Review: The Dark and Hollow Places (The Forest of Hands and Teeth #3) by Carrie Ryan

Title:  The Dark and Hollow Places
Author:  Carrie Ryan
Series:  The Forest of Hands and Teeth
Publisher:  Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Publication Date:  March 22, 2011
Links:  Amazon | Goodreads
Rating: 

From Goodreads:

There are many things that Annah would like to forget: the look on her sister's face before Annah left her behind in the Forest of Hands and Teeth, her first glimpse of the Horde as they swarmed the Dark City, the sear of the barbed wire that would scar her for life. But most of all, Annah would like to forget the morning Elias left her for the Recruiters.

Annah's world stopped that day, and she's been waiting for Elias to come home ever since. Somehow, without him, her life doesn't feel much different than the dead that roam the wasted city around her. Until she meets Catcher, and everything feels alive again.

But Catcher has his own secrets. Dark, terrifying truths that link him to a past Annah has longed to forget, and to a future too deadly to consider. And now it's up to Annah: can she continue to live in a world covered in the blood of the living? Or is death the only escape from the Return's destruction?

Review:

I love how these books weren't necessarily sequels to their predecessors but instead worked as companion novels. You didn't have to have read the other books in the trilogy -- though it did help with the overall arc of the story.
Again, I'm amazed at how long it took me to read this series. Each girls' story -- Gabry's from The Dead-Tossed Waves (my review can be found on Goodreads) was by far my favorite -- was so heart-felt, told with such raw emotion, that it was as if I was living the life of a survivor myself. The true testament of an awesome writer is their ability to make the reader feel one with the story, and in that respect, Ms. Ryan has surpassed my expectations. Her characters all breathe a life of their own into the story, all ingniting a passion and an unrivaled survival instinct to boot.

In this final book, the author hasn't made any of the characters' lives any easier, and she hasn't necessarily tied up any "loose ends" so-to-speak, but she has left the reader with a sense of hope. A light at the end of the tunnel, if you will. Endings don't have to be perfect and sigh-inducing, but if there's one goal that needs to be accomplished with a final book, it's to leave the reader with a sense of satisfaction, and I can say that I felt that after turning the last page of The Dark and Hollow Places.
 
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