"The Dark and Hollow Places": Thoughts?

[brigid]

I just finished reading The Dark and Hollow Places, the third book in the "Forest of Hands and Teeth" trilogy by Carrie Ryan.



I know they're over used and clichéd, but I still enjoy zombies and good zombie books, and I thought the first two books in the series were excellent. The characters, and the situations, were compelling. When Gabry and Catcher had to climb across the broken up highway bridge way up high in the sky while below them hordes of zombies came to slavering life? That scene still gives me goosebumps.

"Hollow Places" felt like a lot of exposition with not much action (there's some interpersonal conflict, some fights, and a girl/zombie subway-in-the-darkness chase... there's a lot of action, actually, but none of it felt compelling or really threatening), and the newest main character (Gabry's sister, Annah) never really felt fleshed out enough.

I kept waiting for the group to be on their way, to go out and found a new city or something, to start new lives. But the book felt like a spinning-wheels holding pattern, retreading ground the series had already covered without revealing anything new. I'm not sorry I read it, but I was expecting more from it... including, possibly, the revelation that Annah had become immune through contact with Catcher, or something (thus giving hope that OTHERS could become immune and the tide could be turned against the zombies).

Has anyone else read it? What do you think? Did you like it? Not like it? Disagree with me?