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Thursday, November 1, 2012

Book Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

In Mary's world there are simple truths.

The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth.

But, slowly, Mary's truths are failing her. She's learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future-between the one she loves and the one who loves her.

And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?

Review:

The Forest of Hands and Teeth is, truly, a work of art. The plot is fantastic, the idea is fabulous, and the writing is amazing. One thing the book lacks (at least in my opinion) is not suspense, or action, or romance, because there is most definitely enough of that to go around, but it is lacking in one of the most basic, fundamental areas: character development.

Even after reading the whole novel (a total of 308 pages), I still don't feel like I have any connection with the characters, aside from Mary
and even then, I still don't know very much about Mary herself, which is disappointing. I honestly could not tell you more than one thing about Jed, Harry, Travis, or Cass.

Aside from that one, little
or not so littlething, I loved this book. It was action-packed and suspenseful, and tender and romantic all at once. I found myself in tears at one point in the novel; be warned, if you're a blubberer in good books.

And, guys, if we're being honest here: the summary DOES NOT DO THIS BOOK JUSTICE! I've seen and picked up and set down this book at least ten or fifteen times, all because, well, the inside summary does not make the book sound appealing at all. So, if you're like me, and have time and time again put this book down because of its God-awful summary, do yourself a favor, and just dive in!

The idea is creative; of course, we've all heard of the "zombie" apocalypse before
—if you haven't, my one question for you would be: where have you been?but never as it was told by Carrie Ryan. Yes, it is disease-like, contracted once you've been bitten by one of the Infected, known as the "Unconsecrated" . . . but Carrie's writing, her way of weaving the story together, is utterly unique, and I love her for it. So no, you don't need to be a big zombie-horror-flick fan, or even love the idea of zombies, period. Because, trust me, I don't. But this novel is, through and through, a necessary read.

Grade: A

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2 comments:

Unknown said...

Tell me about it I started a blog and thought I would post at least weekly it has been 20 days now and I have only just posted a new review.

Stella said...

Hi! I understand that writing book blogs can be hard so you shouldn't feel like a failure. Sometimes it feels like I don't do anything else but read and at other times I stay weeks without reading a book. I love reading and I also have my book blog: . I would really appreciate it if you read it and leave a comment. Thanks!

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