The Dead-Tossed Waves
404 pages
"Gabry lives a quiet life, secure in her town next to the sea and behind the barrier. She's content to let her friends dream of the dark city up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. Home is all she's ever known and all she needs for happiness. But life after the Return is never safe and there are threats even the Barrier can't hold back. Gabry's mother thought she left her secrets behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth but, like the dead in their world, secrets don't stay buried. One night beyond the Barrier... One boy Gabry's known forever and one veiled in mystery... One reckless moment, and half of Gabry's generation is dead, the other half imprisoned. Now Gabry knows only one thing: of she has any hope of a future, she must face the forest and her mother's past".
summary from inside cover of The Dead-Tossed Waves (Gollancz, First Edition 2010)
The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan is about Mary's daughter. I just want to say that this one is much better than the first book (The Forest of Hands and Teeth). Mary now lives in and operates the lighthouse on the beach she found after escaping from her old village. The new town she lives in is called Vista. Here, they are not cut off from the rest of the world and they know there are other people alive and they communicate with them, unlike in Mary's old village. Mary leaves to try and find the people she left behind in the forest, she has tried before but she could never find them. A little later, Gabry is forced to follow her with some of her friends from Vista. At first Gabry seemed just like her mother, risking the lives of her friends and the two guys she likes, so I thought this book would be like the first and I wouldn't like it. Towards the end though, she kind finds out a lot about her past and her mothers past which changes her a little. The third book is set to come out at the beginning of 2011, and I'm actually looking forward to finding out what happens to Gabry and her friends, the book ends with a lot of unresolved things going on. Rating: 3 stars
-mnm1309
The Forest of Hands and Teeth
308 pages
"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 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, when the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness. Now 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?"
summary from inside cover of The Forest if Hands and Teeth (Delacorte Press, 1st edition 2009)
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan is about a girl named Mary who lives in walled town in the middle of a forest. They are totally isolated from anything else and they are the only humans left alive on earth, or so they are told. The reason they are protected by Barriers is because after the Return, anyone bitten by the Unconsecrated (they are like zombies) will become Infected and become one of them. One day though, Mary sees someone who has come from the forest. Her entire life, she has heard stories of the ocean and she has always wanted to leave to find it. In the end she makes it there, but the main thing I didn't like about the book was Mary and her obsession with the ocean. By the time she made it there, everyone she loved was dead. She said she loved them but she literally sacrificed their lives in her quest to find the ocean. It just really bothered me how she would throw herself at two guys and make long speeches about how much she loved them, and then was the cause of their death because she couldn't let go of the ocean. Overall it wasn't to bad, but it wasn't the best book I've read, although zombies are new. I've never read a book about them. Rating: 2 stars, this is because I found a lot of the things Mary did annoying, as you can tell from my rant about her ...
-mnm1309
p.s. I am reading the second book now and will post about it soon
