Back in September, I posted my very first ever review on this here blog. I raved about how much I loved Carrie Ryan’s The Forest of Hands and Teeth and how excited I was for the sequel. The Dead Tossed Waves is technically released today, but I was fortunate enough to find it in my local bookstore yesterday and, again, could not put it down until I’d finished.

Though Dead Tossed Waves is technically a sequel to Forest, you don’t need to have read Forest to enjoy it (though please, for your own sake, read it…it’s probably the best YA book that came out last year). Time flashes forward, probably ten years? Fifteen? I wasn’t entirely positive on this point, and I liked that. Mary’s daughter Gabrielle lives as safe a life as she thinks can be lived in a town called Vista, nestled between the Forest and the ocean. Gabry’s world is so much different than her mother’s – the unconsecrated are now Modu, there is a town council instead of a sisterhood, and there is a very definite outside world with a protectorate to run it and Recruiters to protect it against the hoards of zombies who want nothing more than to spread their infection.

This book hits the ground running and doesn’t stop even once you hit the end. In a lot of ways, this book is the inverse of Forest. Where Mary was trying to find the outside world and the ocean, Gabry has to flee it. Read together, the books are a really well-done example of how the grass is always greener in someone else’s life. More htan that, it’s a great juxtaposition as to how two very different societies can essentially handle a problem in the same wrong ways.

Just like Mary was the anchor of Forest, Gabry really shines, and is perhaps even more amazing than her mother was. What makes her such a compelling main character is the fact that she starts off the novel terrified. She likes the safety and security that Vista can provide her - she doesn’t want to find out anything about the outside. All Gabry wants to do is live out the future she’s imagined for herself with her best friend Cira and Cira’s older brother, Catcher.

But Gabry can’t be scared forever, and when her fears are tested she shows a pretty inspiring strength. She’s a leader like her mother, but she also lacks a lot of the selfishness that made Mary frustrating and wonderful all at once. Gabry cares more about other people than she does herself and her own fears, but she tends to take too much on herself, which keeps her relatable. She has doubts about what she’s doing, and you just want to give her a hug and tell her she’s doing a great job.

The minor characters were all excellent, as well. Cira was an excellent foil to Gabry, and it made their friendship very real. Mary was still Mary, headstrong and a little selfish but so brave. Elias was strong and intriguing and you could feel the tension between he and Mary with every page. My favorite, though, was Catcher, who drew perhaps the shortest stick of any literary character I’ve ever read. He was sweet and loyal and so intensely likable, and then your heart just shatters into a million pieces for him. He is a character who wants to be strong and wants to be normal and wants to just live out his life and love Gabry, but he can’t do that. Every single thing he ever wanted is snatched away from him, but he still tries to protect Gabry and Cira and to do the right thing by everyone. If I could pull him from the pages of this book and keep him with me always, I would.

Despite having heart-pounding tension and a sense of danger that kept me turning the pages as fast as my eyes could move across the (beautifully written and haunting) prose, there was a less definite plot to Dead Tossed Waves than there was to Forest. In the latter, Mary has a clear destination: the ocean, outside. But in Dead Tossed Waves, Gabry just wants to get away from Vista and protect Catcher and Elias and Cira. She doesn’t have a specific goal except to flee. The lack of a goal didn’t bother me for the most part because I was so caught up in the characters’ terror, but once I got to the ending it seemed a little bit random and rushed. I still loved it - it still managed to catch that open-ended hope and the same sense of fear that there is so much more to the world than the reader or the characters can know – but because Gabry isn’t going anywhere but away, you are left feeling like this story isn’t at all over. I loved the indefinite ending in Forest and I loved it here, but a little more clarity as Gabry’s new goals and plan might have helped. Hopefully there is going to be a sequel.

The love triangle was a little odd for me, too, mostly because any kind of resolution or focus on it came in the last thirty or so pages and felt a little bit crammed in. I had a feeling which way things were going to go from the beginning, but the way Gabry made her decision just felt strangely fast for someone who over-thought things as much as she did. That said, I wasn’t displeased by what she decided and I was so excited by a resolution to something that lingered in my mind from Forest that I was willing to overlook this. So long as there is a sequel. Please, please let there be a sequel.

My one gripe about this book is actually nothing any author could change. I bought Forest of Hands and Teeth because I loved the cover and thought it really fit the book. Then, the stinking publishers changed the cover style for Dead Tossed Waves and made a new cover for Forest to match. Now my Dead Tossed Waves doesn’t match my Forest, and I don’t think the cover matches the book as well as the original cover of Forest matched its plot. Irrelevant rant, I know, but I can’t help myself.

Overall, Dead Tossed Waves owned me. It’s primary flaw was that I was left aching for more about the characters and the story, and that is pretty much never a bad thing. If there isn’t a sequel, I am going to cry (I can’t emphasize my need to read more about Gabry enough). Everyone needs to rush out and buy this today, because I want to hear what y’all think of the ending.

And...and...I just went to check out Carrie Ryan's twitter and there is going to be a third book! Phew!

This weekend, while I sat on the couch waiting for my fellow bridesmaids to finish their two hour getting-ready-for-a-night-of-bachelorette-debauchery rituals, I read Graceling by Kristin Cashore. Unlike my fellow YA bloggers, I didn’t love it. I wrote up a whole review and couldn’t decide whether to post it. To distract myself from actually making a decision, I read The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan. I was up until 5am finishing it, and fell so deeply in love with this book that my decision became suddenly easy.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth is like some crazy-awesome combination of The Village (if it hadn’t sucked) and I am Legend (had another 250 years or so passed and had Will Smith not been a badass and saved mankind…again). In the middle of the forest, there is a town run by The Sisters and The Guardians whose purpose is to protect the villagers from the Unconsecrated’s attempts to get closer to the delicious flesh living inside. And, according to The Sisters and The Guardians, the town is all there is. There’s nothing else.

Mary doesn’t believe that. Mary remembers her mother’s stories of the ocean and a time before The Return and The Unconsecreted, and so Mary believes there is more. Mary’s belief in this Outside, this other world, is the book’s real strength. From the beginning of the novel, you fear for Mary and you sympathize with her plight. You feel her frustration at being comfined inside the Forest. You feel her despair as she wonders if she’ll ever have a life instead of just living one that’s been decided for her. You feel her agony as the dreams she’s clung to seem to slip from her fingers. And, more than that, you feel the flashes of hope and joy she is given through her painful struggle to chase down what she wants (even if it means dying for a chance to achieve it).

More than just feeling Mary, you feel the suspense of the novel. Ryan has created a secondary cast that is well-rounded and likeable while at the same time staying mysterious, for you’ll only know them as well as Mary does and the town seems built on secrets. You find yourself caring for each of them. Jed, Mary’s stubborn brother whom I spent the beginning of the novel wanting to punch in the face. Harry and Travis, the two brothers – one of whom Mary loves and one to whom she is supposed to be betrothed. Cass, Mary’s best friend, intricately tied with the two brothers as well. Even Argos, Mary’s valiant dog.

Maybe it was just that it was 3am as I plowed through the plot of the novel. Maybe it was the fact that the branches on the tree outside my window brush against it with a horrifyingly slow screeching noise when the tiniest wind blows through. Maybe it was the fact that I’m still a little freaked out by dark and quiet. Or maybe this book just created a suspense the likes of which I’ve never felt. All I know is that my pulse raced and I feared as I plowed through the pages. I genuinely worried for each of the above characters. I feared who would die, if anyone. I picked the character I thought I could stand to lose only to turn the page and have to change my mind. I felt like I was Mary, and being Mary was intense.

The book wasn’t absolute perfection. At times, I found the love story confusing and frustrating. And, at times, Mary’s headstrong desire to find what else is out there – to make a better life for herself – came across as selfish. There was a particular section that found Mary sitting around, waiting for someone else to come to her and all I could wonder was why she wasn’t going to him – why she wasn’t acting like the strong, independent young woman I knew her to be. But this little flash of insecurity, frustrating though it was, only made me end up loving her more.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth was one of the best books I’ve read this year. It is another step in the new (and heartily reassuring) trend in YA lit to make strong, independent, but still relatable heroines who show that what you want is worth fighting for, and that you can be more than what society says that you have to be. I loved it, and I hope y’all will too.

A sequel is coming, so be sure to look out for The Dead Tossed Waves on March 9.