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toris_reads 's review for:
The Forest of Hands and Teeth
by Carrie Ryan
"Every night I drown, and every morning I wake up, struggling to breathe."
I was so surprised by this book! I went into it not expecting much - a quick, spooky YA read - but what I got was so much more!
Mary lives in a fenced-in village in the center of a forest. Around her, outside of the fence, are the living dead, the "unconsecrated," as they call them. Their village is isolated and antiquated, dominated by a group of religious women called the Sisters. Her story begins with Mary being sent to live with them as an apprentice because her mother has walked into the forest and allowed herself to becoming unconsecrated, and no man has claimed Mary as his wife. But it is there that she learns important information about the past of her village, and how to survive when it becomes overrun.
The most interesting thing about this novel was that Ryan began it decades after the return of the living dead. Not even Mary's mother remembers a world before the unconsecrated took over, and Mary's only knowledge of the world outside her village comes from stories that have been passed down through generations.
Deducting 1 star because the ending was good but way too convenient. Everything was neatly wrapped together, but not necessarily in a particularly unique or different way. I was completely awed by the rest of the book, which made the ending fall more than a little flat for me. Hopefully, it was just because Ryan was setting up for the sequel.
Also, I felt like the original premise was shockingly similar to Shyamalan's The Village (a girl who wants to escape a fenced-in, isolated village in the middle of a forest, creepy all-knowing elders, the new and dangerous thing in the forest wearing bright red, etc.). Once the main characters escaped the village, there were clear events that distanced it from the film, but half of me wonders if this novel was conceived after a viewing of the movie.
I was so surprised by this book! I went into it not expecting much - a quick, spooky YA read - but what I got was so much more!
Mary lives in a fenced-in village in the center of a forest. Around her, outside of the fence, are the living dead, the "unconsecrated," as they call them. Their village is isolated and antiquated, dominated by a group of religious women called the Sisters. Her story begins with Mary being sent to live with them as an apprentice because her mother has walked into the forest and allowed herself to becoming unconsecrated, and no man has claimed Mary as his wife. But it is there that she learns important information about the past of her village, and how to survive when it becomes overrun.
The most interesting thing about this novel was that Ryan began it decades after the return of the living dead. Not even Mary's mother remembers a world before the unconsecrated took over, and Mary's only knowledge of the world outside her village comes from stories that have been passed down through generations.
Deducting 1 star because the ending was good but way too convenient. Everything was neatly wrapped together, but not necessarily in a particularly unique or different way. I was completely awed by the rest of the book, which made the ending fall more than a little flat for me. Hopefully, it was just because Ryan was setting up for the sequel.
Also, I felt like the original premise was shockingly similar to Shyamalan's The Village (a girl who wants to escape a fenced-in, isolated village in the middle of a forest, creepy all-knowing elders, the new and dangerous thing in the forest wearing bright red, etc.). Once the main characters escaped the village, there were clear events that distanced it from the film, but half of me wonders if this novel was conceived after a viewing of the movie.