Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan.
Page count: 310 pages
Publisher: Gollancz
Release Date: July 2009
Format: Paperback
Who I'd Recommend it To: No one.
Rating: ★

From Goodreads: In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated will never relent. And you must always mind the fence that surrounds the village; the fence that protects the village from the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But, slowly, Mary’s truths are failing her. She’s learning things she never wanted to know about the Sisterhood and its secrets, and the Guardians and their power, and about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. When the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, she must choose between her village and her future—between the one she loves and the one who loves her. And she must face the truth about the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Could there be life outside a world surrounded in so much death?


                                                                                                                  


Review:

From the one star rating, I guess you can tell that I did not like this book. At all. The main problem I had with this book was the characters. At the beginning of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, I was fully on Team Mary. She was rebellious and seemed like the only one with a brain in her village. It just went downhill from there. I've never wanted to reach inside the book and strangle a character more in my life, honestly. I always say I loved flawed characters, but I just could not get myself to like this character at all. She was selfish and utterly infuriating. Instead of actually focusing on the zombie problem, she was all lovey dovey with a guy named Travis (who, might I add, had no personality whatsoever). On almost every page she would go on about how much she loved him, wanted him, etc. She. Was. Obsessed.


Oh, and did I mention there is a love triangle? Oh, the love triangle, how I loathe thee. Both these guys, Harry and Travis (who are brothers, by the way), were both boring as hell. They were flat, one dimensional characters who weren't fleshed out at all. And the fact that most of this book focused on Mary's attraction to Travis and Harry annoyed me to no end. I wanted more zombies, dammit! The romance between Mary and Travis was terrible and I didn't feel a connection at all. It felt forced and unnecessary.


Too many things were left untold. So many questions were left unanswered. This book did not give you enough information and back story at all. The book was quite slow-paced, and the action started to happen around page 120. 


The writing style was the only thing I liked about this book. The writing was beautiful, and I always like books in present tense. Majority of the book was Mary's thoughts, and looking back, there really wasn't a lot of dialogue, which I didn't like.


In short: Too much kissing, not enough zombies. Won't be checking out the sequel.