Michael Hartford

It is a complicated process, giving a living human over to the Forest of Hands and Teeth. The Guardians found out years ago that the transfer cannot be done too early because a living human cast into the Forest is nothing but food for the Unconsecrated who will tear at their flesh and eat until there is nothing left.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

I’m more than a little out of my depth here; I don’t read a lot of books about zombies, nor for young adults, and this one is both. Actually, I don’t think I’ve ever read a whole book about zombies, and my YA reading (at least since I’ve been an OA myself) has been limited to Dar Williams (my favorite singer-songwriter), Kelly Link (I didn’t know until I’d finished Pretty Monsters that it was targeted to young adult readers; it shared several stories with Magic for Beginners, which wasn’t targeted to YA readers), and Neil Gaiman (Coraline was just too deliciously creepy, with Angela Carter undertones, to resist). So I don’t really have a context for this book; I liked the title, and Omnivoracious made it sound interesting, so I put it on my list.

And I was pleasantly surprised; I enjoyed a post-apocalyptic YA zombie novel. I may even be tempted to read another one.

What makes “The Forest of Hands and Teeth” so interesting is that it is as much about the roiling emotions of a young woman as it is about the horde of “Unconsecrated” zombies prowling the forest beyond the village’s protective fence. Mary lives in a severely constricted society, a village that has been cut off for generations from the outside world by the Unconsecrated; her options in life are to marry and help to rebuild the human race; live as a low-caste guest in her brother’s household; or join the Sisterhood, the mysterious religious organization that maintains the village culture and hides the history of the world before the Return.

Mary has grown up with stories about the world beyond the village, especially of the ocean, passed down by the women in her family. She longs to escape the village, to see the ocean, but it’s impossible: the zombies beyond the fences that surround the village are constantly pressing the defenses, waiting to either devour the living or infect them with whatever causes the dead to walk, and no one can survive for long in the Forest of Hands and Teeth.

After her mother dies, bitten by the zombie that was her father and turned loose in the Forest, Mary lives for a while with the Sisterhood. There she falls in love with Travis, a childhood friend and brother of Harry, the boy who was going to court her before her mother’s death stigmatized Mary. Travis, however, is betrothed to Cass, Mary’s best friend. Much of the novel revolves around these interlocking triangles, with the zombies playing a background role to the love story.

When a girl from beyond the village is spirited away by the Sisterhood before the village can learn that there’s proof of life outside, Mary becomes even more obsessed with finding the ocean. A tragic cluster of events–the disappearance and infection of Gabrielle, the girl from beyond the village, and the breaching of the fences by the zombie horde–allows Mary to try her luck against the Forest, a wish she begins to regret having fulfilled.

The novel is told in a first-person present voice, lending urgency to the action and giving us a great deal of insight into Mary. Interestingly, she is not a particularly sympathetic character; she’s jealous, selfish, and short-sighted, not unlike teens who aren’t harried by zombies every day. But she’s likable, full of curiosity and passion. The other characters, unfortunately, aren’t as well-rounded; Travis is just a little bit too good, Cass just a little too fickle, Harry more a plot device than a person. Sister Tabitha, a sort of mother superior in the Sisterhood, comes close to being as nuanced as Mary, but in the end she serves the plot more than her own character. Still, this may not be an inappropriate portrayal for a novel narrated by a teenage girl; Mary exhibits the solipsism of youth, and no doubt fails to see much of the complexity around her.

The novel never quite explains the origins of the zombies, though it does hint that they were created by people, perhaps as a result of longevity work. But this, too, is consistent with the narrator’s voice; Mary has been kept ignorant about the origins of the Return her entire life, and no one in the village seems at all curious about the cause of the Unconsecrated.

This seems like a good novel to give a young adult. It has a core ethics but doesn’t it preach, it explores the real concerns of young adults, and it moves quickly. I may not especially want Mary on my team in the face of a zombie crisis, but she was certainly a compelling person to tell this tale.