Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Posted by Jen on Thursday, March 19th, 2009 @ 2:29 pm

I’ve been waiting to read The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan for a long time. I had pretty high expectations due to what I’d heard and read about this book. I’m a sucker for zombie stories, especially ones with a new spin like this one. Did it live up to the hype? Yes.

Mary lives in a world where zombies (although never called that in the book) are something that have to be dealt with and accepted every day. She lives in a village protected by fences. No one can go out, and no one can come in (they are taught no one exists outside of The Forest of Hands and Teeth). So, when someone new shows up from outside, things rapidly change for Mary and the people in her village.

The writing is absolutely beautiful. Every sentence seemed carefully crafted, and they flowed together seamlessly. I was really impressed. The style of the title (which is pretty awesome) is the style of the entire book. The tone is very melancholy and dark, and full of emotion. I could feel what Mary was feeling. Her pain, confusion and anger. I really felt the depth of the emotion on every single page.

I loved the approach to this zombie story as well. Instead of focusing on what happens when the zombie apocalypse begins, this story takes places years and years after it happens. The people inside have forgotten the past. They don’t even know what happened to put them in this village surrounded by flesh-eating monsters. They don’t know about cities or about the ocean. To them, The Forest of Hands and Teeth is the world. Everyone is constricted to live a certain way with very few choices on how to live their lives. I loved the focus on choices, and how Mary wanted the freedom to choose her own future instead of it being dictated for her.

And while it’s a new approach that will be appealing to readers who aren’t that into traditional zombie stories, it still fulfilled what I love so much about these types of stories. It’s pretty scary and creepy, and the zombies are truly a real threat to Mary and her group of friends. I’d actually love to see a movie made from this.

The ending left me wanting more. I still have some questions about the Sisterhood and what happens to some of the characters. I know there’s a second book, and while I’ve heard it isn’t a direct sequel, I can’t wait to find out more about the world and read another story written as elegantly as this one was.