The Forest of Hands and Teeth (The Forest of Hands and Teeth, #1) in What's the Name of That Book???

Jun 01, 2011 Evan rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: youngadult, post-apocalyptic, horror

A paranormal romance of the post-apocalyptic horror variety. The characters were slightly better than average and for large portions of the book I really didn't know where the plot was going to lead. The normal sappiness of YA romances is balanced nicely with a hard multi-layered look at death. And then [if you'll excuse me spoiling the entirety of the text) (seriously, don't read this if you care even a little bit)(view spoiler) ...more

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Apr 03, 2009 Kate rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: age-ya, 2009, zombies

This was sort of a version of "The Village" with zombies. Mary has grown up in an isolated village surrounded by fences which keep out the Unconsecrated, although her mother used to tell her tales about the ocean and the world beyond the Forest of Hands and Teeth. But after her mother chooses to join her father (who has been turned), Mary is forced into the Sisterhood, a secretive religious group that rules her village. But when there is a breach in the fence, Mary and her friends realize that t ...more

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Dec 03, 2009 Michelle rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: ebook, kids_and_y-a, horror, feminism

i blame stephanie meyer.

she certainly didn't invent the love triangle, but she did make the chaste, angsty version of it very fashionable in YA sorta-romance novels, of which this is a disappointing example. there's a lot of really good ideas rushing around this book: a young woman living in a version of m.night shyamalan's "the village" where the danger is real and immediate and dread-inducing instead of merely suggested has a lot of tough choices to make. she's been raised to believe that her ...more

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Dec 07, 2011 Nadine in NY Jones rated it really liked it

Shelves: stayed-up-way-too-late, young-adult, dystopian-and-post-apocalyptic, zombies

This is such a bleak book. That seems appropriate, any book involving zombies should be bleak. It's a real page-turner, though - I stayed up until 1am reading the first half, and if I didn't have unbreakable plans the next day I would have stayed up til 4 to finish it. That said, I don't really know WHY it's such a page turner, nor do I know WHY I'm so eager to get back to it. I cannot articulate why I like this book. All of the points I can make point out what a mediocre book it should be. And This is such a bleak book. That seems appropriate, any book involving zombies should be bleak. It's a real page-turner, though - I stayed up until 1am reading the first half, and if I didn't have unbreakable plans the next day I would have stayed up til 4 to finish it. That said, I don't really know WHY it's such a page turner, nor do I know WHY I'm so eager to get back to it. I cannot articulate why I like this book. All of the points I can make point out what a mediocre book it should be. And yet, it's not.

It's first person present tense, which I find kind of off-putting, but worse than that, there is very little dialogue. It's all "I did this I saw this I heard this she did that and I thought this and then she did that." I will admit I start skimming some of these descriptive passages in order to skip ahead to some dialogue. In a strange way, my thirst for dialogue kind of adds to the mood of the book - Mary, the narrator, thirsts for knowledge and freedom, the zombies thirst for ... well, whatever zombies want. The minimal dialogue really kept me from getting to know the other characters, too - I was just firmly in Mary's head, and that's that.

To summarize: this takes place many generations after the zombie apocalypse. Most knowledge has been lost. The village (which seems to have no name) is completely isolated and fenced in. Outside the fence: zombies. I do admit to a few twinges of: "wait! that makes no sense! where are the zombies coming from?? Surely they would have all fallen apart by now?" But then I figure, well maybe there are other villages (that is, after all, the whole premise: Are There Other Villages?) and the zombies get some fresh recruits that way. I don't know. (Later the book points out that the zombies have never been known to die or decompose, even though that makes no sense.) So, fenced village surrounded by zombies. Lifestyle akin to a medieval village (nuns in charge, etc). Mary, our protagonist, has lost her father to the Forest of Hands and Teeth recently - we are never told WHY - what was he doing?? Why aren't we told? Mary's mother can't stop waiting for her father to return - Mom's going a little crazy. Life is slow: Mary's brother Jed patrols the border with other Guardians, Mom stares at the forest, and Mary washes sheets in the creek in between bouts of holding Mom's hand. Mary has a crush on Travis, but it seems Travis's brother Harry wants Mary, and Travis has his eye on Mary's best friend Cassandra. Courtship is very formal. This village at times reminded me of the medieval village in Mistress of the Art of Death and I wonder if the author used it as inspiration.

There is a strange distance to everything. Mary grew up among these few hundred people, they must all know each other intimately, but yet Harry feels like a stranger to her, as if they were childhood friends who totally lost touch years ago. But how can that be?? And there is artificial withholding of knowledge - for example, what was up with Mary's dad? Just tell us! And sometimes Mary does things that make NO SENSE I think a lot of the distance in unintentional - and I think it's due to the lack of dialogue - we just never get a good feel for these other people. They seem like unique and realist characters, but we never get to KNOW them.

It is annoying and weird that Mary can't stop thinking about how HAWT Travis is, meanwhile (a) we are never really shown what is so awesome about Travis (all he ever says is "oh Mary oh Mary" - dude, are YOU a zombie too??) nor what is so objectionable about his brother Harry, and (b) zombies are chasing you and everyone you know is dying and you are obsessing about this boy????? Honey! Worry more about your life!! But then, this is balanced by: I like that she is not perfect, that she obsesses about the wrong things just like real people do, that she is a self-centered and obnoxious teen just like so many teens. And, I wonder if she's gone a bit crazy, just like her mom. Oh boy do I LOVE an unreliable narrator and I very much hope that this is the case here.

Events in the second half of the book really bear out the "Mary is crazy" theory, which makes me happy ... but I have a sneaking suspicion that the author does not intend this.

None of my reservations are preventing me from immediately putting part 2, The Dead-Tossed Waves, on hold at the library. ...more

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Apr 18, 2010 Jennifer Kronk rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: fantasy-and-sci-fi

Bought this at C2E2. I started reading this on the train home and I already found it hard to put down. Looking forward to reading more.

UPDATE: Good, scary fun! After too many weeks of grad school stress, I finally was able to focus on something other than homework. This book is (melo?)dramatic and atmospheric (I could almost hear the sound of the Unconsecrated pressing agianst my windows.) Reading it at night almost caused me to have a stroke when my keys unexpectedly fell to the ground as a ma ...more

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Dec 10, 2009 Hannah rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: ya, dystopia-post-apocalyptic

Okay, so I did not know that this was a zombie book going into it. I had just seen it on the Debs 2009 website and then came across it at Bookman's. Needing something to read at work, I figured I'd try it out. About five chapters in, you realize that it's "28 Days Later" meets "The Village." Except that, while it's well-written and seems like it has an interesting background, it ends really boringly, without resolving all the interesting things (Shakespeare, religion) that made it a story separa ...more

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Jun 15, 2009 Wealhtheow rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: ya, sci-fi, post-apocalyptic

After I read the first chapter, I could not put this down. Mary is a girl living in a little claustrophobic village. She wants to marry her best friend's fiance, she wants her mother to stop mourning her father, and perhaps most of all, she yearns to see the ocean. But Mary never, ever will, because the only thing keeping her alive is the fence around the village. Because the other side of the fence...are the ravening hordes of the undead.

A tale of exploration, of identity, secrets, of recognizi ...more

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Apr 11, 2011 Eli Warner rated it really liked it

Shelves: teen-ya, slis

annnnd exhale.

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Jul 27, 2009 Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: children-ya, science-fiction, cover-pretty-white-girl

For some reason this made me think "Jacob I Have Loved, with zombies."

It was all right. Personally, I thought many of the characters were irritating, and the ending wasn't terribly rewarding. ...more

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Jan 31, 2009 Amanda rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2009-a-to-z

I may read this again later and have different feelings. This is a zombie apocalypse story, not my thing at all, but I'm surprised to say that I want to like it. ...more

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