Every Night I Drown and Every Morning I Wake Up Struggling to Breathe

I finished The Forest of Hands and Teeth series by Carrie Ryan almost four years ago, but I felt myself drawn to it once again.

We all know the story, or at the very least you can go back in the tags and check my original posting. I have only finished rereading the first in the series, but in my last entry regarding the novels, I left out a few important pieces to Mary's story.

Mary, Gabry, and Annah are all strong female characters with choices to make, and each of them are trapped in a world with the diseased, the Unconsecrated, the living dead. Of course the story begins with Mary- her village is breached by the zombie hoards, so she and her small group escape with hopes of another world on the outside. However, I could not help but get frustrated with Mary.

Her mother chose the Unconsecrated in order to be reunited with her father. Immediately upon returning to the house, Mary's brother, Jed, refuses to welcome her back into their home partly because his wife has just miscarried, but also because he blames Mary for their mother's death. Mary is tossed into the life of the Sisterhood because no one claims her. She experiences rejection from all sides; the love of her life, Travis: who has claimed her best friend, her mother: who chose death and the unliving rather than her own daughter, and now her brother. The reader can't help but feel such sorrow for this young woman. She is forced into the Sisterhood, where she does not belong, but this is the only choice she can make for herself.

Travis is then hurt, barely alive, so he stays with the Sisters until he heals. Mary goes to his bedside each night, and her love for him intensifies. Even better, Travis believes in the ocean and the world Mary longs for. He feels it too. When he heals, there is more rejection for Mary when Travis is not the one to come back and claim her, but his brother Harry.
The story continues as the Unconsecrated breach the fence, their village is all taken by the undead, and Mary is forced down the forest path with Harry, Travis, her best friend Cass, a young boy, Jacob, and her brother and his wife. The more rejection the reader feels in Mary's heart, the more she retaliates. Her personality is fierce, unflinching, and this is what makes her a strong heroine.

However,  finally Mary gets her wish. She and Travis are trapped together, while the others are safe on the platforms of another village. Although trapped, and Travis's leg makes it impossible for him to follow quickly, Mary and Travis are together in a house where they can be alone. This is what she wanted; she wanted him to choose her, yet there is something missing. The ocean, her escape, is always on her mind. Maybe it's just me, but I can't help but think why can't he be enough? Was the rejection he caused her too much? Or was he just never going to be enough for her? At the beginning she longed for him, waiting for him, saw a life with him; yet she finally gets that chance and it's lost on her ultimate goal.
Even at the end of the story (be advised this is a spoiler)- she loses everything. Travis is dead, Harry/Cass/ and Jacob have taken a separate path, and her brother also falls to her dreams of the ocean. In the end she makes it, but at what cost?

I think this frustrated me the most about Mary because it was difficult to understand her reasoning. Was the constant rejection the reason for her desire to push away? Travis and Harry both had such intense loves for her, and I understand her holding back with Harry, but she had Travis- this was what she wanted. But even in the end Travis asked "Would you ever give up the ocean for me?" It's almost like he knew he would never be enough. 
Again, I have not revisited the other two novels, but I found Mary's constant hope and desire for something better frustrating. Maybe it's because of the three main characters, I can't really connect emotionally to Mary's story. Sure she went through stages of rejection, but when things began to work her way, she still could not see that as enough. She put people in danger, but worst of all, it seems she broke a few people's hearts because they knew she had an untamed soul that love and family could not calm. Maybe that frustrated me more; knowing that she could have a happy life where she could have everything she wanted, but it was never going to be enough to make her fully happy.
In the end, I fell back in love with the series and find myself going head first into the post apocalyptic world Ryan has created. This is one of the best series I have come across- her writing is lyrical and weaves a fantastic tale, but the story itself provides raw emotion, survival, and love that all three females are so desperate to find.