I read many books and though most of it is popular fiction, I find myself attracted time and again to the Young Adult genre. I’ve read the “Twilight” books and for the most part enjoyed the series. I’m a fan of Stephenie Meyer, Annette Curtis Klause, Maggie Stiefvater and J.K. Rowling (among others). Now Carrie Ryan has made the list with a fantastical tale that blazes a new path in YA Fiction and its appeal is more than obvious to those who happen upon it.
The first thing to draw a teenage girl (or a middle-aged woman like myself who still nurses the teenager within her) to read this book is its gothic cover art, the hardcover edition’s jacket featuring a beautiful pale-skinned young woman with full, pouty lips and long, jet-black hair (think Angelina Jolie) breezed from her shoulder, eyes half-open and downcast as if lost in thought or mourning. Coupled with a backdrop of the title’s aforementioned forest, all filled with spindly naked branches veiled by mist, its ominous yet melancholic romanticism is a visual magnet.
The second thing to suck us girls in is these two words: ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE. “So,” we wonder, “does that mean that this beautiful girl I see will be a tragic heroine of sorts while fighting off gruesome creatures tooth and nail?” You betcha. Zombies are one of the most beloved monsters in modern entertainment, next to vampires and werewolves. We have our evidence in all the zombie movies that have come along in the last 10 years (28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, Dawn of the Dead, I Am Legend, etc.) along with their resurgence in literature (e.g. “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”). With vampire and werewolf stories becoming overly abundant, it’s pretty refreshing to read about moaning and lumbering beings whose blood-smeared faces and feral eyes bespeak their yen for human flesh.
The third and final aspect is a love story. Now you’ve really got us - hook, line and sinker. A zombie-infested world just wasn’t enough to complicate matters so Ryan threw in a few more hurdles for her characters with a love quadrangle, making things even more interesting. Though many adults (mostly women) will read this right along with teens, it wouldn’t be good YA Fiction if it didn’t sate the raging hormones and idealism of its primary demographic with the inarguably intriguing complexities of young love.
The story begins with Mary (the main character and narrator) envisaging the ocean, something she has never seen and only heard about from stories her mother has told her growing up. Mary lives in a fenced-in community, one protected at its borders at all times by Guardians, appointed sentinels who are responsible for preventing an invasion. The Guardians and fence together protect the people from The Unconsecrated, a horde of zombies whose low, perpetual moans have become like a white noise to the townspeople, a constant hum in the background of daily life. It is presumed by everyone that because of The Return (a term Ryan uses to refer to the zombie apocalypse) no life exists beyond the fence due to the rampant spread of the zombie virus (they surround the village at all times in untold numbers). This belief is consistently reinforced by The Sisterhood, a religious order with parochial and unbending views. Mary refuses to subscribe to the notion that theirs is the only community, the only haven, and when a new breed of zombie manages to breach the fence, she and six others begin following a path that she hopes will lead them to the waters of which she has so fiercely dreamt.
The way in which Mary and the others lived constantly brought to mind the M. Night Shymalan film “The Village” (there was a border with watchmen around that town being threatened by a monster of sorts). Some might accuse Ryan of taking that set-up and running off with it but there really isn’t anything new under the sun. It’s all been done before – you just have to put your own interesting twist on it and I think Ryan has managed that with the zombies and the addition of the somewhat oppressive Sisterhood.
She has also managed it with an interesting cast of characters. Mary has admirable traits, such as her tenacity, her refusal to simply believe what others tell her and her will to survive (she fights and kills zombies just as savagely as the men) but where she falters is in matters of the heart. Even though she claims to love Travis, one has to wonder at a specific point in the story whether it was just a syndrome of her wanting what she couldn’t have. She is indecisive about love, often aloof, and even when she gets what she so long coveted, it just isn’t enough. Though these things round out her character (every character should have some flaws), it’s nonetheless irksome. Is it a love story or is it just about a restless teen who wants to break free and see the world?
Ryan makes of Travis a bit of a dreamer as well, someone who thinks outside the box right along with Mary, their dream of a life beyond The Forest of Hands and Teeth ultimately bringing them together despite his betrothal to her childhood friend Cass. Harry, initially Mary’s intended, is strong, valiant and honest and though he genuinely cares for her, he finds it hard to deny his growing feelings for Cass. Cass is emotional, sometimes bordering on hysterical, but puts her selfishness aside to act as a surrogate mother to a young boy whose parents succumbed to The Unconsecrated. Mary’s brother Jed doesn’t start off on such a great foot with readers, sometimes coming off antagonistic in his grief for their dead parents, but is easier to sympathize with towards the middle and at the end deserving of admiration.
Ryan’s descriptions of the zombies are fantastic in their gruesomeness, depicting mangled, broken fingers pushing through flesh, chipped or missing teeth that gnash at the living, flesh sagging from atrophied muscles, the smell of death perpetually clinging to them. She even describes their life cycle: “As long as we have ever known, the Unconsecrated don’t die, don’t perish, unless decapitated or burned to ash. They do not rot, do not decay, only slowly pull themselves apart, a process made slower when they down themselves like hibernating animals.” (pg. 183) Once the village is invaded by them, the book really takes off. It is the moment the reader has been waiting for and Ryan doesn’t disappoint - all hell breaks loose.
She also depicts the sorrow and desperation of the six survivors beautifully and intimately, the reader feeling the gravity of it all. There is continued threat of death by the zombies in addition to dwindling food and water and three of the six die, two of them becoming tragic heroes. The book ends with a sense of hope despite all its chaos.
And if all that isn’t enough to inspire you to pick up “The Forest of Hands and Teeth” next time you’re near a B&N or a Borders, then take the time to read this stunning passage:
“Never in my life have I killed a human being. It’s one thing to sit on a porch and sling arrows at the Unconsecrated below. It’s another to feel the slice of a blade cut through flesh. Because even though the conscious mind knows that the Unconsecrated are no longer living human beings, there’s still a part of the mind that rebels against the truth. That insists the woman, man, child coming toward you must still have some semblance of humanity. Especially for those Unconsecrated that are recently turned. That haven’t lost limbs and flesh to time and the Forest. That haven’t broken their fingers trying to reach through fences and doors. To see a pregnant woman, her body still large and firm, her eyes still clear, walk toward you and to know that she’s dead and must still be killed takes a force of will that is almost unfathomable.” (pg. 231)
Are you convinced now?
Bottom line: “The Forest of Hands and Teeth” is one of the more unique YA novels to come down the pike in the last few years. Though it does not conform to the current protocol of supernatural storytelling that is so popular right now, I would recommend it for that very reason. With the films rights for the book already optioned (Wikipedia.com states Seven Star Pictures is “fast-tracking the project”), it’s sure to become the next big thing for tweens, teens and their moms all over the country.
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