The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan

Genre: post-apocalyptic, science fiction
Series and Book #: Forest of Hands and Teeth #3
Pages: 374
Summary:

There are many things that Annah would like to forget: the look on her sister’s face before Annah left her behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her first glimpse of the Horde as they swarmed the Dark City, the sear of the barbed wire that would scar her for life. But most of all, Annah would like to forget the morning that Elias left her for the Recruiters.

Annah’s world stopped that day, and she’s been waiting for Elias to come home ever since. Somehow, without him, her life doesn’t feel much different from that of the dead that roam the wasted city around her. Until she meets Catcher, and everything feels alive again.

But Catcher has his own secrets. Dark, terrifying truths that link him to a past Annah has longed to forget, and to a future too deadly to consider. And now it’s up to Annah—can she continue to live in a world drenched in the blood of the living? Or is death the only escape from the Return’s destruction?

--------

I feel like this novel is the most honest of Carrie Ryan's. There are less lies and a deeper understanding of the main character. Annah is emerging to be one of my favorite  heroines for her brutal honesty and strong personality.

Part of Annah's personality reminds me of a snippet from a poem.  In Maya Angelou's "Still I Rise", Maya says, "Did you want to see me broken? Bowed head and lowered eyes?  Shoulders falling down like teardrops.  Weakened by my soulful cries."  Most of Annah's story revolves around her being left behind by the ones she loves; therefore, she's built up boundaries for herself. But still there is this fiercely protective part of her that comes out when she sees them in danger.  She's careful not to get too close to anyone but her heart is so pure and her intentions so kind that she can't help but feel sympathy for those that she meets.  She's one of those characters that you want to feel pity for but instead you feel intense pride because she's a capsule of strength and determination.

Once again Ryan's post-apocalyptic world is scary enough to rattle your bones. Her descriptions of the death and destruction of our world after the Plague is vivid enough that you heart could race if you hear even the slightest resemblance of a moan. This is one of the main consistencies that I've noticed in her writing. The terrible, destructive world she's crafted for her characters is so hopeless but it gives birth to beautiful strength and courage.

Overall, this is another dark novel that remains hopeful until the very end. Though death is a key instrument Ryan uses, life is the message she's trying to speak through the vocal characters she places on the pages. I love her books and I can't wait to see if she has anything more waiting for us!

The Cover: Filthy, dark, and desolate. I like it!

The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan

Genre: post-apocalyptic, science fiction
Series and Book #: Forest of Hands and Teeth #2
Pages: 404
Synopsis:

Gabry lives a quiet life, secure in her town next to the sea and behind the Barrier. She’s content to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. Home is all she’s ever known, and all she needs for happiness.

But life after the Return is never safe, and there are threats even the Barrier can’t hold back.

Gabry’s mother thought she left her secrets behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, but like the dead in their world, secrets don’t stay buried. And now, Gabry’s world is crumbling.

One night beyond the Barrier…

One boy Gabry’s known forever and one veiled in mystery…

One reckless moment, and half of Gabry’s generation is dead, the other half imprisoned.

Gabry knows only one thing: if she is to have any hope of a future, she must face the forest of her mother’s past.

--------

"Maybe, though, it's time we learned that we don't have to live within the boundaries we set up. Maybe we have to learn to push those barriers. To reclaim some of what was lost. And to build a new world."

-The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan, pg 404

I really liked the extension of Mary's life through her daughter's. Gabry's view of the world is much different than her mother's. It's less cold and less curious. Gabry is perfectly happy to live in Vista with the people and the world she's known forever, whereas Mary still yearns for the adventure and the secrets that she left behind in the Forest. I thought Gabry wasn't quite as strong as her mother, which bugged me. She wasn't as sure and she was more clingy to what was normal. I thought Mary was a better character, too, because I saw a more personal part of her. Ryan let us see Mary though her daughter's eyes, and it was definitely different than who Mary had been in The Forest of Hands and Teeth.

Again, there were two boys who Gabry loved in this novel. But unlike Forest, Gabry had only one love at one time and wasn't switching her feelings on and off like Mary. I liked this better, because I felt it made the romantic moments more meaningful.

The scenes in the Forest were more dragged out with less adventure and less description than in The Forest of Hands and Teeth. It was mostly keeping everyone going, trying to stop the inevitable, searching for Gabry's mother and any surviving villages. There was less description from Gabry's point of view. In The Forest of Hands and Teeth, Ryan described how claustrophobic the moans had been to Mary, and how her senses were full of the undead. But to Gabry, they were just an incessant noise that she wasn't used to.

Overall, though I preferred The Forest of Hands and Teeth, this novel was very thought-provoking. Gabry analyzes herself more than Mary did and through this I got a deeper connection to her thoughts. Gabry has a deeper fear of the Mudo (aka Unconsecrated) than her mother did. She's deeply affected by them because so many of her friends and loved ones have gone to the Mudo. Unlike Mary's selfishness and drive to get to the ocean, Gabry worries about who the Mudo are. Are they still human? Ryan opens more questions, and I can't wait to read more in The Dark and Hollow Places!

The Cover: Just like it's predecessor, very accurate. Love it!

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Genre: post-apocalyptic, science fiction
Series and Book #: Forest of Hands and Teeth #1
Pages: 308
Synopsis:

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, when the fence is breached and her world is thrown into chaos, about the Unconsecrated and their relentlessness.

Now 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?

--------

Such a dark, hopeful novel. The world Mary lives in is surrounded by so much death that her society is consumed by it. To them, it is only survive and live, never love or hope or fantasize.

Mary is one of my favorite characters. She's so hopeful when the world around her crumbles, and she clings to her one dream of seeing the ocean before she dies. Her friends fuel her need to see life and worlds that are not touched by the gruesome death of her neighbors and loved ones. And so when her village falls, she keeps believing in the ocean and in life and that is what keeps her going even as her friends fall, and her heart is crushed and swelled and crushed again. She's relentless. She's so strong and full of life.

Carrie writes the village and its principles so well. She makes it seem as dismal and uneventful as Mary sees it. She transitions between normal life, to chaos, into Mary's miserable existence in the Cathedral, to the Forest, with so much ease that you barely notice. Her vocabulary also expresses the darkness and disaster and the suffocating death that Mary is surrounded by. Just a wonderfully written novel.

Overall, even though this novel is about a zombie apocalypse, it doesn't feel like one. I almost thought it was a dystopian novel because it's placed in the future after the world as we know it has ended by what seems an infection that has overtaken the world's dead population. The anguish and optimism all melt into a delectable read. Carrie has done a beautiful and creative job of building paradise out of disease and destruction.

The Cover: Reflects the novel wonderfully. Loved this cover, loved the portrayal of Mary, loved the darkness in the woods.