Book Review: The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Yes, this is another book review. I seem to be on a reading binge lately—the world is as it should be. :-)

The Forest of Hands and Teeth, by Carrie Ryan, is set in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by the Unconsecrated, dead people infected with a disease that reanimates them, making them hunger for the flesh of the living. And yes that means zombies. :-) :-) Not the kind of book you normally find me reading, but online reviews combined with the title (it rocks) intrigued me enough to hit it up at my local library. Forest follows the story of Mary, who lives in a village protected by the fanatic Sisterhood, the Guardians, and a fence that keeps the Unconsecrated out and the living in. Her comfortable world (as comfortable a world as you can have surrounded by a Forest teaming with Unconsecrated) is shattered when her mother dies and she is forced to join the Sisterhood.

I have slightly mixed feelings about Forest. I liked it, mostly. The prose was gorgeous, the imagery vivid (dessicated zombie flesh and all ;-)), the themes deep and the storyline—for the most part—compelling. The first person present tense POV read smoothly and naturally (same tense as Hunger Games, incidently) which is a hard thing to do.

The first part of the novel reminds me strongly of M. Night Shyamalan's The Village, because the setting is so similar, but that isn't a criticism. Around a third of the way through, though, the story takes a different turn than I had been expecting and breaks away from The Village comparison almost completely. Somewhere around the three-quarter mark Forest seemed to drag a bit. (To me at least. This was where I read Sorcery and Cecelia, Fire and Hemlock, and The Hunger Games, respectively.)

(Minor spoilers in white, highlight to read.)
There were a few things that bothered me about this book. One was the love quadrangle. I didn't know who to root for, and so found the whole Travis/Harry thing kind of confusing and unsettling (of course, maybe that's the point). I also thought it a liiiiitle bit of a stretch that  the only people who survived the attack on the village were all the people Mary was close to. I was also hoping for more of a reveal about what the Sisterhood was up to and at least some closure for Mary regarding them and what exactly they did to Gabrielle. I think part of my problem was I lost the connection with Mary partway through—I'm not sure why. And my word the death toll was higher than one of my novels, which is quite a feat! :-)

I did like the ending. There's a second book in the works, too, so that might answer some of the things I felt were unresolved.

So, to sum up. Slightly mixed feelings, but I mostly liked it. :-)

Shiny Idea Update

So I thought I'd jot off a brief Shiny Idea update, because we have indeed run off together. :-)

Stats:

Word Count Thus Far: 2,087

Character Deaths: a pile of dessicated bones and mention of a before-the-story-started murder. Does that count as two?

Strange Winged Creature: 1

Times the Author has Gotten Disturbed: 2

Next-to-Last Sentence: It seemed that she sighed, though it came out more as a rush of air, hot and tinged with flame.


Thus far it seems to be going well. We'll see how long that lasts.

Did I mention this story is weird?

Book Review: The Hunger Games

So I'm really glad I didn't read Suzanne Collins' The Hunger Games until the week the sequel was released. This way I don't have to wait whatever horrifying amount of time everyone else did (a year?? torment!) for the second installment. I am, as a matter of fact, sitting in Borders poised to get my greedy hands on Catching Fire as soon as I finish this post.

Any review—or even the briefest mention—of The Hunger Games I've ever read online gushes about this novel. So now I'm gonna gush a little, too. Because The Hunger Games was nothing short of fabulous.


Set in the ruins of North America, an oppressive government yearly sponsors the Hunger Games, a reality TV show where twenty-four randomly selected young people are forced to fight to the death as the entire nation watches. It's brutal. It's terrifying. And there can only be one survivor. The reason the government does this? To show all twelve Districts of the nation of Panea that they are in control. The story follows Katniss, who volunteers to join the Hunger Games in place of her little sister.


It's sort of a sci-fi thriller adventure dystopian borderline-horror (though not more than I could handle, which means it's mild :-)) novel that's fast-paced, to say the least. I finished it in between piano students today, gripping the book with white knuckles and forgetting to blink. I got to the end very, very happy that Catching Fire was only a bookstore away, and wishing eye drops weren't quite so expensive.


To sum up? Highly impressed. Hats off, Ms. Collins. May book two be just as fabulous and book three be swift in coming!


(As a side note, it seems like there were a lot of typos in Hunger Games. I'll often find one or two in any given book, but there were upwards of half a dozen in this one. Did anybody else notice that?)

Going to Gretna Green

It's official. I'm thinking of running away with the Shiny Idea. It could very well be a brief romance that ultimately turns sour, but I'm frustrated with Rose Queen revisions, and I'm stuck at the end of Snowflake Step Four for this year's NaNo novel because I can't figure out exactly how my villain means to cause the collapse of the universe. (Troubling stuff.) I might do it. A little whirlwind writing never hurt anyone, right? Right? Besides, it has a shiny title, shiny character names, shiny not-quite-worked-out-in-my-head plot, shiny romance, shiny tragic ending. It's the Shiny Idea of my dreams!

Yeah, I think I'm going to do it. Sans outline and all. I'll keep you posted.

In other news, no word on the partial or the full; they're at seven and eight weeks respectively. Next week I'm gonna have to bite the bullet and jot off some status queries. *shudder* This Agent Hunt is not for the faint of heart.

Reading Hunger Games (ack, I'm still not finished with Forest!). Gave up on the library queue (I'd made it to 20 out of 60) and just bought a copy. Over three-quarters of the way through and really liking it. Hard to put down (in fact when I'm done writing this blog I might have to run off and finish it).

Signed up for an account on Goodreads this morning. It remains to be seen how much I'll actually use it, but for now the site seems pretty cool. I've realized lately that I have a hard time writing book reviews. I love talking about favorite books, and I'll do a fair amount of gushing (see post below :-)), but to wrangle a decent review out of me takes a lot of effort. I wonder why that is?

Went to Prescott this weekend (trees! temps in the sixties!) and wandered into a used bookstore downtown. They had a lot of great, great stuff in there, not least of which was an entire collection of way oldschool George Eliot (so oldschool they didn't have copyright dates). Tragically, I couldn't afford to buy the whole set, but I did nab Middlemarch (even though I already have a copy), because it's one of my favoritist books ever.

I love books. Did I mention that?

Speaking of books, Hunger Games is calling me.

And then I have to pack for Gretna Green.

Book Review: Fire and Hemlock

Yes I know I posted once this morning. And yes I realize I mentioned I was reading Fire and Hemlock.

I spent the last four hours finishing it, mostly forgetting to breathe.

It was amazing.

But not at all what I expected. If I manage to write a book half that good I can die happy.

But that's not really a review, is it?

It all starts when nine-year-old Polly accidentally gate-crashes a funeral. She meets a man named Thomas Lynn, and they do a bit of silly play-acting together. Except it all seems to come true, right down to the giant in the supermarket. Ten years later Polly isn't sure it happened at all. But she still has the picture she stole the day of the funeral, the picture of fire and hemlock hanging over her bed. And she has the memories that she can't quite seem to reconcile with real life.

This book is gorgeous and gripping. Vivid. Intriguing. And it ended just a tiny bit too soon.

Diana Wynne Jones, you are my hero.

Any Other Name...

So I'm reading Fire and Hemlock (yes, yes, I know my sidebar still says Forest; I'm reading that, too—nearing the end in fact—but got distracted again), and a random, extremely minor character popped up named "Joanna."

This got me pondering some of my reading excursions when I was a kid. Which got me thinking about the random books from my childhood I read because the main character happened to have the same name as me. Which got me googling madly until I actually found said books.

So here they are:

The Best-Kept Secret, by Noela Young, in which a magic carousel ride takes Joanna seven years into the future.

The Time Tree, by Enid Richemond, in which Joanna and Rachel befriend a deaf girl from Elizabethan England.

And that's all! I remember there was a grouchy old countess named Joanna in Catherine, Called Birdy (I hated this book, not sure why; I adored Midwife's Apprentice), and of course we can't forget Joanna the lizard from The Rescuers Down Under.

Okay, that's all. This exceptionally weird post is done now. :-)

Much Ado About Not Much

So Far This Week:

• Revising Progress: none
• Notes for Shiny New Idea: a page and a half
• Rejections Received: none
• Responses to Outstanding Partial and Full: none
• Sanity Level: none
  
• Precipitation: a few giant rain drops on my windshield, and a light rain for about ten minutes.
• Spelling Errors: three
• Cups of Tea: four
  

As you can see, it's been a very exciting week so far.

Okay, not really. But I am quite fond of my Shiny New Idea. It's quite beautiful and tragic and will contain Greek names and hopefully a Greek-ish mythical feel. Not exactly sure if it's a short story or a short book. Guess I'll have to write it to find out. But don't worry, I'm not allowing myself to get distracted away from revisions for Rose Queen or outlining for November. Well, not that much.

Finished Sorcery and Cecelia on Friday and enjoyed it heartily! There were even a few squee moments at the end, so that's always a plus. :-) When I get through my to-be-read* pile, it's back to the library for the sequel!

Exactly like my sidebar would have you believe, I'm reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth. About halfway through, and really like it. The writing is beautiful, and the world well-drawn. Has to be said that it reminds me a lot of Shyamalan's The Village (a movie I adore), but not in a bad way. I'm extremely interested to see where all this is going...

And now, for your clicking pleasure, some links:

• Behind the Name, an incredibly useful website with scads of names, their histories and etymologies
• Inkygirl: Daily Diversions for Writers, fun cartoons and great information
• A sneak peak at this year's NaNoWriMo shirts!
• Pages, the adorable local Indie bookstore near me
  

And that, I believe, is that.

*The to-be-read pile includes, but is not limited to: Skin Hunger, Silver Phoenix, Fire and Hemlock, The Winter Prince, Enna Burning, The Hunger Games