The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan

The Dead-Tossed Waves (Forest of Hands and Teeth, #2)

by Carrie Ryan

Gabry lives a quiet life, secure in her town next to the sea and behind the Barrier. She's content to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast--home is all she's ever known and all she needs for happiness.
But life after the Return is never safe.
Gabry's mother thought she left her secrets behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, but like the dead in their world, secrets don't stay buried. And now, Gabry's world is crumbling.
In one reckless moment, half of Gabry's generation is dead, the other half imprisoned.
Now Gabry knows only one thing: if she has any hope of a future, she must face the forest of her mother's past.

Reviewed by Angie on

3 of 5 stars

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Picking up many years later, The Dead-Tossed Waves is all about Mary's daughter, Gabry. She's never known anything beyond the relative safety of her seaside town, and is terrified of what lies within the forest thanks to her mother's stories. She's also never crossed the barriers into the old amusement park like the other teens. Until she does, and the dead (the locals call them Mudo) attack. Gabry runs, her friends that weren't bitten are severely punished, and she's left feeling like a coward. If only she could be as brave as her mother. Then things happen, forcing Gabry to flee and she's learning more about herself than she ever knew before.

The Dead-Tossed Waves wasn't as creepy as the first book. Gabry isn't on a slow decent into madness. She's having a personal crisis. It's very much a "who am I, what am I doing, who will I be" type of story. Gabry has always wanted to be like her mother, but she learns things that shake her small world to the core. Then she meets Elias who knows all kinds of things about the Mudo that she's never heard before, and it's all just a mess that she doesn't know how to straighten out. I wasn't as invested in her story as Mary's, but I still found her journey into the forest (of course she has to do the reverse path of her mother) very fascinating.

I do think The Dead-Tossed Waves is a worthy sequel. It fills in some of the gaps from the end of the first book in terms of what happened to Mary and her group, but it is a whole new story. The second half was much stronger for me, since that's where all of the action and danger is. It also answers some of my questions about why Mary's village was isolated the way it was. The only thing I can say I really disliked was the romance. I wasn't sold on either love interest at all. I was actually hoping that Gabry wound up being Elias' lost sister! That would have been much better!

Read more of my reviews at Pinkindle Reads & Reviews.

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Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 10 June, 2015: Finished reading
  • 10 June, 2015: Reviewed