The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Jan 27, 2010
The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Author: Carrie Ryan
Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers; First Edition edition (March 10, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385736819
ISBN-13: 978-0385736817
Set several generations in the future, we find Mary living in a fenced settlement, safely protected from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Her entire existence depends on the fences holding and following the Sisterhood rules that control the village.
Long before anyone in the village can remember, and past the time when anyone would even understand how it happened, a plague overtook the entire world, turning everyone infected into zombies who want nothing more than to eat the living. Yes, you would at first think a typical zombie book, but it's much better than that - this is what the world is like after everyone has already accepted that the zombies are there, however they got there, and they just have learned to live with their situation.
Mary, however, is a teenage girl who lives on her mother's tales, passed down from several generations, of freedom, living without the Forest of Hands and Teeth, and most importantly, the ocean. Stories of water without end, beaches, no trees. Mary cannot even imagine this, but she believes that if it was once there, it must be still. She longs to find out if this is true.
But Mary is trapped in the village, expected to obey the Sisterhood, marry an available young man with the purpose of keeping the village alive. Her whole life is to be duty to the rules.
Suddenly, several things occur that give Mary the chance to see if there is a life past the village walls. Will she take the chance or stay where she is?
This is listed as a young adult novel, but I have to admit that I enjoyed it very much. It kept my interest the entire time. I tore through it in about 24 hours. At the same time, some of the books seems to be geared more toward adult themes than teen angst. There's love, marriage, childbirth, death and hard decisions regarding the future of Mary and others. This is no hoping you'll be asked to the prom kind of book. I'll note that for the younger crowd, there's no graphic descriptions of any sort, it's all left to the imagination.
I liked it very much, am eagerly looking forward to the companion novel coming out in March and now am going to pass it on to my tween to read.
