The Forest of Hands and Teeth, a smashing debut written by Carrie Ryan. This was a must-have I was looking forward to reading for months. I discovered the author’s blog about six months ago and I have been following her incredible Cinderella publishing journey ever since.
I even saw her Editor, Krista Marino praise her book at the summer SCBWI conference. Needless to say, the build up was that this was the book of the century. Which is good news/bad news for a debut author. I pre-ordered from Amazon… and I planned to read it with a very critical eye.
so here are my thoughts:
Concept — a post-apocalyptic zombie story = 10!
Protag — Mary, an optimist in spite of the fact that she has nothing to be optimistic about = 10!
Plot — which in a word was survival. This was the most impressive part of this book as Ryan never takes her knee off your neck. = 10+
Execution — This was the only part that gets less than a 10. I’ll give it an 8+ the style felt like a lot of telling… telling… and more telling. In the beginning it felt forced and awkward, but I did get used to it. And she demonstrated some real skill in disseminating just enough info to keep you tracking the story and not so much that you’re bogged down in it.
And here’s the thing, I’m not the typical fan of this genre and I still enjoyed it. I will more than likely read the sequel as well. I wish Ryan the very best on her career.
The only down side is that I pre-ordered before I bought my Kindle and the Kindle version wasn’t available until my hard copy version had already shipped. I would have like it on my Kindle.
