Book Review :: The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
Series: The Forest of Hands and Teeth #1
Published by Gollancz
on July 2009
Genres: Dystopian, Horror, Young Adult
Pages: 310
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 by so much death?

Last updated on 19 January 2022

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I’m not really one for a horror story, or one that involves zombies (don’t get me wrong, zombies are great and all, but I would rather just watch Shaun of the Dead than read a whole book about them), but The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan had both.

It’s not classed as a horror, I don’t think (on the back it just says ‘fantasy’), but it would fit into the genre fine. It’s not super horror-y but it has enough blood and guts to get you to be highly concerned at the rate of your heartbeat while reading it.

Not really knowing too much about what it was about, I began to read. After the first page or two I could have sworn I had already read it before. A few more pages: no, maybe I haven’t. A few more pages: Wasn’t this a movie? End of chapter one: Pretty sure this is The Village. You know that movie with that Phoenix guy?  I even had to Google ‘The Village’ to see if it had been based on a book. But it wasn’t. This book had nothing to do with the film. After I realised this, and after reading more chapters, it became clear that it was quite different.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan

The story follows Mary, a teenage girl who lives with her mother in the village. The village is surrounded by a fence (sounding familiar?) to keep what is in the Forest of Hands and Teeth out and away from the villagers. After Mary’s mother gets too close to the fence and is bitten, we realise that the ‘Unconsecrated’, as they call them, are pretty much zombies. One bite or even a scratch and it’s only a matter of time before you turn into one and are chucked out the village gates into the forest with the others, before you turn on the entire village. There are the Guardians who look after the fence: maintaining it and shooting down any Unconsecrated that get too close, or, heaven forbid, manage to get through the fence. Then there are the Sisterhood, which reminded me of sort of cult-ish nuns. They are the ones who supposedly look after the village and ensure that the people don’t go back to a time before the ‘Return’ (what they call the world-wide infection that made the zombies).

After various events and discoveries inside the village, Mary and a small group of her friends and family escape when there is a mass invasion of unconsecrated and for weeks they walk the fenced path ways that lead away from the village, through the forest, in search of the ocean – something Mary has only heard about in stories from her mother, passed down from generation to generation. None of them have ever left the village before – no one ever does – so these weeks are, as you can probably imagine, difficult and terrifying for them. I hate giving things away when I write about the books I’ve read, so if you want to know what happens as the story goes on, you’ll have to read it.

My thoughts on The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan

Carrie Ryan writes really well, and it’s easy to start reading and not stop. It’s written from Mary’s perspective and although there are a quite a few main characters, Ryan has written it in a way that doesn’t make it hard to know who is who, and also in a way that you don’t feel that hit-in-the-heart when a few of them are killed off…I mean, what? Did I just say that? Don’t worry; it’s a zombie book, death is inevitable.

I started this book right after I finished Cinder, and had read about 100 pages by Wednesday, and then on Wednesday night, I managed to read read read and finish it in one sitting. So, it’s easy to read and it’s a very ‘what’s-going-to-happen-next’ kinda book. I do recommend it. I gave it 4 stars because I really did like it (and I can’t wait to read the next two), but there was one or two chapters that I didn’t like because of one of the characters jabbering on and on and on when the point of the chapter could have been said in a paragraph. But I guess it was character-forming? I don’t know. So watch out for that if you read it. If you do read it, do let me know what you think of it!