Praiseworthy Pages

Reader Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3/5 stars)

I’m not normally one to gravitate toward zombie apocalypse novels, but this one was recommended to me, so I thought I’d give it a try.

Carrie Ryan depicts a world where life and death hang in a delicate balance, where things as simple as dreams and as complex as love can overturn all one’s ever known. What an absolutely horrifying world to live in! Those searching for a book to remind them of how wonderful their own life is should definitely give this one a read!

Having grown up within the safety of the fences, Mary has never known anything more than her small village surrounded by the Forest of Hands and Teeth, the trees through which the Unconsecrated moan with unending hunger for human flesh. But Mary is certain that there must be more, that the stories her mother told about oceans and skyscrapers can’t be simply make-believe. There must be something beyond the Forest. But is she desperate enough to go and find out?

Language: 10/10 (No swearing at all).
Sex: 10/10 (No sexual content).
Violence and gore: 5/10 (Regular violence and semi-disturbing gore).

Plot: 8/10 (It felt like a mix between The Walking Dead, The Maze Runner, and The Village. It managed to be compelling despite being predictable).
Characters: 6/10 (Most characters besides Mary, and sometimes including Mary, felt extremely cliché).
Writing style: 7/10 (Beautiful imagery, but the whole time, I felt strangely removed from the story. The writing made the characters feel distant rather than making the reader enter the characters’ heads).

Genre: Young adult literature, new adult literature, dystopian fiction, romance, horror
Potential triggers: Loss of loved ones, forced religion, fire, murder, etc.
Is this book part of a series? Yes.
I would recommend this book to readers 12+.