come on, it's a majorly distopian zombie novel, it's going to be sad), but Mary's ability to focus on beauty was inspiring as well.

I think the boost best and worst element of the book was Mary's hope. Mary hopes to a point that I would describe as selfish at times. In my opinion it makes her a little difficult to like, but it also makes her so rich and real to me. That element is kind of like how I view the last scene of Moulin Rouge!-- I dislike it on its own, but it enriches the whole so beautifully that I can't imagine the work without it.

Rating: 5 stars-- I have no idea why I waited this long to read this series, and I will definitely be reading the sequels soon!

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LibraryThing member thehidingspot

When this book first came out I picked it up every time I went to the bookstore, but I always put it back down. Then I was at the library and saw that they had a copy, so I decided to give it a try. After all, if I didn't like it - I could just return it and it wouldn't be a big deal (there is

nothing worse than buying a book only to find out a couple chapters in that it is HORRIBLE). Let's just say that now I have to make a trip to the bookstore... because I NEED a copy of this book on my bookshelf. Right next to its continuation when it comes out in March 2010 (sooo far away!!).

Before reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth, the only zombie centered books that I'd read were Laurell K. Hamilton's books (aimed for "adult" readers) and You Are So Undead to Me by Stacy Jay. The Forest of Hands and Teeth is nothing like those two books - at all. It's much more serious, realistic (if zombies were real) view of zombies and a world where zombies outnumber the living. Actually, it was kind of like I Am Legend (which was first a book, I think). With a bit of The Village mixed in as well.

I loved Mary as a narrator and heroine. I loved the fact that she was so filled with life in a world that was filled with death and, in many ways, hopelessness. Mary never gave up fighting for what she wanted or believed in - even when she didn't really have any proof that what she was fighting for even existed. I found myself rooting for her to succeed in fulfilling her dreams!

I really appreciated the love story - which was (as the ever wise Seth Cohen of the OC would say) a love rhombus - including Mary, her best friend, her fiance, and his brother. It really doesn't get more soap opera than that, but it was amazing nonetheless and totally suited the atmosphere of the story.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth is a portrayal of what would happen if zombies really did overrun the world, told from the point of view of a heroine that the reader could relate to.

This book is about much more than zombies and a complicated love story - it's about freedom of choice and fighting for your dreams and beliefs despite overwhelming obstacles!
I definitely recommend this book to fellow YA readers, especially zombie fans, but to any reader really. The main characters are mature and engaging, so any fiction reader could enjoy their dialogue.

Don't be afraid to buy this book at the bookstore. It's worth it.

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LibraryThing member nbmars

Mary is a teenaged girl living in a small village surrounded by high fences to protect the inhabitants from the Unconsecrated, i.e., zombies. The villagers call the world outside the fence “The Forest of Hands and Teeth.” Growing up, Mary’s mother told Mary stories about a wider world, with

tall buildings and even an ocean, but no one believes these tales except Mary. And when Mary’s mother is lost to the Unconsecrated, as had happened to her father, Mary’s world becomes even more restricted:

"In my village an unmarried woman has three choices. She may live with her family; a man may speak for her, court her through the winter and marry her in the spring ceremonies; or she may join the Sisterhood.”

Mary’s brother Jed blames Mary for their mother’s fate, so he refuses to take her in, and thus she is forced to join the Sisterhood. Unexpectedly though, she falls in love. The object of her feelings is already spoken for, however, and then, unexpectedly, a second boy speaks for her. (Females have no say in the matter.) Mary thinks her chances of finding happiness (not to mention the ocean) are gone forever. But things get even worse: the boundaries of the village are breached by the Unconsecrated, and those who can must find a way to escape.

Discussion: The author lines up the usual YA Post-Apocalyptic/Dystopia suspects: a rebellious teen girl who narrates in the first person and who exhibits both bravery and idiocy; the inevitable triangle with two boys vying for her affections; an evil female adult who stymies the heroine’s attempts at freedom; and a host of bloody, slack-jawed, drooling and moaning Undead to act as the Greek Chorus.

Does this one stand out from the rest of them? Not really, in my opinion. Mary, the main character, is a bit too self-centered and idiotic for my taste. The two boys of her triangle are both milquetoasts. World-building information is barebones, with background explanations non-existent.

Was there anything to like? Well, I have to say my favorite part is that Mary and her group, running from the zombies, keep encountering Roman numerals, and can’t figure out what they mean or how they are ordered. I could so relate!

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LibraryThing member red_dianthus

It felt like this book was trying too hard to both be a good zombie book and have meaningful character development as well as deep symbolism. Often it just feels forced and one or more of the aspects disappear into the background to suddenly re-appear pages later. The inconsistency annoyed me, and

I am not sure if I will make the effort to find the sequel when it comes out.

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LibraryThing member anniegrace720

This is not an average zombie apocalypse story. It has layer, depth and an ever-thickening plot.
Mary is living in a village surrounded by fences and on the outside are the Unconsecrated. They have always been a part of life and the threat of danger is always there. When Mary's mother becomes

Unconsecrated and joins her father on the other side of the fence, and Mary is sent to live with the Sisters she starts to question what is really going on and if there is a world outside her fenced in village. This eventually leads her on a journey that will change her life and test her in every way, This was an amazing love, supernatural and plot filled book.

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LibraryThing member selkie_girl

Mary, a teenage girl, lives in a village surrounded by fences, which are the only thing keeping the undead out and the villagers protected. The village is a place of habit, each season has its traditions and is watched over by The Sisters, a religious group who make sure everyone keeps the

traditions. When her mother and father are both infected, Mary is considered unfit to wed so she is forced to join The Sisters. While completing her training, Mary finds out a dark secret. She is torn between her village and the possible life outside the village where the ocean may or may not exist as well as the love of two brothers.

I must admit, I got to the end after some periods where my eyes glazed over (how many times must the description be made of moaning zombies) and I was somewhat disappointed. It was not a bad book by any means but the ending left me hanging (although wide open for the sequel) and I did want to throttle Mary quite a bit in frustration.

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LibraryThing member MeriJenBen

Mary's world is one of constant order and vigilance. As the Guardians patrol the fences that keep her village safe from the Unconsecrated, the Sisterhood keeps order within. Mary dreams of a world like the one's in the stories told by her mother, of oceans and life outside the Forest of Hands and

Teeth. But when Mary's mother chooses to become one of the Unconsecrated, Mary is forced to join the Sisterhood, and must give up her dreams of freedom. However, Mary learns of a wider world outside her village, and of the secrets kept by the Sisterhood. When the fences fail, Mary and her family must undertake a perilous journey to seek help and a new home, guided by Mary's stories.

I enjoyed this book. I like that Ryan didn't dwell on what created the zombies, just what would happen after they were there. I did feel that the book dragged in places, that Mary's experience with the Sisterhood could have been more dramatic, and that the middle section of the book went on too long. But all in all, a well-written take on the zombie theme.

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