By Carrie Ryan
Publisher: Delacorte Press
To Sum It Up:
Mary dreams of seeing the ocean one day, but her reality makes that almost impossible. Her village is surrounded by the Forest of Hands and Teeth and the Unconsecrated, the dead who’ve come back to life. When the Unconsecrated breach the village, Mary is part of a small group that manages to flee. There appears to be nowhere for them to go, but Mary has recently made a discovery that gives her hope of finding life beyond the Forest.
Review:
Judging by the title, I was prepared to be thoroughly scared while reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Out of all the paranormal creatures, zombies give me the worst fright. They’re usually so disgusting in appearance, and then there’s the whole living dead concept. The zombies in The Forest of Hands and Teeth are described in some grotesque terms, yet this novel didn’t scare me at all.I had a really tough time mustering investment in the story because I found the prose flat. Mary was not a compelling narrator at all. I never felt like she was actively involved in anything that happened around her; she just droned on about it in a detached voice. The only times when her narration showed some signs of life were when speaking about Travis, the love of her life, and seeing the ocean, which she was obsessed with. And when I say “obsessed,” I’m not kidding. That’s practically all Mary thinks about; that is, when she’s not professing how much she loves Travis. I quickly lost interest in both topics, which only made the book harder for me to get through.
As for the romance, that, too, was lackluster. For all of Mary's “I love Travis” and “I want to be with Travis” declarations, I didn’t find any chemistry between them. I think it had a lot to do with how monotone the prose was because my pulse didn’t speed up whenever anyone was being chased by the Unconsecrated, either. Travis was okay, but like the other characters (except Mary, who just annoyed me), that was about all I could say about him. No single personality stood out to me, so even when misfortune befell someone, it didn’t really matter to me.
One of my biggest pet peeves with post-apocalyptic/disaster type scenarios is when there’s no explanation of how the world arrived at this point. That’s the case with The Forest of Hands and Teeth. The Unconsecrated surround the village, constantly on patrol for their next meal, but what’s the story behind their origin? Don’t know. People only known as “They” built the fences that stand between the village and the Unconsecrated. Who are They? Don’t know that, either. Personally, if I’m going to read a novel about the undead, I’d like to know how they got reanimated in the first place. I’d also like to know how a line of fences manages to keep them out. Most of the zombies I’ve seen in movies and on TV plow through any obstacles barring their way from chowing down.
I’d actually been looking forward to being petrified by this book, but I could never sense any terror from the characters or urgency to their plight. I pushed myself to finish this, even though it’s not a lengthy novel, and despite the twist toward the end, I’m not intrigued enough to see if it turns into something bigger in the sequel.
All in All:
I read this mostly with disinterest. I thought the world needed to be explained in much more depth because one of the first questions that pops into my mind whenever zombies are involved is: where did they come from? I was disappointed not to find out and disappointed with this book all-around; here’s hoping that I have better luck with my next zombie read.
