I suppose this book could theoretically be called Science Fiction, but it scared the pants off me, so i'm classing it as Horror.
Mary is waiting for a boy to declare for her. She's sure someone will; after all, her village needs every girl to marry and have children in order to replace those who are lost to the Unconsecrated. But Mary's preoccupation with love and the future is interrupted by the gruesome death of first her father, then her mother. They are both claimed by the Forest of Hands and Teeth, where the Returned bodies of their former neighbours roam in the gloom.
In case you haven't figured it out yet, this book is all about the Zombie apocalypse. If this concept scares you (like it does me) read NO FURTHER, because I can tell you, you will have nightmares.
Mary is forced into the arms of the Sisterhood, the religous group that guards the town from danger, and holds its own secrets about the past. No one but they know how their ancestors tinkered with the stuff of life in order to cheat death; no one but they know where the fenced paths through the woods go. Their secrets break free when the fences are breached, and the village attacked.
Mary, torn between her love for a forbidden boy and her desire to escape the village, is forced to flee with her family when the village is overrun by the dead. Could there be life in a world so full or horror and death? The ambiguous ending will leave you shaking in your sheets. A scary, scary read for halloween.
Horror (or possibly Sci Fi, if your'e brave)
Grades 10 and up
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