Forest of Hands and Teeth Books

The Forest of Hands and Teeth Books **

by Carrie Ryan
Book Type: Y/A, Fiction, Zombie
Summary: 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 in so much death?
summary on goodreads
My Review: Two stars... You're wondering why I finished the series right? Because I have a problem. I have an incredibly hard time starting a series and not finishing it. Even if the series is stupid. This one was ever so slightly better than Despair. Just enough to make me feel a need to finish the series. But BARELY. Man. The zombies had the potential to be great, but they couldn't even break through an average chain-link fence. The love drama is kind of lame in all of the books. With people falling in love in a matter of seconds. I guess this author believes in love at first sight. Also, all of the main characters had a very similar voice, and the other characters that had been main characters previously were undeniably altered when they were no longer the voice of the story. So I felt that Ryan had a great basis for a story - zombies take over the world, only a few cities of people survive... Great idea. But the story didn't quite come together. The young adult novel love drama is irritating and dragged out. Mary - the main character in the first novel- is CRAZY. She does some super weird stuff like find an infant zombie and hold it... She's really wacky. The second main character kills a HUMAN for no reason... Yeah, that was a little much. And she goes from being dramatically in love with one character to being even more deeply in love with a different character. The main character in the last book falls madly in love with the kid she met two seconds ago. They will die rather than live without each other! Even though they don't. even. KNOW. each other. Blegh. Anyway, don't read these books, they're retarded. I don't know why I couldn't just say "no thank you!" about half-war through the first one. I should have. They are just not well-developed and there are a lot of gaping holes, like the zombies that can kill people in seconds but can't break through a chain link fence. Yeah...

The Dead-Tossed Waves **
Summary: Gabry lives a quiet life. As safe a life as is possible in a town trapped between a forest and the ocean, in a world teeming with the dead, who constantly hunger for those still living. She’s content on her side of the Barrier, happy to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. But there are threats the Barrier cannot hold back. Threats like the secrets Gabry’s mother thought she left behind when she escaped from the Sisterhood and the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Like the cult of religious zealots who worship the dead. Like the stranger from the forest who seems to know Gabry. And suddenly, everything is changing. One reckless moment, and half of Gabry’s generation is dead, the other half imprisoned. Now Gabry only knows one thing: she must face the forest of her mother’s past in order to save herself and the one she loves.
summary found on goodreads

The Dark and Hollow Places *

Summary: There are many things that Annah would like to forget: the look on her sister's face before Annah left her behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her first glimpse of the Horde as they swarmed the Dark City, the sear of the barbed wire that would scar her for life. But most of all, Annah would like to forget the morning Elias left her for the Recruiters.  
Annah's world stopped that day, and she's been waiting for Elias to come home ever since. Somehow, without him, her life doesn't feel much different than the dead that roam the wasted city around her. Until she meets Catcher, and everything feels alive again.
But Catcher has his own secrets. Dark, terrifying truths that link him to a past Annah has longed to forget, and to a future too deadly to consider. And now it's up to Annah: can she continue to live in a world covered in the blood of the living? Or is death the only escape from the Return's destruction?
summary found on goodreads