The Dark and Hollow Places is the final book in Carrie Ryan's nihilistic girls-vs.-zombies trilogy, following The Forest of Hands and Teeth and The Dead-Tossed Waves. I enjoyed the first story in this series, and while I was slightly less impressed by the sequel, I was still sufficiently invested to embark on this book with an open mind—maybe even a little optimism.

The protagonist of The Dark and Hollow Places is Annah, the long-lost twin sister of Gabry, the heroine of The Dead-Tossed Waves. Annah is a survivor, even in this grim world of zombies and religious fanatics, but the horrors she has experienced have left her physically and mentally scarred. When she is reunited with her sister and meets Catcher, a boy with an inexplicable immunity to the zombie virus, Annah experiences a brief flash of hope... but she soon discovers that any emotional bond will be used against her.

Ryan's world has always been a dark one, but The Dark and Hollow Places really ups the horror ante. This book is so overwhelmingly grim it frequently crosses the line into unintentional humor. The plot is stuffed to bursting with attempted rape scenes, betrayals, and death, death, and more death. Nearly every named character—apart from the four primary ones—dies, always horribly. People are torn apart, fall off buildings, and die in zombie cage fights. (Seriously. Zombie cage fights.)

Despite all the over-the-top horror, the novel might have kept my interest if Ryan had moved the final quarter of her book in a fresh direction—offering some hope of a cure for the zombie infestation, or at least a more concrete plan for her protagonists' future. Instead, the book kept the festival of gore rolling until the final pages, when things took an abrupt turn towards relative optimism. Unfortunately, by this point my emotional investment in Ryan's characters had been exhausted, and it was going to take a lot more than an upbeat final scene to revive it.

Review based on publisher-provided copy.

Labels: Book Reviews, Carrie Ryan

Fans of Carrie Ryan's zombie-apocalypse series The Forest of Hands and Teeth take note: Random House released Hare Moon yesterday, an ebook prequel written by Ryan. The story is only available in digital format and costs $1.99.

Here's the official plot description (which is really poorly written, by the way):

HARE MOON: An Original Forest of Hands and Teeth Story is set in the barricaded village of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, but takes place years before the novel began. Tabitha, an adult character in the first book, is a teenager who dreams for there to be more to her world. This desire pushes her to sneak past her village gates and into the Forest of Hands and Teeth where the undead reach for her from beyond the fence. And where she meets Patrick, who proves there is life beyond her village. HARE MOON answers questions about how Tabitha the teenager became Sister Tabitha of The Forest of Hands and Teeth. Readers will live through the gruesome moment when she realizes just how much she’ll have to give up to live and love among the Unconsecrated.

Gruesome, plus a built-in depressing ending? How can I resist?

Labels: Carrie Ryan, ebooks, Prequels

The Dead-Tossed Waves is the sequel to Carrie Ryan's 2009 novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth and it's just as cheery as its predecessor—which is to say, not even remotely. Ryan's second book features many of the same plot elements as her first: a tortured and slightly implausible love triangle, a perilous quest, and zombies.

Lots of zombies.

While The Forest of Hands and Teeth focused on Mary, a teenage girl from an isolated village dominated by a religious order and surrounded by zombies, its sequel features Mary's daughter, sixteen-year-old Gabrielle. Gabrielle has been raised in the well-protected oceanside town of Vista, living with Mary in the local lighthouse. But when a night of teenage rebellion leaves most of her friends either dead or imprisoned, Gabry is forced to leave the safety of the town behind and venture into the same zombie-infested forest that nearly killed her mother.

Ordinarily, we would be critical of a second series installment that so closely mirrored the first, but the familiarity of Ryan's plotline is offset by several fun new additions to her post-apocalyptic world, including a ruthless militia organization, a handful of people that seem immune to the zombies' bite, and—our personal favorite—a group of zombie-worshiping cultists who march around pulling de-jawed zombies on leashes. (That's an image that's really going to stick, you know?) And while the ending of The Dead-Tossed Waves is a smidge more optimistic than then ending of The Forest of Hands and Teeth, it left us just as eager for a sequel. Sooner or later—we hope, anyway—Ryan is bound to give at least one of her characters an uncomplicated happily-ever-after*, and we want to be there to see it.

*It doesn't even have to be a central character. We're not picky.

[Review based on publisher-provided copy.]

Labels: Book Reviews, Carrie Ryan, Sequels, teen literature, Zombies

What's this? Why, it's the cover art and plot description for the upcoming "companion novel" to Carrie Ryan's zombies-and-evil-nuns extravaganza The Forest of Hands and Teeth! Behold:

Gabry lives a quiet life. As safe a life as is possible in a town trapped between a forest and the ocean, in a world teeming with the dead, who constantly hunger for those still living. She’s content on her side of the Barrier, happy to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. But there are threats the Barrier cannot hold back. Threats like the secrets Gabry’s mother thought she left behind when she escaped from the Sisterhood and the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Like the cult of religious zealots who worship the dead. Like the stranger from the forest who seems to know Gabry. And suddenly, everything is changing. One reckless moment, and half of Gabry’s generation is dead, the other half imprisoned. Now Gabry only knows one thing: she must face the forest of her mother’s past in order to save herself and the one she loves.

Hmm... so there's still zombies, still evil nuns, but she's adding mass imprisonment and a zombie-worshiping cult? (And if Gabry's connection to the first novel is the one I think it is, this story isn't--shocker!--going to end well.) That is just awesome.

Labels: Carrie Ryan, Zombies