Written by: Carrie Ryan
Released: March 10, 2009 by Gollancz
Summary: In Mary's world there are simple truths.
The Sisterhood always knows best.
The Guardians will protect and serve.
The Unconsecrated will 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 in so much death?
Well, I went into this with the high regards of other bloggers ringing in my ears from months of hearing about how amazing this book was. I’ll admit that I was a little sceptical (which is probably why it took me so long to get around to reading it after I had bought my own copy) but I’m really glad that I took the time to push aside all previous notions and just read it.
First and foremost, this is a weird collaboration between the movies Dawn of the Dead and The Village. The entire time that I was reading this book, it’s all that I could think of in the back of my mind. I don’t mean to give off any spoilers, but when it boils right down to it, it’s like M. Night Shyamalan wrote a young adult book.
That being said, I really enjoyed the book. Sure, there are plenty of questions left unanswered, but it always kept me wondering about things throughout the entire book. And I was enthralled with Mary and her battle with herself. Oh, and I wanted to punch her about every ten pages or so for being so stupid and not just seeing what she had right in front of her, but at the same time I couldn’t help but admire her fierce focus when it came right down to what she wanted.
One thing that I really loved about this book was Travis. Honestly, his character made me swoon more and more with every page I read of him. I wish that I could find a guy who loved me as much as he loved Mary... even though he did some stupid things in order to keep her safe.
A concept that this book was really able to capture and express was the idea that there are things that a no sane person would ever do but a person in love with gladly do them if it meant saving themselves and their loved ones. It also shows just how much a human life is worth when death comes knocking. The last scenes with Jed and Beth really show this and of course it happened within the first few pages with Mary’s mother and her need to see her husband and be with him. The raw emotion that was portrayed within these pages is what really made this book so amazing to read.
With Halloween being in less than a week (from when I’m typing this review... not so much now) this was really the perfect book to set the mood and I’m incredibly thankful that I have the second book to read in order to find out what happens next. I give it an 8/10.
2 comments:
I thought of The Village while reading this book, too. Nice review!
Oh oh ohhhhh. I really liked your review as it gave me another look at the book. Haha, I was one of those people that did not like it. Oh Mary just really, really rubbed me the wrong way. I've heard that people really liked the second one though. Are you reading it this month? (Nov)
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