The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
It’s that time of year again! Time to pick your pumpkins and spooky reading! What better way to start off the scariest month of the year than with a zombie novel? Can’t think of anything better myself, and over the coming weeks I’ll give you plenty of horrific reads to choose from.
In The Forest of Hands and Teeth the village has always been surrounded by chain-link fences to keep the Unconsecrated at bay. The Sisterhood and the Cathedral have always protected and taught the villagers well. The Guardians have mended the fences, stocked the platforms and protected the village. Until now. Mary’s world has been upended by the disappearance of her father and the changing of her mother. Her mother chooses to join the Unconsecrated in the Forest of Hands and Teeth; chooses to join her husband as one of the walking dead. After saying good-bye to her mother Mary is torn between joining the Sisterhood and marrying her childhood friend when the unthinkable happens. The fences are breached and the Unconsecrated overrun the village.
This is a really interesting take on what the world could look like years after the world is overrun by zombies. The remnants of humanity live in fenced in villages interconnected (at least at one point) by fenced in pathways. Stories about the oceans and skyscrapers are seen as myths. (At one point someone finds an old copy of the New York Times and the paper is so brittle it simply disintegrates – so you know we’re WAY in the future here.) This is a real interesting view of how one group of people deals with the dangers surrounding them; and also the life of a girl who knows that there must be more to the world somewhere out past the Forest.
