Stephenie Meyer has the vampires and the werewolves covered. So it’s about time that young adult literature tackled another legendary/undead creature – zombies. Are you in the mood for a zombie apocalypse?
(Also, this is a good time to stoke the fires of the zombie/unicorn YA debate. I wish that I could be all tough and awesome and say that I like zombie stories best, but zombie stories are kind of creepy. I am not so much a fan of the creepy. Also, Planet Unicorn is awesome. And you don’t have to be an eight-year-old gay boy named Shannon to think so. I know my mom likes Planet Unicorn. I rest my case.)
The Forest of Hands and Teeth is about Mary, a young woman who lives in a village surrounded by fences to keep out the Unconsecrated that live in the forest nearby – the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Are the Unconsecrated the only thing beyond the fence, as Mary has always been taught, or are the stories that her mother used to tell her true? Is there an ocean? And could she find it?
There is also a bit of a love story – not zombie love, don’t worry. Mary loves a boy named Travis, but his brother Harry is the one who pursues her. As Mary deals with her feelings for the two brothers, she is also faced with the question of what love is and what she is willing to sacrifice for it.
I thought it was interesting that the book doesn’t deal with the question of the Return (how the zombies took over the world), because Mary doesn’t know the story of the Return herself. Whether that is because no one in her village knows the story or because people are deliberately not being told (there is a mysterious religious order that might know more than they have been letting on) is not completely clear. It almost made me want to read more about zombies, to think about the different ways that zombies can be created (and thus, take over the world). But I would like to continue to be able to sleep, so I am not going to pursue that line of thinking.
I was a little bit scared to start this book, but I am glad I read it. It was a good story, scary without being too vivid in its descriptions (and when the zombies attacked, I could read those parts pretty quickly), and it kept my heart racing all the way to the end. I often have students who want something scary, and that’s an area in which I am usually at a loss. Now I can hand them this book – with the disclaimer not to read it after dark.
No Trackbacks
You can leave a trackback using this URL: http://throughaglass.net/archives/2009/03/24/the-forest-of-hands-and-teeth-by-carrie-ryan/trackback/
4 Comments
Ugh. Although this book actually sounds pretty good! I picked up I Am Legend without knowing what it was about and cringed the whole way through it! Nice job on Saturday… I thought my tigers did a great job, but I expected the outcome.
Ugh, zombies? But this book actually sounds interesting. I picked up “I Am Legend” without a clue to what it was about and cringed my way through it!
Nice job on Saturday. My tigers played awesome, but I was expecting the outcome!
I know! Zombies!
This is kind of a spoiler about the love story, so don’t read any further if you don’t want to be spoiled.
One of the things I liked is that Mary realized that she cared more about the future/finding the ocean than she did about either of the boys, which I thought was an interesting twist. She wasn’t ready for marriage or that kind of commitment. She still had worlds to explore. An interesting contrast to the Bella and Edward “you are all I need for forever” state of mind.
I first cringed at the thought of reading a book about zombies but your description did start to spark my interest – however I am easily spooked!