Zombie Love (Part One)

The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Written by: Carrie Ryan
Hardcover: 320 pages
Publisher: Delacourte Press
Genre: Young Adult/Romance & Love

The publisher's description: In Mary's world there are simple truths. The Sisterhood always knows best. The Guardians will protect and serve. The Unconsecrated with 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?

On the day that Mary must decide whether to let her infected mother be killed by the Guardians or set out into the Forest of Hands & Teeth her life is forever changed. Not called on by any of the boys in town and turned away by her brother she is forced to join the Sisterhood. There she begins to question everything she has been taught her entire life. After seeing a girl her age from outside their village hidden away by the Sisterhood she knows the Sisterhood has been lying to the villagers all along & she's determined to leave the village and find the ocean. She believes there must be a place somewhere where you can see something other than forest.

Mary is single minded in her determination to find the ocean that no one else believes exists. She's a selfish character that's not easy to like. You admire her desire to find the truth, but there's little else likable about Mary.

However, I LOVED this book. It reminded me a lot of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village. This self dependent village cut off from the rest of the world with a huge secret.....add zombies. The action was there, the suspense and mystery. Despite not really liking Mary I still rooted for her to find the ocean, to find love, to find the truth.