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The Dead-Tossed Waves - Carrie Ryan I am not a zombie fan. I think that, in general, movies and books and video games about zombies are, um. Icky.

Fortunately for me, this book is not a book about zombies. It's a book about people living post-zombiepocalypse, and these people are not especially icky.

Wait, I started this review wrong. What I meant was <3<3<3<3. I loved The Forest of Hands and Teeth and had high expectations for this sequel/companion, and it did not disappoint, hoo boy. Loved, loved. There was some illumination re: loose threads from the previous novel, though I still have questions about the Sisterhood, but this wasn't a continuation of the previous story. It was a whole new story with a whole new main character. <br/>
Mary, the heroine from The Forest of Hands and Teeth, has a daughter, and The Dead-Tossed Waves is that daughter's story. Which, by the way, was a genius authorial decision. Mary's story after she washed up on shore wouldn't have been all that interesting--I think the life that we find out she lived is perfect for the character, but it couldn't have been a book of its own. Anyway.

Gabrielle has lived in the seaside town of Vista forever. She's never been outside of the fences that surround the town, and each day at high tide, Gabrielle's mother is responsible for decapitating the zombies that wash up on the shore. Vista is safe, and Gabrielle is terrified of leaving it.

But she's in love, of course, because teenagers always are, and love makes us do stupid things. Things like climbing a wall to the outside, where there are zombies, and where the world can be flipped on its head in an instant, and where a sense of safety can be shattered into tiny pieces that can't be reassembled.

Love triangles and secret pasts and wrenching decisions and non-stop action--this book had it all. It hit all my buttons, basically, but beyond that, I really think it's fantastic in that way where everyone everyone everyone should read it.