Finished: 19/09/09
Genre: Young Adult/Fantasy
Rated: A
Opening Sentence: ‘…My mother used to tell me about the ocean.…’
There was no cure, and the virus spread rapidly – when the undead bite you you beome one of them. Mary lives in an isolated village in the middle of a forest – the forest of hands and teeth. The settlement is surrounded by a heavily guarded chain-link fence. On the other side of the fence lives the zombies, or Unconcentrated, eternally ravenous undead. No villager ever goes outside this fence, unless they want to die.
However, the fence is not the only boundary in Mary’s life. There are also the strict traditions of her people, which are enforced by a religious order called the Sisterhood. Every stage of the villager’s lives are controlled to sustain their precarious existence – betrothal, marriage, childbirth even death. The villagers believe that without strict adherence to the rules, their tiny society will come to an end.
But now the village is beginning to forget their history. Some doubt that there really was a time before the Return, with giant cities and wondrous technologies. Others believe that nothing at all exists beyond the forest of hands and teeth. Only Mary, and her slightly mad mother, believes in something called “the ocean,” a huge and unbounded space beyond the reach of the undead. After her mother turns into a zombie after getting too close to the fence, Mary obsesses over the idea that there may be a real ocean – and other humans. When the unthinkable happens, and the zombies break the fence down, Mary has to go out into the forest with a few other survivors. She decides to follow a path a see what happens – with the hungry hoard of Unconcentrated shuffling along after them.
This is not a happy book – there are many, many deaths. But the gruesome bits are very manageable – a person goes down and the reader is told that they are screaming – but the author refrains from detailed descriptions (thank goodness). The society comes over very realistically as a rigid, unfair society with no time for an independent thinker. Mary is incredibly selfish over her obsession, despite all opposition she is still able to cling to hope. That hope is what motivates her throughout her journey, hope that there is a better life out there somewhere amidst all the chaos and misery.
Yes, a good book with a hopeful ending. Glad you liked it as did I. I'm looking forward to the second book coming next year too.
Great review Sally. The next book has a different lead character so I wonder if we'll revisit Mary et al?