The Forest of Hands and Teeth

Carrie Ryan’s young adult novel The Forest of Hands and Teeth (2009) uses a literary voice to blend elements of several different genres, including horror, romance, and dystopian fiction. The story follows Mary, a teenage girl growing up in the aftermath of a world ravaged by hordes of the undead. As she struggles to defy her community’s rigid rules, she must also confront existential challenges like love, loss, and the constant threat of death at the hands of the zombie-like creatures surrounding her village. Mary’s coming-of-age journey explores themes of Female Agency within Oppressive Social Structures, The Persistence of Hope amidst Death, and The Tension between Self-Interest and Self-Sacrifice.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth is the first installment in a trilogy and is followed by The Dead-Tossed Waves and The Dark and Hollow Places. Additionally, Carrie Ryan has penned “Hare Moon,” a short story set in the same world but featuring different characters.

This guide is based on the 2009 edition by Delacorte Press, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books.

Content Warning: The source material and this guide feature depictions of graphic violence, illness, death, child death, pregnancy loss, and suicidal ideation.

Plot Summary

Mary, a teen girl, lives in an unnamed village surrounded by high fences that are designed to keep out the Unconsecrated (undead humans who live in the Forest and constantly hunger for living humans). If a living human suffers even one bite from an Unconsecrated, they will die, then return as one of the undead. Most undead are slow and clumsy, but because they greatly outnumber the villagers, a horde of Unconsecrated would still be an existential threat. Mary does not know how or why the Return (the origin of the undead attack) first occurred; she only knows that Unconsecrated have threatened her village for generations. She wants to believe that other villages or cities beyond the Forest might house other survivors, and she also hopes that the ocean her mother speaks of really does exist as a potential haven from the undead. However, no one in her village will discuss such things—despite the existence of the gated, fenced pathways that lead into the Forest. In fact, the Sisterhood (the ruling authority in the village) claims that this is the only human enclave left and insists that its members focus only on maintaining the village’s rigid moral standards, getting married, and increasing the number of annual births.

Mary lives with her mother, her older brother Jed, and Jed’s wife Beth. Mary’s father was recently lost to the Forest and has surely turned (become one of the undead). Even so, Mary’s mother remains hopeful that he survived, and Jed and Mary guard her carefully as she watches the fences for her husband to return; they cannot allow her to stray too near, as the undead are constantly pushing and pawing at the borders.

One day, while Jed is away patrolling the fences with other Guardians who guarantee the safety of the village’s boundaries, Beth’s brother Harry asks Mary to attend the Harvest Celebration. This request is significant, as the year’s female prospects for fall marriages include only Mary and her friend Cass. Mary is interested in Travis, Harry and Beth’s younger brother, but when Harry tells her that Travis is taking Cass to the Celebration, Mary acquiesces to Harry’s request, lest she miss her only chance at a betrothal. As the two talk, she lingers too long with Harry, forgetting that she should be supervising her mother. Suddenly, the village siren sounds, and everyone rushes to the platforms in the trees, just in case there has been a breach. When Mary runs back, she realizes that her mother triggered the alarm by getting too close to the fence. Her mother was also bitten by an undead.

The narrative reveals that once bitten, a living human has two choices: being killed outright or being cast out into the Forest once they turn undead. Mary’s mother chooses the Forest, and although it takes many hours for her to turn, Mary stays with her until the end. The Sisterhood then insists on keeping Mary confined for a week to evaluate her mental state and prevent her from approaching the fence or acting out in her grief.

After her stay at the Cathedral, Mary attempts to return home, but Jed blames Mary for the loss of their mother and shuns her. To make matters worse, Harry refuses to “speak for” Mary (claim her as his betrothed), so she must return to the Cathedral.

Having no other choice, Mary begins training for the Sisterhood by making a vow of silence and studiously reading Scripture. One night, Travis breaks his leg and is taken to the Cathedral hospital. Mary is allowed to visit him, but although Sister Tabitha gives her permission to break her vow of silence only to pray, Mary surreptitiously defies this dictate by sharing her dream of seeing the ocean, which she believes exists beyond the Forest. One night, Mary discovers that an Outsider named Gabrielle has been brought to the Cathedral. Mary is excited at the prospect of learning about the outside world, but Sister Tabitha grows suspicious of Mary’s curiosity, questions, and attraction to Travis.

Travis is taken into quarantine, Gabrielle disappears, and Harry comes to speak for Mary after all. Sister Tabitha allows the betrothal. Before the Binding Ceremony, Mary sneaks into a tunnel beneath the Cathedral and finds a room where handwritten notes indicate that someone has been experimenting with turning young women into undead. She also sees the symbols “XIV” finger-written on the window glass in Gabrielle’s old room but does not recognize them as Roman numerals. Soon, Mary discovers that Gabrielle is now among the Unconsecrated. However, instead of being slow and clumsy, she is lightning fast and especially vicious.

On the night of the Binding Ceremony, Mary allows herself to be formally betrothed to Harry even though she secretly prefers his brother, Travis. The next morning, the sirens wail as the fences are breached and Unconsecrated pour into the village. Gabrielle kills Sister Tabitha. Harry saves a young boy named Jacob, after which he, Jacob, and Mary seek safety along the gated, fenced path into the Forest. Soon, Travis and Cass join them, and later, Jed and Beth also join the group. The fenced paths lead deeper into the Forest, and at each branching, they choose paths at random. Before long, Jed is forced to kill Beth, who was bitten during their escape.

The Forest paths are enclosed within protective fences on either side, and the undead lurk just beyond the fences, constantly threatening the survivors. Mary discovers curious metal tags at each branch and gate marked with letters such as XVIII, but she does not understand them. One day, the group finds a gate marked with the same letters that Gabrielle wrote on her window: XIV. Upon choosing this path, the survivors come to a large, seemingly abandoned village. Suddenly, the undead flow from the buildings. Harry, Cass, Jacob, and Jed flee to platforms where tree houses offer shelter and food. Mary and Travis find safety in a well-provisioned brick house.

For weeks, they exist as two groups. Mary finds trunks in the attic of the house; the contents hint at an epidemic that initiated the Return many years ago. She also finds a photo of the ocean, and the sight renews her hope of finding a better life. Just as she realizes that even building a life with Travis will not satisfy her the way that finding the ocean would, the undead break into the brick house. Mary and Travis escape by way of a rope that they hastily string between the attic and the tree houses.

When Jacob inadvertently starts a fire, the group must escape via a rope strung to the fenced pathway. Travis sacrifices himself to get the rope secured for the others. Grief-stricken, Mary and the others continue to follow the paths. Mary has taken a book of Shakespeare’s sonnets from the attic, and when she looks through it, she recognizes that the sonnets are labeled with the same types of symbols on the gates. She realizes that the symbols are numbers, and her hope is renewed when she realizes that all of the villages had been connected for a purpose.

They come to a strange gate marked with the Roman numeral “I.” Mary alone realizes that this is the first gate in the system; it was constructed by builders who wanted to link different villages and enclaves long ago. Against Jed and Harry’s protests, she runs out into the Forest, knowing intuitively that she is close to the ocean. Jed runs after her, and together they fight off the undead. When they attempt to climb down a canyon to a rushing river, Jed falls and is lost.

Suddenly, an Unconsecrated pulls Mary into the river. She wakes up to find herself on a sandy beach at the edge of the sea. A man is there, beheading the undead who have washed down the river. He tells her that there is a town nearby and that he lives in the lighthouse just up the beach. Mary, who is unable to find her brother, swims in the sea and hopes that the others have survived. She accompanies the man to the lighthouse.