Review of The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan

Gabry lives a quiet life, secure in her town next to the sea and behind the Barrier. She's happy to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast. Home is all she's ever known, all she needs for happiness. But life after the Return is never safe and there are threats even the Barrier can't hold back.

It's the sequel to The Forest Of Hands And Teeth! Now with even more angst! Sigh. I was expecting this to be a continuation of Mary's story, so you can imagine my surprise when I read the blurb and saw the name "Gabry". My first guess was the Gabrielle we met in the first book but then I realised that this sequel is set a good 30 years after we met Mary, focusing instead on her daughter.

This should be quite an interesting book - it's set from the perspective of an outsider to The Forest, a girl who grew up in a village protected by the Protectorate, some sort of military types. Gabry lives in a lighthouse and every morning we go zombie bashing because they wash ashore. Bizarre but fun right? Somehow, no. This book dragged so, so much.

I may have sneaked a glance at the blurb for book three, so when something major went down at the funfair with Catcher, it was easy to guess where they were going with this. (view spoiler) Gabry runs away after the zombie attack at the fairground, leaving everyone to it and when they are caught and Catcher is missing, she goes to look for him. Of course, one missing boyfriend isn't quite enough angst, so cue Elias!

Elias is fecking annoying. Okay, so he does save her quite a few times but he sure as hell seems to fall in love with her quickly, despite it being plainly obvious that Catcher is her boyfriend or near as. And then when she doesn't reciprocate he gets irritated with her? What? Is this the behavior we really want to be displaying as normal in teen books? Of course he has a Tragic Backstory, all tied up with the Forest and Gabry because we need EVEN MORE ANGST.

One thing that could have saved this book but kind of fell apart was Catcher's sister, Gabry's best friend. With her sentence after the events at the fairground and believing her brother to be dead, it pushes her into depression to the point where she didn't want to live any more. However it devolved into a kinda sometimes she wanted to live sometimes she didn't situation and it didn't have the impact that it should have done.

This one does a little better at a plot twist but I didn't have that 'Woah' moment. It was just like... oh okay so that's a thing. I know our next character is Annah in the Dark City, a place that was frequently mentioned in this book. After going from village to other village, I'm really hoping the Dark City is just that - a city. It may just be interesting enough to make the series a complete disappointment.


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