Mary has lived all her life in a village ruled by the Sisterhood, by fear and by the thin fence line separating the living from the "unconsecrated" - the dead come back to life. She has been told stories of a world no one believes still exists. A world of buildings as tall as the sky and a bodies of water that reach as far as the eye can see. All Mary knows is the dangerous Forest of Hands and Teeth that surround her village and the stringent rules that dictate her life within it. She dreams of the ocean and of life at the end of the Forest and when tragedy befalls her family, escape into the unknown may be her only chance left at life.I have to say I am not sure I have ever read a book with so little dialogue, which I found made difficult for me to care more for some of the characters. You can't really get a handle on who they are, when you only get the protagonist's opinion of them. I found, too often, wondering why the characters cared for each other the way they did. However, I did get wrapped up in Mary's somewhat bizarre, somewhat frantic mind and about half way through the book really started rooting for her to make crazy decisions.What I liked most is that Carrie Ryan does not seem to be afraid to write what could be considered an unpopular decision. Though some things were predictable, plenty were not - a refreshing find in a Young Adult read.
