See this family?



Or this family?



Take a good long hard look at all of their faces.

See how happy, how healthy, how loving they are. Imagine you've known them your entire life and that you love each one more than life itself.

Now imagine if you were one of the people in that photograph with them.

Now imagine that I told you and all those other people standing and smiling with you that I was going to kill you all so that I could go for a trip to the beach...

Okay, now you know the basic plot of The Fo More...

How to Write a Best Selling YA Novel

1. Make sure you write the book in a POV that distances us from the narrator. If you have no idea how to write 1st Person Present, do it any way. It makes the book confusing and fun for your reader to plow through. Also, make sure your narrator's POV is very boring. Boring enough to put Plato, Jane Austen, and Shakespeare to sleep.

2. Make your narrator a selfish, boring girl with little to no life outside of her love interest and one singular hobby. Whether i More...

Well written but squandered book. Mary is down at the river being an annoying teenage girl with romance issues when the sirens go off. The walls of her small enclave of humanity have not been breached; instead her mother has seen her father beyond the fence, and gone to him, and been bitten. Her mother has a day or two before she dies and becomes undead – or Unconsecrated in the religious nomenclature of the town. The opening is a slam-dunk of rapid exposition, setting up the world and then drop More...

It's difficult for me to review Carrie Ryan's first novel, The Forest of Hands and Teeth objectively--because I can't help but feel like there were two very different books packed into the volume's three-hundred-some-odd pages.

The first was the delicate story that was clearly and wisely aimed at young adults: that of Mary, who lives in a village isolated from the rest of the world thanks to a zombie plague that rages outside its gates. In this tale, when Mary's parents become infected, and the m More...

I was very much looking forward to reading this book. Great premise, rave reviews. Unfortunately, I was disappointed.

First of all, I truly disliked the writing style. Present tense writing can do wonders in skillful hands (see Wake, Fade by Lisa McMann), but in this case this style was mishandled, it didn't add any kind of intensity to the story. Quite the opposite, I was extremely irritated by it.

I don't think this book was in any way original. It read mostly like kind of Village/Dawn of the More...

Synopsis:
Sometime in the future, the world is overrun by zombies--people infected by an unknown virus that causes them to return as the undead and feed on human flesh--called the "Unconsecrated". Mary lives in a village surrounded by the Forest of Hands and Teeth, where the Unconsecrated are kept out by a chain-link fence, and to the villagers' knowledge, they may be the last bastion of uninfected humanity. Mary's little world is ruled by fear and the people have turned to a Medieval-like relig More...

Holy. Fucking. Shit.

This book is amazing. Did you hear that? It is an amazing BUK.

Oh, God. Sorry for the nuttymadam reference. Dear Lord.

Anyway. I'm not quite done, but fuck! is this book good. I can't believe I actually thought of giving up on it once. It's SO GOOD.

How many times has Kira ever told you that a book was amazing? Italics amazing? Not that many times.

I just can't get over it. Here are a few things that I fucking love about it:

a) Mary is such a zombie-killing mennonite badass. I c More...

I’ve been trying to write my reviews soon after I read a novel why the emotion of the story is still fresh within me, but with The Forest of Hands and Teeth, I needed a few days to digest.

I particularly enjoyed this novel. The writing was beautiful, it was one of the best written novels I’ve read in a while. The plot itself, while it did remind me of a mix of the movies The Village and I Am Legend, I still found it to be original in context. It was captivating and suspenseful, I had a very hard More...

I was really excited to read this book when it first came out. But being short on money (like always), I had to wait an entire year for it to come out in paperback. You should have seen my face when I spotted it's cover at Borders. It immediately went to the enormous pile I was lugging around (sadly, I had to put half the books back, because it would be called stealing otherwise).

This book is told from the perspective of Mary, a young woman growing up in a small, isolated village surrounded by More...

I really wanted to like this book because the premise sounded interesting and somewhat original and it was recommended by one of my fave authors. I was looking forward to being "creeped out" as some of the reviews said would happen. Well, I wasn't creeped out and I didn't care for the book at all.

Mary lives in a confined village surrounded by fences to keep the Unconsecrated out. The Unconsecrated are zombie like beings that thirst for human flesh/blood. They came after The Return which brought More...

More filler YA garbage. It had potential I guess but the writing quality, the plot quality, the dialogue quality, I just can't.



It was like the author lost a bet over how minimal a vocabulary she could use to write a book. Ocean. Ocean. OCEAN. OCEAN OCEAN OCEAN I swear to god stop saying ocean talk about something else anything else. Seriously. Do not hit your readers over the head with a hammer we GET IT. WE GET IT DON'T REMIND US EVERY CHAPTER I AM DROWNING IN YOUR SEA OF OCEANS.



All the main c More...

Warning: some spoilers do run about freely in this novel; like carefree little bunnies. If you are afraid of spoilers and/or bunnies, do not continue on.


Awwww! Sooo cute! Let's look at just one more before I start my review.


Sooo..... Cute.... Kind of weird to see little baby bunnies if you know what this book is about. Probably just my ADHD kicking in.

Bunnies..............

Ahem...... alright, so before I get to what I didn't like about this 3.5 star book, let me start with what I absolutely More...

I ♥ zombies.
I know, I know, big secret. I say so on my profile page. But what I really love are zombie apocalypses. I love the terror of feeling that you're alone and there are legions of the undead swarming around and the only thing between you and certain (but temporary) death is a marginal amount of luck and maybe a little skill.

I love apocalyptic fiction on its own, of course. But there is just something about zombie apocalypses. Now, you're not just on your own to fend for yourself in an More...

Reviewed by Ashley B for TeensReadToo.com

Mary lives in a village surrounded by the Forest of Hands and Teeth.

The Unconsecrated fill the forest, moaning, trying to get into the village, to devour and make more of their own by a single bite, which will spread the infection. They don't give up. They want to feed.

The Sisterhood holds the secrets of the village, from before the Return. No one knows the truth, except them.

The Guardians protect the village, and make sure the fence holds back the Unc More...

The Sisterhood knows nothing at all. Look what happened to Gabrielle.!
The Guardians are a bunch of sissies!
Yes, the Unconsecrated are relentless
And the fence! That damn fence. How did it get there? Was it made out of the strongest metal?
And the book! This book, I mean, is peppered with selfish characters! From Mary down to Jacob. But 'o course Mary gets the award for being the Bitch Queen of Egotism.

And you know what? For some reason I still think Carrie Ryan is a damn good writer. This book is More...

I can solidly say that my acquisition of The Forest of Hands and Teeth is entirely the work of John Scalzi's Big Idea posts that have been prominently featured on his blog. This book was just recently featured, and as soon as I saw the post go up I knew I had to check this one out. I don't read a lot of YA, but this one had all the right elements for me: a young heroine anxious to explore beyond the confines of her restrictive world. A post-apocalyptic setting, where what's left of humanity has More...

It's been a couple of hours since I finished reading this and I still can't believe how truly remarkable The Forest Of Hands And Teeth was. In my view, this defiantly has the potential to be one of the best debuts of 2009, if not the best.

The writing, the world, the characters were all so interesting and haunting, which made you become totally involved in the story from the beginning.

The characters in The Forest Of Hands and Teeth were extremely three dimensional to the point were you felt tha More...

I still haven't finished reading this book. But I felt it would be necessary to write as I go along reading the ‘Forest Of Hands And Teeth’. Just to make the book to some extent more bearable.

Props to the writer who faintly has beautiful way with words, but also has a way with boring me to tears. Yet, I can't tell if I'm bored stiff because of the way it’s written that causes my eyes to go heavy with sleep, or if perhaps it’s the plot. It could be the characters in addition. Or, possibly it’s a More...

Suffice it to say I was underwhelmed. While I don't read many zombie novels, I do watch a lot of zombie movies. And alas, I have to say this particular story doesn't stick in my mind.

One thing I do know: Mary is a fine example of the uber-selfish heroines that are common in YA, particularly paranormal/dystopian fiction. I'm fine with reading a selfish, unpleasant narrator -- but what I don't like is when selfishness is portrayed as a positive trait. Selfishness isn't mental strength. As with ma More...

The Forest of Hands and Teeth instantly reminded me of the movie The Village and it also made me think of the movie Dawn of the Dead as well. But even if you didn't like those movies or never saw them, don't let it detract from wanting to check out this book.

Mary, the main character, lives in a village some time in the not-so-distant future where civilization has been set back by hundreds of years, because of something called "The Return." The village is surrounded by a fence which holds back th More...

This seems to be one of those books that gets really mixed reactions. I've read more than a few rants that complain of the writing style (present tense), the love aspect, the originality aspect, and Mary herself, saying she's selfish and unlikeable. And most of the things that seem to bother people about this book help me to love it.

I found Ryan's writing beautifully and painfully evocative, and the present tense lent an immediacy to the narration that really worked. There are times when the thi More...

Our heroine, Mary, has a dream. A dream to leave the safety of her village and find this ever-mysterious ocean her mother romanticized through stories. Mary has always been taught that her village is all there is. Well, all that remains of pure humanity at the very least. Her village is surrounded by a forest--the forest of hands and teeth. Outside the fences and walls of her village, the Unconsecrated roam. Zombies. They're an ever-present threat, but as long as the fences hold. As long as the More...

Recommended by THE BERN.

He told me this would make me cry buckets. I SHALL NOT CRY.

Review

Mary lives in a post-apocalyptic world, in a town surrounded by fences to protect them from the Unconsecrated (aka, zombies). Her mother told her incredible stories about the ocean and about a time before the Return. Mary dreams of going to the ocean, of being free of the fences, the Unconsecrated, and the strict, religious Sisters.
The night Mary is to be officially married to a man she does not love, the More...

Eeeh. For a book featuring crazed zombie attacks, torrid love scenes, mad scientist nuns and a girl who (according to the cover image) appears to actually be River Tam, I’m not entirely sure why I was so unenthused overall.


To be fair, our protagonist doesn’t seem to be able to kill people with her brain, so that’s strike one....

Because I really, really did want to like this darn thing, and Hazel thought it was shiny, but... but I just couldn’t.

Partly it was the way the main character’s entire pe More...

Creepy. It's a combination of The Giver and I Am Legend with a flair of The Village. I spend so much of the book trying to shake off the hopeless feeling that Mary would never escape the zombie apocalypse that it did its job creeping me out. There was a little too much of the zombies have a hold of her and their mouths are reaching for her and she closes her eyes and knows she's going to die and then someone saves her with no plausible way for either of them not be bitten, but it was still suspe More...

What will they think up next? If they were like some YA writers, most likely the same crap they have been spinning over the past two decades. Well, maybe just one decade. And this is the part where I yearn for the authors of my past lives, and/or the nineties.
Originally, when I wrote this prehistoric review, I gave an extra star out of acknowledgement of hard work. It can keep it, I guess. But by the time I revisited this in the future, I was hoping that the scenery would have graduated from z More...

Mary’s world is surrounded by the moans and shuffles of the Unconsecrated. The Unconsecrated look for ways to breach the fences that protect her village. They try to find weakness in the metal links. They reach through trying to grab hold of anyone unfortunate enough to walk too close to the fence. Mary’s world is based in fear. Fear that the Unconsecrated will one day break through and devour everyone in the village.

Mary’s mother goes to the fences everyday to look into The Forest of Hands and More...

I was one of the first people to read Twilight, before the whole Bella/Edward craze took over. One of the reviews that I read months later said that Twilight signaled the new "in" subject in YA - vampires. They were the "new zombies;" and zombies were "out."

I had never read any books about zombies, for two reasons. First, Robin McKinley has never written a book about them. Second, I am a wimp. A big one. I saw "Poltergeist" when I was 19 and I still have nightmares about it. Forget "Thriller." U More...