Another Author Signing Night!

Tonight is Carrie Ryan, author of "The Forest of Hands and Teeth," a YA novel about a village tormented by zombies. The event is again at the wonderful Anderson's.

I read the book last week in about 2 or 3 days. It definitely took a few turns I didn't expect, and I have to say, overall it's pretty bleak. I suppose any story about zombies, which this book refers to as the "unconsecrated," isn't exactly light reading (Oh, wait, not true!) but for young adult fiction I felt like some parts were pretty intense. The author does a decent job of meshing these elements within a larger story of a girl and her two love interests, and the future of their community. Midway through, the story takes a bit of a turn, and it really kicks up the suspense. There's a scene with an unconsecrated infant and, well if you know anything about zombie lore there's really only two options: kill or get infected. Yeah.

I'm interested to hear about Carrie Ryan's experience from working a full time job to now a full time writer. I have the sequal to her first book, "The Dead Tossed Waves," which is really more of a companion novel that takes place in the same world but is about different characters. That threw me off at first, but I think I actually like it more since it further explores how their world came to be overrun with the undead.