The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan

From Goodreads:

Gabry lives a quiet life. As safe a life as is possible in a town trapped between a forest and the ocean, in a world teeming with the dead, who constantly hunger for those still living. She’s content on her side of the Barrier, happy to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast while she watches from the top of her lighthouse. But there are threats the Barrier cannot hold back. Threats like the secrets Gabry’s mother thought she left behind when she escaped from the Sisterhood and the Forest of Hands and Teeth. Like the cult of religious zealots who worship the dead. Like the stranger from the forest who seems to know Gabry. And suddenly, everything is changing. One reckless moment, and half of Gabry’s generation is dead, the other half imprisoned. Now Gabry only knows one thing: she must face the forest of her mother’s past in order to save herself and the one she loves.

It's been a good long while since I read The Forest of Hands and Teeth so I struggled a bit getting back into the story. It IS a sequel but you could read it independently of the first book. I half wonder if the first book was meant to stand alone but then did so well that she decided to continue the story. However, I remember The Forest of Hands and Teeth being beautiful, almost hauntingly written. The sequel lacks some of the poetry I found in the first. 

However, The Dead Tossed Waves offers something that was seriously lacking in the first book: hope. I closed the first book feeling so dark. Everyone died except Mary, who would then have to find her way in a different town surrounded by different walls, still never escaping the Unconsecrated. The end. Things go a bit differently in the sequel. There are still devastating deaths and dark realities but that tiny spark of hope makes such a big difference in the overall feel of the book. What it lacked in poetry it made up for with faith that eventually there might be happy endings in a terribly bleak world. 

It still gave me nightmares but I think I enjoyed it a bit more than the first.