The Forest of Hands and Teeth

This book is bad. Really bad. Like I-enjoyed-Twilight-more bad. Hell, I actually enjoyed parts of Twilight and I did not enjoy a second of this apart from turning the last page and knowing it was over.

Mary is not a character. She is a collection of narrative moments. She bashed down doors to discover what secrets the Sisterhood is hiding, and yet she can't ask the men in her life a few simple questions. One second she's axing zombies and determined to reach something outside of the life she's known, the next she's paralyzed with the desire to just let the dead take her. She is prone to these weird episodes of panic or mania or whatever you want to call it, and I haven't the slightest clue what they're motivated by other than maybe chemical imbalance. I'm pretty sure Ryan just included them because they were interesting psychological moments in themselves, but overall they had nothing to do with the arc of the story or character. I just spent three hundred pages with this person and I have no idea who she is.

Likewise, there is no story arc here, rather a sloppy pile of events, and each element of the plot has little force or trajectory. The major plot line is the love story between Mary, Harry and Travis. Harry and Travis might as well be interchangeable, aside from Travis' bum leg and the fact that he probably writes poetry. Despite her passion for Travis, and that includes the physical, when they're finally alone together for an extended period of time, they fall into silent domesticity, which leaves their final climax meaningless to me. The conspiracy story line is vague at best and never followed through. I assume that's what the rest of the books will involve, but when Ryan barely even throws a bone, what motivation is there to continue?

And for a zombie book its a whole lot of pussy-footing. The imagery is bland to nonexistent, and the action has little drive or suspense. Mostly what pissed me off though, other than the lack of character or plotting and the continuity errors, was that this might as well have been called Men Making Decisions for Women. This is a book that involves a girl rebelling against a repressive society, this is the kind of story that's supposed to be about her gaining agency and control over her life. That should be what's motivating her, that should be what holds her character together. But most of the time she's waiting for men to come to her with their decisions. There are things she does on her own, yes, but when it comes to her relationships with men, she doesn't allow herself any agency.

To be honest, when I said I liked the end, I do actually mean that. The character she meets there and her state of mind in that moment actually puts the events of the novel into perspective really well. If this had been a short story that was based around that chapter, it would've gotten at least four stars. As a whole though, its a waste of time.