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.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth Series

Just finished the last of the series: The Dark and Hollow Places. My opinion of the books was always very high. I fell in love with this series when they were recommended to me. I finally added them as a favorite on Shelfari because as I was reading the 3rd book, I remembered how fantastic the writing was.
I have always been drawn to books with dystopic societies, and this series was no exception. Mary, the main heroine from the 1st novel: The Forest of Hands and Teeth, lives in a village that is surrounded by fence keeping the unconsecrated, zombies, out. The sisterhood is in charge, and their rules are the ones everyone abides by. When an invasion breaks loose in the village, Mary, her lover, her fiance, and her best friend fight desperately to find this ocean Mary always longed for. The only thing they have to hold each other together is hope. Although decisions the group makes are, at times, questionable, Mary's hope never dies. The author leaves the reader with a very cryptic ending; because truly how can one be happy in a world where people are constantly in fear?
Book two: The Dead Tossed Waves takes on the point of view of another strong heroine: Gabry. Gabry is Mary's daughter, and the two of them are continuing to fight the good fight against the unconsecrated (Mudo, zombies). Once an invasion of unconsecrated leaves the ones she loves infected, she must find a way to get past the Recruiters, who control everything. Some of their rules and regulations don't make sense, so she grasps to find another way. Gabry breaks the rules, and in doing so meets Elias, who claims to know her past. Not only is Gabry trying to survive, but she begins to unravel the stories of her mother's pasts and the secrets she's been keeping. Another strong female lead. You can feel both female character's curiosity and pain. Both lost people close to them, and both discovered that there was something more than the fence closing them in. They reached and hoped for other answers, which they soon discovered and craved.

To finish out the series, The Dark and Hollow Places is narrated by Gabry's twin sister, Annah. Personally, I feel Annah is the strongest of the 3 women. She is jaded and broken herself. After being left behind by Elias, she has been on her own surviving in the Dark City, a place that is uninfected at the moment. Her shattered past and dying hope seem to only drive her towards one thing, surviving. Feeling neglected and lost, Annah feels her only hope for surviving is finding a way out of the city. She is confronted by Catcher, a friend of Gabry's from her old village. As Annah begins to accept her past, she realizes that something about Catcher is familiar. Both of them are broken in different ways. Annah must continue to survive, but at the same time she must discover what is it is like to live.

The writing was absolutely fantastic. I found myself bookmarking pages just so I could remember the lines. Carrie Ryan's writing weaves through and gives the reader so much detail it swallows you whole. I found, after finishing, there were many sequences where there is no dialogue. Annah struggles against the night, the wind, the darkness, but she is alone. I was so drawn up in it that I didn't ache for the human interaction, which is something I usually do. I typically will skip ahead just to see the dialogue, but in this last book it was amazing how her writing was enough for me to see everything. I could see the tunnels, I could feel the shiver and cold, and it was incredible. I think the third was my favorite also because I was able to relate to the scenery. Annah's story takes place in a city, which gives the readers the idea that this story could take place during a recent time. Mary's story is in a forest, Gabry's near an ocean, so readers may not be able to image the time period because it could be any time. They aren't around civilization, whereas Annah is. The fact that people can better relate to the city atmosphere gives a different feel to the story, and also makes it more powerful.
I absolutely love this series. You have a dystopic society where everything seems hopeless, but these three characters find the courage to push on and continue fighting. No matter how jaded and how scared they are, each one has something different to drive them further. The romance was a nice pinch of happiness to make you smile. Love these books. I am so glad I own them because reading them again would not be a chore. I recommend them; they are three of my favorites. :)