Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

This was a very frustrating read for me. I've seen good reviews of this book and while the premise was really interesting, the execution left a lot to be desired.

Mary lives in a community dominated by the Sisterhood, a group of women who are the religious leaders of the community, and who keep everyone safe from the Unconsecrated. The village lives in fear of the Unconsecrated, the zombies, who roam the Forest of Hands and Teeth. They hunger for living human flesh and one bite can turn anyone into the undead. Mary comes to live with the Sisterhood and begins to realize that the Sisterhood has knowledge and secrets that it will not share. When the zombies breach the fence protecting the village, Mary and a group of others must leave and hope to find other humans beyond the Forest.

This book has a winning story. The idea of an isolated village fighting against an unimaginable evil is compelling. The monsters were truly scary and I love a survival story. I became frustrated with the heroine, Mary, the narrator of the story. She comes across as selfish and immature. She is obsessed with the idea of the ocean beyond the Forest and is willing to endanger herself and others of her party to find it.

I was also frustrated by how the author wrote some parts of the story. This group of people are in a survival situation yet they don't seem to have a plan; they react rather than act. At one point they are in a safe location that will eventually be breached by the zombies, yet they don't develop an escape plan or a way to kill the zombies. There is also little dialogue, so the story is mostly told through Mary's inner thoughts and concerns.

I think that if the author had approached the book a differently this could have been fabulous.

Grade C