The unconsecrated overrun the village and Mary, her best friend, her fiance, and her fiancees brother rush into the forest in an effort to escape. You’d think she would be stuck there forever but tragedy strikes. Unfortunately, it’s the only way for her to save herself and remain a part of the community. She reels against the Sisterhood that tries to claim her and desperately wishes that she could get out of marrying her friend – whose brother she loves. Mary wants none of it and dreams of the stories her mother told her about the ocean… before her mother walked into a sea of zombies to join her undead husband. Or they go on to join the secretive, manipulative Sisterhood that runs everything. Women marry young and produce children after being claimed by a man in their community. In this community there aren’t a whole lot of options for people and things remain the same for generation after generation. And, of course, the ‘unconsecrated.’ Which, in this world, is the name for the undead. The village is surrounded by trees and fences. The book follows a girl named Mary who lives in a small, extremely religious post-apocalyptic community tucked away deep in the woods. It explores a lot in it’s scant three hundred pages and the plot moved along quickly in bouts of action that at times literally had me cringing, just knowing that something terrible could happen at any moment. I felt that this was a particularly good start to the series and arguably one of the best YA zombie books out there. Beginning with the Forest of Hands and Teeth, it explores a world that has struggled to survive after the zombie apocalypse. So it’s with that sort or mindset that I approached Carrie Ryan’s series. No matter how cheesy or campy or overly bloody the genre may get, I’m going to be a fan.

With zombies becoming increasingly more popular it’s no surprise that a slew of young adult and new adult titles featuring the formerly human creatures have been hitting the market over the past few years.

In the forest of hands and teeth