History YMMV / TheForestOfHandsAndTeeth

* Squick: Some of the descriptions of the Unconsecrated are downright [[NauseaFuel disgusting]].

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: [[spoiler:It's never explained why Gabrielle, the girl in the red vest, is so much stronger and faster than other zombies. The author hints that something special was done to make her that way, but it's just kind of forgotten about after that.]]
** The sequels go into a bit more detail: apparently, if one of the zombies [[spoiler:is turned when there are no other zombies around, it becomes a "breaker" or a fast zombie, in order to spread the infection more quickly.]] However, it isn't ever explained [[spoiler:who Gabrielle was, or why the Sisterhood wanted to make her into a breaker, or really what any of that had to do with the plot other than letting Mary know there was a world outside.]] So it still does qualify as a WhatHappenedToTheMouse.
*** Actually, the Roman numerals Gabrielle left on the window pane suggest that [[spoiler: she was a survivor from the infected village Mary and the others stumble upon later in the first book.]] What the Sisterhood was doing with her is a little more complicated and less obvious. In the first book, [[spoiler: Mary enters a forbidden series of chambers, where she finds a list of names and a journal detailing accounts of infected. This implies the Sisterhood was studying the behavior of the zombies, if not outright intentionally infecting certain people to do so.]] In the second novel, [[spoiler: Gabrielle, the daughter Mary named for the girl in the red vest, follows her mother back to the village of her birth. There, she finds records pertaining to the Sisterhood that imply that they were hiding the existence of survivors who came to the village in a misguided attempt to protect the people from the dangers of the outside world.]] With this information in mind, we can potentially hypothesize [[spoiler: that the Sisterhood eventually decided to destroy evidence of outsiders by using them to study the infected. Gabrielle arrived at the village seeking refuge and instead found herself the subject of one of their experiments. She became a Breaker because the specific experiment she fell victim to was one where the they were studying the impact of infection under isolation.]]

*** Actually, the Roman numerals Gabrielle left on the window pane suggest that [[spoiler: she was a survivor from the infected village Mary and the others stumble upon later in the first book.]] What the Sisterhood was doing with her is a little more complicated and less obvious. In the first book, [[spoiler: Mary enters a forbidden series of chambers, where she finds a list of names and a journal detailing accounts of infected. This implies the Sisterhood was studying the behavior of the zombies, if not outright intentionally infecting certain people to do so.]] In the second novel, [[spoiler: Gabrielle, the daughter Mary named for the girl in the red vest, follows her mother back to the village of her birth. There, she finds records pertaining to the Sisterhood that imply that they were hiding the existence of survivors who came to the village in a misguided attempt to protect the people from the dangers of the outside world.]] With this information in mind, we can potentially hypothesize [[spoiler: that the Sisterhood eventually decided to destroy evidence of outsiders by using them to study the infected. Gabrielle arrived at the village seeking refuge and instead found herself the subject of one of their experiments. She became a Breaker because the specific experiment she fell victim to was involved studying the impact of infection under isolated circumstances.]]

* [[TheyWastedAPerfectlyGoodPlot]]: A common criticism of the book is that instead of focusing on the really interesting questions the society poses (for example, the idea of the Sisterhood and their rituals seems tailor-made for exploring religion during a zombie apocalypse), it's mostly just a love triangle with some background zombies shambling.

* [[They Wasted A Perfectly Good Plot]]: A common criticism of the book is that instead of focusing on the really interesting questions the society poses (for example, the idea of the Sisterhood and their rituals seems tailor-made for exploring religion during a zombie apocalypse), it's mostly just a love triangle with some background zombies shambling.

** The sequels go into a bit more detail: apparently, if one of the zombies [[spoiler:is turned when there are no other zombies around, it becomes a "breaker" or a fast zombie, in order to spread the infection more quickly.]] However, it isn't ever explained [[spoiler:who Gabrielle was, or why the Sisterhood wanted to make her into a breaker, or really what any of that had to do with the plot other than letting Mary know there was a world outside.]] So it still does qualify as a WhatHappenedToTheMouse.

** The sequels go into a bit more detail: apparently, if one of the zombies [[spoiler:is turned when there are no other zombies around, it becomes a "breaker" or a fast zombie, in order to spread the infection more quickly.]]

* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: [[spoiler:It's never explained why Gabrielle, the girl in the red vest, is so much stronger and faster than other zombies. The author hints that something special was done to make her that way, but it's just kind of forgotten about after that.]]