why did it have to be zombies?
Apr. 18th, 2011 02:38 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishCarrie Ryan, The Forest of Hands and Teeth
I picked this up at the local Borders Everything Must Go sale, on the grounds that it's got a great title and I remembered someone saying good things about it. (Turns out that wastam_nonlinear, who likes this sort of thing.)
"Oh," I said, three pages in, "a zombie book. I hate zombie books."
This one starts out as my kind of zombie book, though. Conspiracies and secrets and history, plus plenty of teen angst.
If it'd stuck with that I would have been happy... but the zombies attack about a third of the way through, and for the rest of the book the small band of survivors have to make their way through the eponymous Forest. When your characters are fighting and running for their very lives there's not much opportunity to reveal deep worldbuilding secrets.
As zombie books go, it's a good one. There's a genuinely horrifying scene involving an infected infant, and some great tension. But by the end I was just plain worn out. Much like the characters. If I were the target audience for this book, I'd probably like it a great deal. As it stands I may read the sequels for the worldbuilding, but I can't see myself rereading this one at all.
I picked this up at the local Borders Everything Must Go sale, on the grounds that it's got a great title and I remembered someone saying good things about it. (Turns out that was
tam_nonlinear, who likes this sort of thing.)"Oh," I said, three pages in, "a zombie book. I hate zombie books."
This one starts out as my kind of zombie book, though. Conspiracies and secrets and history, plus plenty of teen angst.
If it'd stuck with that I would have been happy... but the zombies attack about a third of the way through, and for the rest of the book the small band of survivors have to make their way through the eponymous Forest. When your characters are fighting and running for their very lives there's not much opportunity to reveal deep worldbuilding secrets.
As zombie books go, it's a good one. There's a genuinely horrifying scene involving an infected infant, and some great tension. But by the end I was just plain worn out. Much like the characters. If I were the target audience for this book, I'd probably like it a great deal. As it stands I may read the sequels for the worldbuilding, but I can't see myself rereading this one at all.
no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 04:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-04-19 04:23 pm (UTC)