The Dark and Hollow Places - Carrie Ryan

The Dark and Hollow Places
Carrie Ryan
374 Pages

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?

I liked The Forest of Hands and Teeth and The Dead Tossed Waves as well. I started reading this one a couple of months ago and put it down because I was getting bored with it. I finally picked it back up the other day and I'm sad to say it didn't get much better, in my opinion.

In the final book of The Forest of Hands and Teeth trilogy, we have Annah, the twin sister of Gabry/Abigail, who is waiting in the Dark City for Elias to return. At first I could kind of understand her coldness -- she lives with the guilt of leaving her sister alone in the Forest, she is alone in the city, she has these awful scars.

First, it seemed to me it went back and forth between her blaming herself for leaving Gabry, then it would go to it being Gabry's fault. Huh? Maybe it is just her age? With her being determined and very unlike Gabry, I would have expected for her feelings on it to not be so conflicted.

Introduce Elias back into the story. Annah hates that he loves Gabry and feels like the only reason he chose Gabry (mind you identical twins) is because she doesn't have the horrific scars that Annah does.

Now, bring in her scars... Annah makes a pretty big deal about her scars. At first, I was like, okay, maybe the story behind them is a part of her personality. It was a little, but it was more out of pure physical looks than how she actually got them, which was disappointing since I expected the reason to be something more than what it was. This aspect was just more vain than anything. She really did use them to push people away sometimes, but what got me the most was it didn't matter who she was talking to or what they were saying, sometimes she just went into auto-defense mode over the whole being scarred and ugly thing, which sometimes was irrelevant and unnecessary.

I will stop ranting now before it makes it seem like I hated this book, which I honestly didn't. I was just annoyed with Annah mostly. I still liked Gabry, Catcher and Elias, but unfortunately it wasn't told from any of their POVs.

What I give this book: