Anyway I almost decided not to read this book mostly because I hadn't really enjoyed The Forest of Hands and Teeth (TFOHT). I didn't really want to take the time to read the sequel if I was just going to hate on it. But after reading a the first chapter I decided to give it a go. The funny thing is that by the third chapter I was already thinking "Oh yup here we go again! Its just like the first one only with events sped up." But then I was proven wrong and I was actually pleasantly surprised. I can honestly say that there were some elements of this book that I really enjoyed. But there were also some things that drove me crazy. Well one thing in particular. But we'll get to that later. So here were the positive elements for me.
For starters this book was not told from the perspective of Mary like the first one, but rather from the perspective of Mary's daughter Gabrielle. I was quite happy about this because Mary had quite frankly bugged me to no end. So the fact that this was a story about a new character seemed quite promising. And while Gabrielle was an improvement upon Mary's constant selfishness, she still lacked a lot of character. She spent most of the story confused about who she really was. On top of that she was often questioning what the real point of life was. However by the end of the story Gabrielle had grown a lot as a person. She had really come to realize what was important to her and what she needed to live for. And that was encouraging. On top of that Gabrielle did seem to care about all the people in her life. She wasn't just looking out for herself. She was also looking out for others. That was a refreshing change from the way Mary was characterized.
Secondly I really enjoyed the fact that more of Mary and Gabrielle's world was revealed and explained. A lot of questions were raised in the TFOHT and The Dead-Tossed Waves definitely succeeded in answering a lot of these questions. In fact I thought it was worth it to read The Dead Tossed Waves just because I was able to figure out so much about the history of the villages and the cults.
And finally we have gotten to what I did not enjoy about the book. Pretty much it can be summed up in one word. Angst. It seems that Carrie Ryan's go to trick is angst. And for me it just doesn't work. Probably because most of it is angst about love and relationships. Ryan tried to work this whole love triangle dealio into this story and in my opinion it failed miserably. Every other chapter Gabrielle was kissing one guy, or nearly kissing the other guy, or angsting over whether or not they still cared about her and it was just....well......BLAH!!!! It drove me bonkers. Now I will say that I don't like romance in general so it could have been just me. But I kinda doubt it. :/
So while the characters were improved, and the world was enhanced, the Dead Tossed-Waves lost some of its potential because it was weighted down by Carrie Ryan's excess use of teen angst.
In conclusion I would say that if you have read The Forest of Hands and Teeth and you are curious to discover more about Mary's world then yes, you would probably like this book. Otherwise I wouldn't really recommend it. However I do think that The Dead-Tossed Waves was better than TFOHT so I will give it 3 1/2 ice cream cones out of 5.
The next book I am reading is Gone by Michael Grant. I would just like to say that it has one of THE WORST book cover designs I have ever seen. Like seriously if I hadn't heard so many good things about this book I would NEVER have picked it up. I mean it just screams paranormal romance or something equally weird. But apparently its like Stephen King meets Lord of the Flies which actually sounds really promising! We shall see..... The review for that book will probably be up in about a week or so depending on when I finish reading it. So be on the look out!
Julia :)
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