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Fairytale Retellings #1
Cacciatrici
Scarlett March ha dedicato la sua intera esistenza a cacciare i Fenris, i lupi mannari che quando era ancora una bambina le hanno portato via gli affetti e lasciato il corpo e il volto ricoperto di cicatrici. Scarlett vuole vendetta, e il suo cuore non troverà pace finché non avrà ucciso fino all’ultimo lupo.
Rosie March deve la vita alla sorella maggiore e come lei è una cacciatrice. Ma quando il rapporto con Silas, un giovane boscaiolo amico di Scarlett, diventa più profondo, Rosie comincia a pensare che la sua vita potrebbe essere diversa… Amare Silas significherà tradire sua sorella e tutto quello per cui lottano?
Rosie March deve la vita alla sorella maggiore e come lei è una cacciatrice. Ma quando il rapporto con Silas, un giovane boscaiolo amico di Scarlett, diventa più profondo, Rosie comincia a pensare che la sua vita potrebbe essere diversa… Amare Silas significherà tradire sua sorella e tutto quello per cui lottano?
290 pages, Hardcover
First published June 7, 2010
303 people are currently reading
44235 people want to read
About the author
Jackson Pearce
34 books2,614 followersI am not very active on Goodreads-- this is largely a placeholder account! Therefore, I do not read Goodreads mail. If you want to get in touch with me, please go here: CONTACT ME!
Jackson Pearce currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with a slightly cross-eyed cat and a lot of secondhand furniture. She recently graduated from the University of Georgia with a degree in English and a minor in Philosophy and currently works for a software company even though she auditioned for the circus (she juggled and twirled fire batons, but they still didn’t want her). Other jobs she’s had include obituaries writer, biker bar waitress, and receptionist.
Jackson began writing when she got angry that the school librarian couldn’t tell her of a book that contained a smart girl, horses, baby animals, and magic. Her solution was to write the book herself when she was twelve. Her parents thought it was cute at first, but have grown steadily more concerned for her ever since.
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October 11, 2011
I purchased Sisters Red because it was censored off of Bitch Magazine's 100 Young Adult Books for the Feminist Reader. Someone linked to a review on Book Smuggler. I read the review on Book Smuggler and purchased Sisters Red. I'm one of those people who will read censored books just because they were censored. Book censorship is basically one of the most ridiculous things you can do. People just get curious about the why and really there's nothing more pointless than pretending a book doesn't exist. It's like playing hide and seek with a three year old who hides under a table or behind a curtain. Their little feet are visible, but they think if they can't see you then they're well hidden. All the stuff in censored books exists off the pages of the book even if you clench your eyes tight and pretend it's not there.
However, after reading Sisters Red I've come to the conclusion that it wasn't censored. It just didn't really belong on a list geared toward feminist literature. Sisters Red is a YA book and it does have a female main character, but I don't think it belongs on a shelf with YA feminist literature -- that would be like putting Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty adult books in the children's section because it's a fairytale. A few YA authors (Maureen Johnson, Scott Westerfeld, etc) got up in arms over the removal of this book and a few others because it was censorship and therefore intrinsically wrong, but I don't think Sisters Red makes for feminist reading. Ultimately, I believe Book Smugglers is correct about the victim blaming passage -- and there's more than one of them in the book. Scarlett lives and breathes to call other girls stupid for dressing scantily and I'm pretty sure she let a girl die to teach her and her friends a lesson, but more on that later.
Scarlett and Rosie March are Fenris hunters. In Pearce's mythos the werewolves are called Fenris and can change whenever they want. Fenris hunt young girls so they can eat their hearts and savour their fear before they do it. I got the impression Fenris are not particular about what part of a girl they munch on despite the Pearce being specific about hearts early on. The Fenris aren't interested in boys, at least not according to book one. Girls are what they munch on. The younger and prettier the girl is the more appealing she is. It's also not just about the death itself, but the fear building up around it. What is it they say about rape? It's not about sex but about power, right? Yeah...
Anyway, the March girls live alone. Another YA story plagued with Disappearing Parent Syndrome and School, I Don't Need No Stinking School-itis. The story opens with the girls at eleven and nine years old. A Fenris attacks them, killing their grandmother and permanently disfiguring Scarlett. She loses an eye. The girls have an on-again and off-again mother who takes care of them for a few years along with some neighbors. Presumably she's been off-again for some time when the story opens. They have no fathers because even better than being a bad mother who vanishes on them often, their mother couldn't keep track of who she took to bed. The girls assume they are half siblings to begin with and that they have half siblings floating around, either from their fathers who are unaware of them, or another child from their mother.
Scarlett and Rosie drop out of high school so that they can hunt Fenris. Rosie doesn't particularly want to, but she owes Scarlett her life. She also laments about not being able to hold down a job because hunting Fenris is so much more important than being able to pay your bills, yet they are never tempted to share their knowledge of the Fenris. Despite all the time they dedicate to hunting, by Scarlett's count they've only killed 97 of Fenris. For the amount of pages Scarlett scowls over other girls (Dragonfly girls) and their innocent stupidity she sure as hell isn't trying to make a public service announcement about it. We, the readers, know she can't tell anyone about it because that would mean the idea of this secret world existing in our world would be revealed -- but she needs a more valid reason for that in the pages of the book than that all other fantasy does it!
The plot swells with the return of a friend and fellow hunter, Silas. Silas lives down the road and his family is the one that took care of Rosie and Scarlett. Since Rosie and Scarlett are very much on their own I'm going to say Silas's family didn't care all that much. Scarlett and Silas hunt together a lot and Rosie is the sidekick because despite being bitter that her sister is whole and beautiful, Scarlett really wants to keep her that way.
The Fenris are more active because apparently there's a Potential werewolf who is in a cycle where he can be turned from a human to a soulless monster. Silas, Rosie, and Scarlett decide to go to Atlanta where the werewolf population is denser so they can hunt while the werewolves frantically search for this new possible werewolf. Only men can become werewolves, or at least all the werewolves we encounter are men. Turning a new person into a Fenris is a big deal, but refrigerator logic tells me that if upping the population by one was so important than they would have noticed Scarlett and company killing off nearly one hundred wolves in half a decade a wee bit sooner. Oh who needs logic! We've got a YA romance on our hands, guys, and that should distract you from noticing pesky little things like plot holes.
Silas and Rosie start giving each other long, soulful gazes and touching each other in lingering ways. It would have been cool to see the less than perfect, less than totally gorgeous sister land the guy, but since this is what Pearce gave us... oh, wait. Silas is twenty-one right? How old is Rosie? *scours back through book* Guys. She's fucking sixteen years old. She's sixteen and he's twenty-one. If this was addressed for even a paragraph in the book maybe I could've come to terms with it, but it's not. This is treated as perfectly normal.
When I was in high school one of my friends started sleeping with a man in his mid-twenties. I thought this was a Very Bad Idea and we more or less stopped talking. A few years later we bumped into one another on campus at college and she admitted it was a mistake and she pushed me out of her life because I was making her face up to that fact. I didn't ask what happened with her and the guy (who was a choir instructor at her church and married to boot), but I thanked her for letting me know it wasn't really my fault we fell out of touch. I think if she had gotten her hands on this book in high school it would have validated her relationship for her and that is wrong. A twenty-one year old dating a sixteen year old is wrong. Even if you go by the laws of half your age plus eight, he shouldn't have been with anyone younger than an eighteen year old which would have been a world more appropriate.
Also, at the end of the book, seven months after the events of most of Sisters Red, Rosie and Silas go off on their own to travel and 'kiss like lovers.' At best Rosie is now seventeen. At worst she is still sixteen. She has no parental figures in her life and now she's shacking up with a man in his twenties, bouncing around the country. She is completely and utterly dependent on him from money since she's never really had a job, has no education, and they're living on the money he got from selling his house. It's even worse when you really think about how she dropped out of middle school, never went to high school, and has almost no world experience. Silas is the only man to ever pay any attention to Rosie and he is a man, not a boy. Again, shaking up with a guy significantly older than you and letting him pay for everything doesn't read perticularly feminist to me.
Scarlett's relationship with Rosie is a weird mix of jealousy and possession. They're both flat characters with no depth. Scarlett is obsessed; Rosie is her indebted servant. It would be one thing if Scarlett didn't realize how much her sister hated hunting, but she's fully aware of the leash she's got her sister on and she responds by yanking the choke collar when she finds out Rosie and Silas are getting their dry hump on. (It is after all YA. It's okay to promote rape culture, not okay for consensual sex although in this particular case it would've been statutory rape so I suppose I'm actually grateful the sexual relationship is implied in a throwaway line later rather than ever explored.)
The hatred Scarlett feels for the Dragonfly girls she constantly compares her sister to is pretty obvious. These girls have no thoughts or opinions, their level of education and contributions to society are nonexistent. They are just pretty things with turquoise eyeshadow and lip gloss. UGH. They're constantly reduced to the idea of someone's daughter, sister, girlfriend, etc etc. None of these girls have any value by themselves, just the value they hold to other people who will miss them if they get chowed on. I'm not going to re-quote the victim blaming passage Book Smugglers highlighted. You can follow the link for that one. I will, however, quote something else that really bothered me. It's hard to tell whether Scarlett deliberately left the girls in danger to punish them for being stupid or to preserve their innocent stupidity. Because she considers how she could take down the Fenris in human form before he got close without major consequences I feel it was in part about punishing them for their innocent ignorance.
They're at least my age, so how is it they laugh like children? They aren't like the sparkly club Dragonflies, but some less-adorned breed of Dragonflies in t-shirts and jeans, walking together down the city street with their arms linked and ponytails bobbing. The Fenris watches them hungrily, sniffing the air and grinning sickeningly when he catches the scent of their hair and perfume on the wind. It doesn't matter that people are all around -- I can slaughter him like the monster he is then run. They'll never find me. I need this.
Except that it does matter. Seeing the Fenris, seeing what they really are... it changes you. It changes everything, even if they don't take your eyes or your skin. The Dragonflies will never be the same -- they'll have seen the darkness; they'll know it exists despite their glittery eye shadow and glossy lips. They'll never look at the news the same way again, never look at a man noticing their legs the same way, never feel the same. I would be killing not only the Fenris, but also the girls' stupid, ignorant innocence.
Scarlett regrets the possibility of exposing them; I want to believe she's looking for an opportunity to kill him away from the girls, but I don't get why she can't kill him as a man. If she can kill him when he's still in human form then the Dragonfly girls will never be exposed to the Fenris, just some axe throwing psycho in a red cloak. It's previously stated that Scarlett and Rosie try to wait until these things go full on wolf 'to be sure,' but Scarlett IS certain. If the author's intention is to show Scarlett regretting ruining their innocence then perhaps she shouldn't have Scarlett look down on them all for it through the rest of the book because to me this read like her letting them go off to the slaughter.
In the end, one of the girls gets ripped apart while our hero in red is trailing at a distance. Scarlett steps on her elbow. She saves the other two helpless lambs and shoves them in a cab... apparently these girls didn't think the cops needed to be called. Scarlett and Rosie are the only female characters in the book whose relationships can have depth and intensity? These girls are shaken up but in a self-involved sort of way. They're trembling and clutching each other, but they don't mention their friend. Actually I don't think they even got any dialogue whatsoever.
The big reveal is Silas is the Potential. I saw it coming a long way off. The plot twist of the wolves being too late when they bit him? I knew that too. The author flatly states what time is too late and there's sentences referring to the bells of the church chiming, making it clearly past the point when they could've turned Silas.
Also, I don't understand why the Fenris waited until so close to the dead line to schedule the main confrontation. It didn't make sense. They should have wanted a wide window between them and Silas being safe. Also, Rosie's escape from the werewolf clutches was just a chance to redeem her character as useful and not too stupid to live despite how often she 'forgot' her weapons at home. There was a lot of convenient plotting in the book I'm not even getting into -- including Rosie meeting up with a Fenris at her tango lesson... Yeah, I'm being serious. Swear to God. Also, that would be one of the occasions when she 'forgot' her weapons. Later she gets kidnapped by the Fenris, still no knives. This is pretty much the definition of too stupid to live, guys.
This book is about as feminist as Twilight. Just because Scarlett kicks some ass does not make her a feminist character. If a guy I met implied half the things she actively thought I would've put my knee in his crotch early into the conversation. Her obsession and fixations with hunting don't make her auto-feminist, outraged YA authors. On top of all that, this book was also poorly written. The adverbs rain from the sky and the dialogue attribution adverbs! It sounded very campy. Here are a few gems -- there are worse examples but I can't be bothered to dig out the most awful bits.
"Wait!" he whispers sharply.
---
"I still won," she snickers in response.
This might be a pet peeve, but 1. I fucking hate the word snickers and 2. how do you snicker out dialogue. Also thanks for the 'in response' part. I never would've got that the statement was attached to the rest of the conversation without it.
---
"We're not, actually. That was what Silas and I were sparring for. He thinks I need to get out more--"
"You do," Silas interrupts.
Yeah, again, I never would have gathered he was interrupting unless you used that for his dialogue tag. Thanks.
However, after reading Sisters Red I've come to the conclusion that it wasn't censored. It just didn't really belong on a list geared toward feminist literature. Sisters Red is a YA book and it does have a female main character, but I don't think it belongs on a shelf with YA feminist literature -- that would be like putting Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty adult books in the children's section because it's a fairytale. A few YA authors (Maureen Johnson, Scott Westerfeld, etc) got up in arms over the removal of this book and a few others because it was censorship and therefore intrinsically wrong, but I don't think Sisters Red makes for feminist reading. Ultimately, I believe Book Smugglers is correct about the victim blaming passage -- and there's more than one of them in the book. Scarlett lives and breathes to call other girls stupid for dressing scantily and I'm pretty sure she let a girl die to teach her and her friends a lesson, but more on that later.
Scarlett and Rosie March are Fenris hunters. In Pearce's mythos the werewolves are called Fenris and can change whenever they want. Fenris hunt young girls so they can eat their hearts and savour their fear before they do it. I got the impression Fenris are not particular about what part of a girl they munch on despite the Pearce being specific about hearts early on. The Fenris aren't interested in boys, at least not according to book one. Girls are what they munch on. The younger and prettier the girl is the more appealing she is. It's also not just about the death itself, but the fear building up around it. What is it they say about rape? It's not about sex but about power, right? Yeah...
Anyway, the March girls live alone. Another YA story plagued with Disappearing Parent Syndrome and School, I Don't Need No Stinking School-itis. The story opens with the girls at eleven and nine years old. A Fenris attacks them, killing their grandmother and permanently disfiguring Scarlett. She loses an eye. The girls have an on-again and off-again mother who takes care of them for a few years along with some neighbors. Presumably she's been off-again for some time when the story opens. They have no fathers because even better than being a bad mother who vanishes on them often, their mother couldn't keep track of who she took to bed. The girls assume they are half siblings to begin with and that they have half siblings floating around, either from their fathers who are unaware of them, or another child from their mother.
Scarlett and Rosie drop out of high school so that they can hunt Fenris. Rosie doesn't particularly want to, but she owes Scarlett her life. She also laments about not being able to hold down a job because hunting Fenris is so much more important than being able to pay your bills, yet they are never tempted to share their knowledge of the Fenris. Despite all the time they dedicate to hunting, by Scarlett's count they've only killed 97 of Fenris. For the amount of pages Scarlett scowls over other girls (Dragonfly girls) and their innocent stupidity she sure as hell isn't trying to make a public service announcement about it. We, the readers, know she can't tell anyone about it because that would mean the idea of this secret world existing in our world would be revealed -- but she needs a more valid reason for that in the pages of the book than that all other fantasy does it!
The plot swells with the return of a friend and fellow hunter, Silas. Silas lives down the road and his family is the one that took care of Rosie and Scarlett. Since Rosie and Scarlett are very much on their own I'm going to say Silas's family didn't care all that much. Scarlett and Silas hunt together a lot and Rosie is the sidekick because despite being bitter that her sister is whole and beautiful, Scarlett really wants to keep her that way.
The Fenris are more active because apparently there's a Potential werewolf who is in a cycle where he can be turned from a human to a soulless monster. Silas, Rosie, and Scarlett decide to go to Atlanta where the werewolf population is denser so they can hunt while the werewolves frantically search for this new possible werewolf. Only men can become werewolves, or at least all the werewolves we encounter are men. Turning a new person into a Fenris is a big deal, but refrigerator logic tells me that if upping the population by one was so important than they would have noticed Scarlett and company killing off nearly one hundred wolves in half a decade a wee bit sooner. Oh who needs logic! We've got a YA romance on our hands, guys, and that should distract you from noticing pesky little things like plot holes.
Silas and Rosie start giving each other long, soulful gazes and touching each other in lingering ways. It would have been cool to see the less than perfect, less than totally gorgeous sister land the guy, but since this is what Pearce gave us... oh, wait. Silas is twenty-one right? How old is Rosie? *scours back through book* Guys. She's fucking sixteen years old. She's sixteen and he's twenty-one. If this was addressed for even a paragraph in the book maybe I could've come to terms with it, but it's not. This is treated as perfectly normal.
When I was in high school one of my friends started sleeping with a man in his mid-twenties. I thought this was a Very Bad Idea and we more or less stopped talking. A few years later we bumped into one another on campus at college and she admitted it was a mistake and she pushed me out of her life because I was making her face up to that fact. I didn't ask what happened with her and the guy (who was a choir instructor at her church and married to boot), but I thanked her for letting me know it wasn't really my fault we fell out of touch. I think if she had gotten her hands on this book in high school it would have validated her relationship for her and that is wrong. A twenty-one year old dating a sixteen year old is wrong. Even if you go by the laws of half your age plus eight, he shouldn't have been with anyone younger than an eighteen year old which would have been a world more appropriate.
Also, at the end of the book, seven months after the events of most of Sisters Red, Rosie and Silas go off on their own to travel and 'kiss like lovers.' At best Rosie is now seventeen. At worst she is still sixteen. She has no parental figures in her life and now she's shacking up with a man in his twenties, bouncing around the country. She is completely and utterly dependent on him from money since she's never really had a job, has no education, and they're living on the money he got from selling his house. It's even worse when you really think about how she dropped out of middle school, never went to high school, and has almost no world experience. Silas is the only man to ever pay any attention to Rosie and he is a man, not a boy. Again, shaking up with a guy significantly older than you and letting him pay for everything doesn't read perticularly feminist to me.
Scarlett's relationship with Rosie is a weird mix of jealousy and possession. They're both flat characters with no depth. Scarlett is obsessed; Rosie is her indebted servant. It would be one thing if Scarlett didn't realize how much her sister hated hunting, but she's fully aware of the leash she's got her sister on and she responds by yanking the choke collar when she finds out Rosie and Silas are getting their dry hump on. (It is after all YA. It's okay to promote rape culture, not okay for consensual sex although in this particular case it would've been statutory rape so I suppose I'm actually grateful the sexual relationship is implied in a throwaway line later rather than ever explored.)
The hatred Scarlett feels for the Dragonfly girls she constantly compares her sister to is pretty obvious. These girls have no thoughts or opinions, their level of education and contributions to society are nonexistent. They are just pretty things with turquoise eyeshadow and lip gloss. UGH. They're constantly reduced to the idea of someone's daughter, sister, girlfriend, etc etc. None of these girls have any value by themselves, just the value they hold to other people who will miss them if they get chowed on. I'm not going to re-quote the victim blaming passage Book Smugglers highlighted. You can follow the link for that one. I will, however, quote something else that really bothered me. It's hard to tell whether Scarlett deliberately left the girls in danger to punish them for being stupid or to preserve their innocent stupidity. Because she considers how she could take down the Fenris in human form before he got close without major consequences I feel it was in part about punishing them for their innocent ignorance.
They're at least my age, so how is it they laugh like children? They aren't like the sparkly club Dragonflies, but some less-adorned breed of Dragonflies in t-shirts and jeans, walking together down the city street with their arms linked and ponytails bobbing. The Fenris watches them hungrily, sniffing the air and grinning sickeningly when he catches the scent of their hair and perfume on the wind. It doesn't matter that people are all around -- I can slaughter him like the monster he is then run. They'll never find me. I need this.
Except that it does matter. Seeing the Fenris, seeing what they really are... it changes you. It changes everything, even if they don't take your eyes or your skin. The Dragonflies will never be the same -- they'll have seen the darkness; they'll know it exists despite their glittery eye shadow and glossy lips. They'll never look at the news the same way again, never look at a man noticing their legs the same way, never feel the same. I would be killing not only the Fenris, but also the girls' stupid, ignorant innocence.
Scarlett regrets the possibility of exposing them; I want to believe she's looking for an opportunity to kill him away from the girls, but I don't get why she can't kill him as a man. If she can kill him when he's still in human form then the Dragonfly girls will never be exposed to the Fenris, just some axe throwing psycho in a red cloak. It's previously stated that Scarlett and Rosie try to wait until these things go full on wolf 'to be sure,' but Scarlett IS certain. If the author's intention is to show Scarlett regretting ruining their innocence then perhaps she shouldn't have Scarlett look down on them all for it through the rest of the book because to me this read like her letting them go off to the slaughter.
In the end, one of the girls gets ripped apart while our hero in red is trailing at a distance. Scarlett steps on her elbow. She saves the other two helpless lambs and shoves them in a cab... apparently these girls didn't think the cops needed to be called. Scarlett and Rosie are the only female characters in the book whose relationships can have depth and intensity? These girls are shaken up but in a self-involved sort of way. They're trembling and clutching each other, but they don't mention their friend. Actually I don't think they even got any dialogue whatsoever.
The big reveal is Silas is the Potential. I saw it coming a long way off. The plot twist of the wolves being too late when they bit him? I knew that too. The author flatly states what time is too late and there's sentences referring to the bells of the church chiming, making it clearly past the point when they could've turned Silas.
Also, I don't understand why the Fenris waited until so close to the dead line to schedule the main confrontation. It didn't make sense. They should have wanted a wide window between them and Silas being safe. Also, Rosie's escape from the werewolf clutches was just a chance to redeem her character as useful and not too stupid to live despite how often she 'forgot' her weapons at home. There was a lot of convenient plotting in the book I'm not even getting into -- including Rosie meeting up with a Fenris at her tango lesson... Yeah, I'm being serious. Swear to God. Also, that would be one of the occasions when she 'forgot' her weapons. Later she gets kidnapped by the Fenris, still no knives. This is pretty much the definition of too stupid to live, guys.
This book is about as feminist as Twilight. Just because Scarlett kicks some ass does not make her a feminist character. If a guy I met implied half the things she actively thought I would've put my knee in his crotch early into the conversation. Her obsession and fixations with hunting don't make her auto-feminist, outraged YA authors. On top of all that, this book was also poorly written. The adverbs rain from the sky and the dialogue attribution adverbs! It sounded very campy. Here are a few gems -- there are worse examples but I can't be bothered to dig out the most awful bits.
"Wait!" he whispers sharply.
---
"I still won," she snickers in response.
This might be a pet peeve, but 1. I fucking hate the word snickers and 2. how do you snicker out dialogue. Also thanks for the 'in response' part. I never would've got that the statement was attached to the rest of the conversation without it.
---
"We're not, actually. That was what Silas and I were sparring for. He thinks I need to get out more--"
"You do," Silas interrupts.
Yeah, again, I never would have gathered he was interrupting unless you used that for his dialogue tag. Thanks.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
March 5, 2019
still one of the best movie posters ever.
still one of the best songs ever
so i understand why barnes and noble has this filed under "teen paranormal romance," but that is really a terrible designation. frankly,it is terrible that such a category even exists, or that there are such a substantial number of books in the section. to my way of thinking, it should really only be like half a shelf, like the agriculture section in our store. (because, really, in nyc, who needs that many books about how to raise chickens?)
teen paranormal romance. gross. seriously, why are girls so into falling in love with corpses or werewolves? kids got some sick kinks these days.
but my point is - this is not a paranormal romance. it is just a twist on the little red riding hood tale. two sisters, with three eyes between 'em, battle fenris with the help of a dashing woodsman...
god, that sounds stupid.
but it's actually really enjoyable. when the sisters were young, they were attacked by a fenris - kind of like a werewolf, but not dependent upon the cycles of the moon, necessarily. one sister sacrificed herself (and one of her eyes - eee) to save her younger sister. now they are all grown up, and they battle the fenris wherever they find them, with red cloaks and hatchets and knives and feminine wiles.
pretty badass.
scarlett is the older sister, horribly scarred from her years of single-mindedly and obsessively destroying fenris. rosie is the younger, novice hunter, who feels compelled to hunt because of the sacrifices her sister made for her, but who still yearns for a regular life like a regular girl.
silas is the dreamy woodsman who has known both the girls from childhood and lends his axe to the fight. and by "axe," i mean...well, axe. but also some smoldering feelings.
this could easily be stupid, but it is a really great concept. because, see, fenris are drawn to young girls. young, pretty, good-smelling girls who are too oblivious to the dangers around them. girls who maybe get a little too drunk at a club in their miniskirts and tottery heels, who let themselves get into situations that end badly for them. (mmm marinated in vodka - all the better to eat you with, my dear.) and scarlett is their protector - the patron saint of dumb drunk chicks. and it would be nice if such a patron saint existed, but they don't, so seriously, ladies - stay in control. there are all kinds of predators, and not all of them will have doggy-breath. some may even seem civilized.
the relationship between the sisters was particularly well-done. theirs is a bond based upon a chilling formative-years experience, and a common goal that has to necessarily remain unshared with the greater world. with silas, the three of them form this tiny insular circle, binding them ever-tighter into what should be a claustrophobic situation, but throughout all of the danger and the petty squabbles and the misunderstandings, their sisterhood prevails. it is a wonderful testament to sisters.
i'm a little partial (short and stout) to fairy-tale retellings, but even without that setup, it is a pretty cool story about some kickass young ladies. and one guy. but mostly the ladies. i do recommend it to people who like the YA action books, but i honestly wouldn't stress the romantic elements. they are not what is carrying this book.
and again, ladies - mind the wolves.
come to my blog!
December 1, 2022
This school year, 'my' students seem to be into Mythology and all creatures of the SuperNatural/ParaNormal variety, so I'm pretty stoked to be sharing SISTERS RED with them tomorrow.
It is a fun read, without being fluffy. Strong characters---with flaws, and realistic emotions. The story pulls you in quickly with a scare, intrigues you with the unbreakable (or so they've always thought), bond of sisters, makes you sigh with a bit of tentative romance, then wraps you up with a mystery. What else could you want? A were-wolf? Ahhh, then meet Ms. Jackson's Fenrir.
Sisters Red---a book with a little bit of everything that I love in a good book. Enjoy.
It is a fun read, without being fluffy. Strong characters---with flaws, and realistic emotions. The story pulls you in quickly with a scare, intrigues you with the unbreakable (or so they've always thought), bond of sisters, makes you sigh with a bit of tentative romance, then wraps you up with a mystery. What else could you want? A were-wolf? Ahhh, then meet Ms. Jackson's Fenrir.
Sisters Red---a book with a little bit of everything that I love in a good book. Enjoy.
March 30, 2012
"I am confident, I am capable, and I will not wait to be rescued by a woodsman or a hunter. I will escape."
3.5
Hmm, this is a very difficult book to rate. One one hand, it contains most of the elements I consider important in a good urban fantasy novel: tough heroines, nice love interest - but with the story focus being on bigger things than whether or not they'll get together, mean and nasty supernaturals, touch of grittiness... yet I still had a few problems. I thought Rosie was a very dull character for 95% of the novel, but the worst part was that the whole big "mystery" would be obvious to anyone with half a brain cell from page 50 onwards (especially if you read the blurb which gives everything away).
I find it actually quite odd that Jackson Pearce built it up as such a huge mystery, I was sure that there had to be some twist coming because, honestly, I am one of the densest readers out there and I saw it coming a mile off.
However, the story is very fast-paced and easy to read. The first 100 pages are just your standard fairytale retelling stuff, bit of background information that draws parallels between this story and the tale of Red Riding Hood, two sisters become hunters to avenge their grandmother's death and also to protect other girls from falling prey to the fenris. Things really start to get interesting after the 100 page marker when the girls move to the city and start hunting the bigger predators. There's a lot to be enjoyed in this book.
Perhaps the story's strongest aspect, for me, was the relationship between the two sisters. It was a strong, convincing bond that people only develop through sharing unspeakable and horrific experiences. But I found Scarlett - the older sister - to be the far better and interesting and just well-rounded character. After losing an eye and being left deformed in the attack that killed her grandma, Scarlett has become the scarred warrior. She is obsessed with hunting and revenge, she loves her sister and would go to extreme lengths to protect her, yet at the same time she holds a secret envy of her sister's beauty and her ability to have a normal life and boyfriend. She is the far more complex sister. Whereas Rosie is supposed to be the opposite, a romantic dreamer secretly longing for a normal life outside of hunting... I found her boring. That is, until she decided to turn out the best quote of the book (see top of review).
I was pleased to discover that the description's emphasis on the romance in the novel is not particularly reflective of the story itself. The romance is only a very small part of the plot with a male character who is kind and respectful, surprising seeing as Becca Fitzpatrick is quoted on the back of my copy.
So... this was a good book, not a great book, but I may read some more by this author in the future to see what else she cooks up. This is good if you're looking for some light - if slightly gory - entertainment.
February 12, 2013
Originally reviewed on The Book Smugglers back in 2010 (a few months later this review caused a shitstorm online and you can read about it here).
Ana’s take:
Listen.
I could tell you that for the first pages of this book I was completely engrossed in the story. How could I not? I mean, a dark, violent even, retelling of Red Riding Hood in which two sisters are the hunters who kill the wolves? I am in. It helps that the first pages were very gripping: back in the past when the kids lived with their grandmother and were attacked by a passing werewolf and Scarlett, the oldest sister, protects the younger Rosie almost to her own death losing an eye in the fight and becoming scarred for life. Then, as teenagers they fall in the roles that they have taken for themselves that day: Scarlett, the protector, Rosie the protégée – both equally fierce Hunters but with a striking difference. Scarlett sees nothing but the hunt, Rosie wants something else for her life.
I could tell you that I like the prose. But also that the tale and the alternating chapters between the two sisters get repetitive very soon. I could tell you that when the next door neighbour, a woodsman-hunter named Silas comes back to town that I knew Rosie would fall for him and that their story was actually quite sweet.
I could definitely tell you that part of what makes me like the book to begin with is the fact that making the two girls the ones who go after the werewolves to kill them is rather an empowering take on the original tale.
I could tell you all that.
But what I really want to tell you is: when I hit page 108 (of the ARC) I went nuts. You see, it is part of this retelling that the werewolves are predators who are after young, pretty girls. As part of their hunting routine, Rosie will dress up, put on make-up and perfume (because she usually doesn’t do that as she is a “natural beauty”). Obviously, Scarlett, being the ugly, scarred sister, just sits back to attack when Rosie has played the role of prey. So, page 108. Scarlett is outside a nightclub observing the girls in the queue to get in:
"They’re adorned in glittery green rhinestones, shimmery turquoise and aquamarine powders streaked across their eyelids. Dragonfly girls. Their hair is all the same, long and streaked, spiralling down their backs to where the tiny strings holding their tops on are knotted tightly. Their skin glows under the neon lights – amber, ebony, cream – like shined metal, flawless and smooth. I press harder against the crumbly brick wall behind me, tugging my crimson cloak closer to my body. The scars on my shoulders show through fabric when I pull the cloak tight. Bumpy red hills in perfectly spaced lines.
The Dragonflies laugh, sweet, and bubbly, and I groan in exasperation. They toss their hair, stretch their legs, sway their hips, bat their eyes at the club’s bouncer, everything about them luring the Fenris. Inviting danger like some baby animal bleating its fool head off. Look at me, see how I dance, did you notice my hair, look again, desire me, I am perfect. Stupid, stupid Dragonflies. Here I am, saving your lives, bitten and scarred and wounded for you, and you don’t even know it. I should let the Fenris have one of you.
No, I didn’t mean that. I sigh and walk to the other side of the brick wall, letting my fingers tangle in the thick ivy. It’s dark on this side, shadowed from the neon lights of the street. I breathe slowly, watching the tree limbs sway, backlit by the lights of skyscrapers. Of course I didn’t mean it. Ignorance is no reason to die. They can’t help what they are, still happily unaware inside a cave of fake shadows. They exist in a world that’s beautiful normal, where people have jobs and dreams that don’t involve a hatcher. My world is parallel universe to their – the same sights, same people, same city, yet the Fenris lurk, the evil creeps, the knowledge undeniably exists. If I hadn’t been thrown into this world, I could just as easily have been a Dragonfly."
I felt extremely uncomfortable with this passage, but as much as this is some serious twisted thinking, I can understand Scarlett feeling this way. She is an angry character, full of regret, jealousy – and being scarred and ugly does get to her (seeing as how she keeps going on and on about it). So, the text above is in keeping with this character.
BUT
Two lines down and Silas joins her as she observes him:
" His eyes narrow in something between disgust and intrigue, as though he’s not certain if he likes looking at them or not. I want to comment, but I stay quiet. Somehow it feels important to wait for his reaction. Silas finally turns to look at me in the shadows.
“It’s like they’re trying to be eaten, isn’t it? he asks pointedly.
“Can I tell you how glad I am that and Rosie aren’t like them?”
“No kidding.” I grin, relieved. “Rosie could be if she wanted, though. She’s beautiful like they are.”
“Beauty has nothing to do with it. Rosie could never be one of them. Do you really think they’d dress and act like that if they knew it was drawing wolves toward them?”"
No. NO. NO. NO. NO. JUST NO.
By then, I was beyond uncomfortable, I was downright angry. The meta is thus: the girls should know better. If they knew better, they would change their behaviour and would not be attacked. This is what I read. But this is not what I should be reading.
NEVER, EVER blame the victims. The blame always, always lies with the criminal (or predator).
And just like that I am done with the book. Because I can’t respect the characters who think like this, because I lost respect for their motivation for being hunters (it’s not about REALLY about protecting the girls is it? It is almost about proving a point) and if I can’t relate with their plight then the book is nothing to me. Because the bottom line is this: the book empowers women yes, but ONLY certain types of girls, not all of them. And I am sick and tired of books that associate girls that are self-confident and beautiful with being shallow and superficial and deserving of bad things happening to them. SICK AND TIRED.
That is not ok.
I did read till the bitter end in the hopes that another character would come in and say: “yo, stewpid, GET A GRIP” but alas, no such thing has happened. I can’t even be bothered to rate this book. I will only say:
FAIL
Thea’s Take:
Clearly, Ana feels VERY strongly about this book, especially about the excerpt above. Now, I’ll admit that when I first read this passage, I didn’t immediately see what Ana picked up on. I tend to get annoyed with flitty girls in general, and Scarlett’s anger at the “dragonflies” seems well-founded and in line with her character, regardless of whether I liked her character or not. As a scarred, bitter young woman dedicated to destroying all Fenris at any cost, this sort of thought process makes perfect sense for someone like Scarlett.
But then, after Ana pointed out the next section, it made me think about the overall message…and I stand firmly with Ana. Enraged.
Just because a girl is pretty, and likes to look pretty; just because a girl goes out to the club in revealing clothes; just because a girl likes the attention that comes with being young and attractive, this DOES NOT MEAN she is stupid, or a whore, or fucking “asking for it” (pardon my French, but this is a disgusting mindset and pisses me off to no end). It is frustrating – no, infuriating – beyond belief that the women in Sisters Red are so stereotyped and marginalized. Don’t get me wrong – I love warrior women/strong women/badass fighter women, as much as the next person. But this gross generalization that girls that go out to have fun and be noticed are somehow billions of times inferior to their too-tough-to-look-pretty (but OF COURSE are effortlessly gorgeous *eyes rolling*) counterparts?
Nu-uh. Not cool.
Now, you might be telling yourself, ‘well, these two seem to be taking a single passage a bit far’ or something to that end. Well, folks, unfortunately Sisters Red has a whole lot of other problems too.
1: The characters are mind-numbingly repetitive and boring.
Initially, I found a lot to like with Sisters Red. The opening scene with Grandma valiantly holding off the big bad wolf to save the children, and then Scarlett’s desperate last stand to save Rosie, is EPIC. I loved that Scarlett is abrasive and tough, that she’s missing an eye and is both terrified of the wolves, yet completely in love with the hunt. I love that Rosie is a different person – that she cannot remember the past too clearly, and that she clearly loves Lett, but needs to grow to be her own person.
BUT. All of this? All this promising characterization is exhausted in the first thirty or so pages of the book. From then on it is more of. the. same. Scarlett gets mad at Rosie for being careless. Scarlett goes hunting for Fenris. Scarlett gets mad again and wallows in her pit of eternal self-suffering. Meanwhile, Rosie wants to be taken seriously (and thinks Silas is freaking HAWT). But she wants to be taken seriously. She tries to make peace with Scarlett (and Silas is HAWT). And so on and so forth.
Things get pretty dull, pretty quickly. These characters never felt real to me – more like your standard cardboard stand-ins. (Just because characters are “troubled” doesn’t immediately mean they are well-developed. SHOW me. Don’t keep TELLING me.)
2: The “Romance” is the same predictable uninspired tripe.
From the second Rosie sees Silas, and vice versa, it’s all “he looks different, his jaw is so angular and manly!” and “she looks different, all ‘grown up’ and beautiful!” (I’m paraphrasing of course). To be honest, I’m sick of it. Could this book just have been about the sisters without one of them needing the catalyst of falling in love with the studly boy next door? ARGH.
Of course, this could just be me and how burned out I am with YA paranormal romance. Lots of people love this stuff. I, unfortunately, am at the end of my rope.
3: The hunting element of the story is STUPID.
*Caps lock engaged* WHY THE HELL WOULD THESE SISTERS BE HUNTING WITH HATCHETS AS OPPOSED TO…I don’t know…GUNS?!??? If Scarlett’s true ambition is to take out every single “Fenris” on the planet, wouldn’t it make sense to take out a bunch of them with a semi-automatic weapon, as opposed to the good ol’ woodsman hatchet technique? And while scampering around in a blood red cloak is awesome and all, this book doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The story takes place in MODERN DAY. The red riding hood cloaks, while they go great with the idea of the story, aren’t exactly…congruous with the time period. (Not to mention, you’d think the stupid wolves would remember two chicks – one with an eyepatch – hunting around not-so-incognito in bright red cloaks)
Also, in my opinion the term “Fenris” is stupid. Is it plural? Singular? Yeah, yeah, I get that it derives from Fenrir – but “Fenris” just looks stupid and forced to me. If you’re going with Norse mythology, stick with the root name. (That is, if you’re not going with the more familiar “werewolf” terminology, which doesn’t make sense in the first place given how much more prevalent “werewolf” is in modern vernacular!)
These were my issues with Sisters Red – which arose long before the club scene – and they were enough to make me put down the book.
Ana’s take:
Listen.
I could tell you that for the first pages of this book I was completely engrossed in the story. How could I not? I mean, a dark, violent even, retelling of Red Riding Hood in which two sisters are the hunters who kill the wolves? I am in. It helps that the first pages were very gripping: back in the past when the kids lived with their grandmother and were attacked by a passing werewolf and Scarlett, the oldest sister, protects the younger Rosie almost to her own death losing an eye in the fight and becoming scarred for life. Then, as teenagers they fall in the roles that they have taken for themselves that day: Scarlett, the protector, Rosie the protégée – both equally fierce Hunters but with a striking difference. Scarlett sees nothing but the hunt, Rosie wants something else for her life.
I could tell you that I like the prose. But also that the tale and the alternating chapters between the two sisters get repetitive very soon. I could tell you that when the next door neighbour, a woodsman-hunter named Silas comes back to town that I knew Rosie would fall for him and that their story was actually quite sweet.
I could definitely tell you that part of what makes me like the book to begin with is the fact that making the two girls the ones who go after the werewolves to kill them is rather an empowering take on the original tale.
I could tell you all that.
But what I really want to tell you is: when I hit page 108 (of the ARC) I went nuts. You see, it is part of this retelling that the werewolves are predators who are after young, pretty girls. As part of their hunting routine, Rosie will dress up, put on make-up and perfume (because she usually doesn’t do that as she is a “natural beauty”). Obviously, Scarlett, being the ugly, scarred sister, just sits back to attack when Rosie has played the role of prey. So, page 108. Scarlett is outside a nightclub observing the girls in the queue to get in:
"They’re adorned in glittery green rhinestones, shimmery turquoise and aquamarine powders streaked across their eyelids. Dragonfly girls. Their hair is all the same, long and streaked, spiralling down their backs to where the tiny strings holding their tops on are knotted tightly. Their skin glows under the neon lights – amber, ebony, cream – like shined metal, flawless and smooth. I press harder against the crumbly brick wall behind me, tugging my crimson cloak closer to my body. The scars on my shoulders show through fabric when I pull the cloak tight. Bumpy red hills in perfectly spaced lines.
The Dragonflies laugh, sweet, and bubbly, and I groan in exasperation. They toss their hair, stretch their legs, sway their hips, bat their eyes at the club’s bouncer, everything about them luring the Fenris. Inviting danger like some baby animal bleating its fool head off. Look at me, see how I dance, did you notice my hair, look again, desire me, I am perfect. Stupid, stupid Dragonflies. Here I am, saving your lives, bitten and scarred and wounded for you, and you don’t even know it. I should let the Fenris have one of you.
No, I didn’t mean that. I sigh and walk to the other side of the brick wall, letting my fingers tangle in the thick ivy. It’s dark on this side, shadowed from the neon lights of the street. I breathe slowly, watching the tree limbs sway, backlit by the lights of skyscrapers. Of course I didn’t mean it. Ignorance is no reason to die. They can’t help what they are, still happily unaware inside a cave of fake shadows. They exist in a world that’s beautiful normal, where people have jobs and dreams that don’t involve a hatcher. My world is parallel universe to their – the same sights, same people, same city, yet the Fenris lurk, the evil creeps, the knowledge undeniably exists. If I hadn’t been thrown into this world, I could just as easily have been a Dragonfly."
I felt extremely uncomfortable with this passage, but as much as this is some serious twisted thinking, I can understand Scarlett feeling this way. She is an angry character, full of regret, jealousy – and being scarred and ugly does get to her (seeing as how she keeps going on and on about it). So, the text above is in keeping with this character.
BUT
Two lines down and Silas joins her as she observes him:
" His eyes narrow in something between disgust and intrigue, as though he’s not certain if he likes looking at them or not. I want to comment, but I stay quiet. Somehow it feels important to wait for his reaction. Silas finally turns to look at me in the shadows.
“It’s like they’re trying to be eaten, isn’t it? he asks pointedly.
“Can I tell you how glad I am that and Rosie aren’t like them?”
“No kidding.” I grin, relieved. “Rosie could be if she wanted, though. She’s beautiful like they are.”
“Beauty has nothing to do with it. Rosie could never be one of them. Do you really think they’d dress and act like that if they knew it was drawing wolves toward them?”"
No. NO. NO. NO. NO. JUST NO.
By then, I was beyond uncomfortable, I was downright angry. The meta is thus: the girls should know better. If they knew better, they would change their behaviour and would not be attacked. This is what I read. But this is not what I should be reading.
NEVER, EVER blame the victims. The blame always, always lies with the criminal (or predator).
And just like that I am done with the book. Because I can’t respect the characters who think like this, because I lost respect for their motivation for being hunters (it’s not about REALLY about protecting the girls is it? It is almost about proving a point) and if I can’t relate with their plight then the book is nothing to me. Because the bottom line is this: the book empowers women yes, but ONLY certain types of girls, not all of them. And I am sick and tired of books that associate girls that are self-confident and beautiful with being shallow and superficial and deserving of bad things happening to them. SICK AND TIRED.
That is not ok.
I did read till the bitter end in the hopes that another character would come in and say: “yo, stewpid, GET A GRIP” but alas, no such thing has happened. I can’t even be bothered to rate this book. I will only say:
FAIL
Thea’s Take:
Clearly, Ana feels VERY strongly about this book, especially about the excerpt above. Now, I’ll admit that when I first read this passage, I didn’t immediately see what Ana picked up on. I tend to get annoyed with flitty girls in general, and Scarlett’s anger at the “dragonflies” seems well-founded and in line with her character, regardless of whether I liked her character or not. As a scarred, bitter young woman dedicated to destroying all Fenris at any cost, this sort of thought process makes perfect sense for someone like Scarlett.
But then, after Ana pointed out the next section, it made me think about the overall message…and I stand firmly with Ana. Enraged.
Just because a girl is pretty, and likes to look pretty; just because a girl goes out to the club in revealing clothes; just because a girl likes the attention that comes with being young and attractive, this DOES NOT MEAN she is stupid, or a whore, or fucking “asking for it” (pardon my French, but this is a disgusting mindset and pisses me off to no end). It is frustrating – no, infuriating – beyond belief that the women in Sisters Red are so stereotyped and marginalized. Don’t get me wrong – I love warrior women/strong women/badass fighter women, as much as the next person. But this gross generalization that girls that go out to have fun and be noticed are somehow billions of times inferior to their too-tough-to-look-pretty (but OF COURSE are effortlessly gorgeous *eyes rolling*) counterparts?
Nu-uh. Not cool.
Now, you might be telling yourself, ‘well, these two seem to be taking a single passage a bit far’ or something to that end. Well, folks, unfortunately Sisters Red has a whole lot of other problems too.
1: The characters are mind-numbingly repetitive and boring.
Initially, I found a lot to like with Sisters Red. The opening scene with Grandma valiantly holding off the big bad wolf to save the children, and then Scarlett’s desperate last stand to save Rosie, is EPIC. I loved that Scarlett is abrasive and tough, that she’s missing an eye and is both terrified of the wolves, yet completely in love with the hunt. I love that Rosie is a different person – that she cannot remember the past too clearly, and that she clearly loves Lett, but needs to grow to be her own person.
BUT. All of this? All this promising characterization is exhausted in the first thirty or so pages of the book. From then on it is more of. the. same. Scarlett gets mad at Rosie for being careless. Scarlett goes hunting for Fenris. Scarlett gets mad again and wallows in her pit of eternal self-suffering. Meanwhile, Rosie wants to be taken seriously (and thinks Silas is freaking HAWT). But she wants to be taken seriously. She tries to make peace with Scarlett (and Silas is HAWT). And so on and so forth.
Things get pretty dull, pretty quickly. These characters never felt real to me – more like your standard cardboard stand-ins. (Just because characters are “troubled” doesn’t immediately mean they are well-developed. SHOW me. Don’t keep TELLING me.)
2: The “Romance” is the same predictable uninspired tripe.
From the second Rosie sees Silas, and vice versa, it’s all “he looks different, his jaw is so angular and manly!” and “she looks different, all ‘grown up’ and beautiful!” (I’m paraphrasing of course). To be honest, I’m sick of it. Could this book just have been about the sisters without one of them needing the catalyst of falling in love with the studly boy next door? ARGH.
Of course, this could just be me and how burned out I am with YA paranormal romance. Lots of people love this stuff. I, unfortunately, am at the end of my rope.
3: The hunting element of the story is STUPID.
*Caps lock engaged* WHY THE HELL WOULD THESE SISTERS BE HUNTING WITH HATCHETS AS OPPOSED TO…I don’t know…GUNS?!??? If Scarlett’s true ambition is to take out every single “Fenris” on the planet, wouldn’t it make sense to take out a bunch of them with a semi-automatic weapon, as opposed to the good ol’ woodsman hatchet technique? And while scampering around in a blood red cloak is awesome and all, this book doesn’t exist in a vacuum. The story takes place in MODERN DAY. The red riding hood cloaks, while they go great with the idea of the story, aren’t exactly…congruous with the time period. (Not to mention, you’d think the stupid wolves would remember two chicks – one with an eyepatch – hunting around not-so-incognito in bright red cloaks)
Also, in my opinion the term “Fenris” is stupid. Is it plural? Singular? Yeah, yeah, I get that it derives from Fenrir – but “Fenris” just looks stupid and forced to me. If you’re going with Norse mythology, stick with the root name. (That is, if you’re not going with the more familiar “werewolf” terminology, which doesn’t make sense in the first place given how much more prevalent “werewolf” is in modern vernacular!)
These were my issues with Sisters Red – which arose long before the club scene – and they were enough to make me put down the book.
December 11, 2018
Me gustó. Lo empecé con un poco de reticencia porque leí varios comentarios poco favorables, pero a mí me enganchó la historia, me encantaron los personajes, me angustié horrores con el último enfrentamiento y el epílogo me dejó con mucha nostalgia… pero de la buena, de esa que es inevitable cuando las personas van creciendo.
Sí reconozco que al libro le falta bastante pulido, hay algunos errores argumentales y al ritmo con que estas chicas se encontraban con Fenris, da para pensar que una de cada diez personas era uno de ellos. Además, resulta increíble que cada encuentro pasara inadvertido para el resto de la gente que deambulara por la ciudad.
Sin embargo, me gustó mucho como la autora planteó la relación de las dos hermanas y, a su vez, la de ellas con Silas, fundamental para la trama y sobre todo para el final. También me gustó cómo va dando vuelta el argumento para que lo que pareciera previsible, después no lo fuera y después… Bueno, nada más.
No es lo mejor que he leído en el género, pero fue una lectura que disfruté bastante.
Sí reconozco que al libro le falta bastante pulido, hay algunos errores argumentales y al ritmo con que estas chicas se encontraban con Fenris, da para pensar que una de cada diez personas era uno de ellos. Además, resulta increíble que cada encuentro pasara inadvertido para el resto de la gente que deambulara por la ciudad.
Sin embargo, me gustó mucho como la autora planteó la relación de las dos hermanas y, a su vez, la de ellas con Silas, fundamental para la trama y sobre todo para el final. También me gustó cómo va dando vuelta el argumento para que lo que pareciera previsible, después no lo fuera y después… Bueno, nada más.
No es lo mejor que he leído en el género, pero fue una lectura que disfruté bastante.
May 2, 2017
Best red riding hood retelling ive ever read! I loved the wolf hunting (it reminded me of supernatural). And the two sisters relationship is strained and broken but still so strong. I loved the semi love triangle and the friendship between the three of them,So strong and connected and secretive all at once. Alot of it actually reminds me of supernatural which might be why i like it so much! Looking for the potential and... plot twist.
I also really like both points of view. Each sisters POV kept me entertained and i enjoyed reading both (but i liked Rosies a bit better).
I also really like both points of view. Each sisters POV kept me entertained and i enjoyed reading both (but i liked Rosies a bit better).
November 3, 2015
Le sigh. This book should be called Sisters Miss The Point.
March 26, 2021
This was due on my shelf for a long time and after reading this, I wouldn't mind if it had stayed on that shelf for a while. A long while.
Sisters Red started out really hypnotic. I was just sucked into that world. Love of two sisters for one another and their bond was amazing until the younger sister falls for the older sister's best friend. They do get mad at each other for different reasons and even then their love doesn't lessen for one another which is exactly what happens with majority of the siblings. I really loved their relationship with each other.
While I really loved Scarlett, I didn't like Rosie at all. Scarlett is fierce, strong and thinks on her feet and thinks about others. Rosie just thinks about herself, her life and her love of life which is Silas.
Silas's character turned out to be pretty strong but I kinda started hating him when I realized that he's so much like Rosie and I already didn't like Rosie. Also, they end up together which I found ludicrous, I mean why couldn't Scarlett end up with him.
It was a good re-telling that ended badly.
2.5 stars
Sisters Red started out really hypnotic. I was just sucked into that world. Love of two sisters for one another and their bond was amazing until the younger sister falls for the older sister's best friend. They do get mad at each other for different reasons and even then their love doesn't lessen for one another which is exactly what happens with majority of the siblings. I really loved their relationship with each other.
While I really loved Scarlett, I didn't like Rosie at all. Scarlett is fierce, strong and thinks on her feet and thinks about others. Rosie just thinks about herself, her life and her love of life which is Silas.
Silas's character turned out to be pretty strong but I kinda started hating him when I realized that he's so much like Rosie and I already didn't like Rosie. Also, they end up together which I found ludicrous, I mean why couldn't Scarlett end up with him.
It was a good re-telling that ended badly.
2.5 stars
July 16, 2018
I loved Pearce's debut novel, As You Wish.... and while I loved the idea of Sisters Red.... I just enjoy it quite as much as I did As You Wish.
I loved how Pearce portrayed Rosie and Scarlett's world... it was almost like they lived in this fairy tale realm that was on the outer edge of a world much like our own, there was something very notable about that. And I loved the relationship between the sisters. Having two sisters of my own, I understand how strong of a bond sisterhood can be. Not to mention that the plot twist was AWESOME, even though I kinda sorta saw it coming! And Pearce's writing was top notch just as it was in As You Wish.
But I guess that is where my love for this novel ended. I had a really hard time getting into the story. It just didn't seem like much was happening. Sure there were some kick ass fights every once in a while, but it just wasn't all that interesting. I found Scarlett's passion of killing the Fenris to be annoying. She was too selfish of a character, and her abilities where just a little too unrealistic for me... did she honestly think she could go on with it being just the three of them like this forever? Perhaps I would have enjoyed the story more if it would have been told solely from Rosie's point of view. Scarlett started to grow on me a little bit there in the end, but I was still bitter with her from all of her crap at the beginning!
The romance between Silas and Rosie was something that I did enjoy! It was sweet and endearing! And I almost wish Scarlett might have had a little bit of love to soften her rough edges..... not that love is the answer to everything wrong in Scarlett's world... but I think the healing of power of love might have done her a little good.
So... to break it down... I loved the story, the writing... and some of the characters. It was a little bit slow for me, and had a hard time getting into, but I am glad that I stuck through and made it to the end.
I loved how Pearce portrayed Rosie and Scarlett's world... it was almost like they lived in this fairy tale realm that was on the outer edge of a world much like our own, there was something very notable about that. And I loved the relationship between the sisters. Having two sisters of my own, I understand how strong of a bond sisterhood can be. Not to mention that the plot twist was AWESOME, even though I kinda sorta saw it coming! And Pearce's writing was top notch just as it was in As You Wish.
But I guess that is where my love for this novel ended. I had a really hard time getting into the story. It just didn't seem like much was happening. Sure there were some kick ass fights every once in a while, but it just wasn't all that interesting. I found Scarlett's passion of killing the Fenris to be annoying. She was too selfish of a character, and her abilities where just a little too unrealistic for me... did she honestly think she could go on with it being just the three of them like this forever? Perhaps I would have enjoyed the story more if it would have been told solely from Rosie's point of view. Scarlett started to grow on me a little bit there in the end, but I was still bitter with her from all of her crap at the beginning!
The romance between Silas and Rosie was something that I did enjoy! It was sweet and endearing! And I almost wish Scarlett might have had a little bit of love to soften her rough edges..... not that love is the answer to everything wrong in Scarlett's world... but I think the healing of power of love might have done her a little good.
So... to break it down... I loved the story, the writing... and some of the characters. It was a little bit slow for me, and had a hard time getting into, but I am glad that I stuck through and made it to the end.
December 29, 2010
The beginning was good, then I got impatient and it just felt like Rosie was whining a little to me. And the age thing with her and Silas. Dude. No. She's basically still a kid, no matter how 'different' she looks physically. A lot of people look older than their age, does that mean that it's okay? She's underage. Not legal. He's an adult. Plain and simple. And I felt so bad for Scarlett. Didn't she deserve SOME sort of romantic interest? Jeez, just because she's scarred that makes it okay for guys not to be interested in her. This is fiction. I think she'd be entitled to a knight in shining armor. I felt cheated for her. In that regard, I was rather disappointed.
I can't even read through the entire thing fully. I keep skimming it and finally reading the end.
I can't even read through the entire thing fully. I keep skimming it and finally reading the end.
November 2, 2011
Read This Review & More Like It At Ageless Pages Reviews
From the second page of this book when a man's smile simultaneously faded and grew more forced, to the 321st page when the sister's entangled their arms around each other and sniffed each other's hair, I hated every single thing about this book.
Clearly, the writing was a problem. It was awkward, contradictory, and stilted. I wasn't expecting the plot to break barriers, but the big "twist" was so badly telegraphed that I saw it 150 pages before it was revealed. Scarlett was one of the most unlikable characters in the history of literature. There's a difference between damaged human and emotionless sociopath. Hoping your best friend dies because he got a girlfriend falls FIRMLY into the second category.
I had heard the book had a questionable scene involving Scarlett, Silas, and the "Dragonfly girls" [club goers]. Not only was the scene pretty upsetting, with both main characters expressing some disgusting ideas about women, the entire book was. Since the Fenris, a male-only species of predators, attack beautiful, flirtatious women of a certain age, they, intentionally or not, become an allegory for sexual assault. To then spend the whole book talking about how if Rosie had just tried harder and been more aware and less pretty and firty, is truly disturbing.
From the second page of this book when a man's smile simultaneously faded and grew more forced, to the 321st page when the sister's entangled their arms around each other and sniffed each other's hair, I hated every single thing about this book.
Clearly, the writing was a problem. It was awkward, contradictory, and stilted. I wasn't expecting the plot to break barriers, but the big "twist" was so badly telegraphed that I saw it 150 pages before it was revealed. Scarlett was one of the most unlikable characters in the history of literature. There's a difference between damaged human and emotionless sociopath. Hoping your best friend dies because he got a girlfriend falls FIRMLY into the second category.
I had heard the book had a questionable scene involving Scarlett, Silas, and the "Dragonfly girls" [club goers]. Not only was the scene pretty upsetting, with both main characters expressing some disgusting ideas about women, the entire book was. Since the Fenris, a male-only species of predators, attack beautiful, flirtatious women of a certain age, they, intentionally or not, become an allegory for sexual assault. To then spend the whole book talking about how if Rosie had just tried harder and been more aware and less pretty and firty, is truly disturbing.
June 8, 2010
I wanted to like this book. I really did. Being a fan of the Fables series I was excited at the prospect of a fairy tale retelling. Unfortunately, I was bitterly disappointed. Actually, at points I was downright angry.
It didn’t help that I hated the character of Rosie from the very moment she appeared on the page. Her sister Scarlett is physically disfigured and emotionally tormented from a Fenris attack when they were children and has made it her life’s work to defend mankind, yet Rosie’s main concern throughout most of the book is cooking, grocery shopping, and her blossoming romance with Silas.
Their romance is thrust upon the reader from the moment they meet with little explanation as to WHY they are suddenly so in love with each other. Silas and Rosie are smitten literally from first sight, so the only thing we have to base their relationship on is Rosie’s much lauded beauty. Rosie moons over Silas, which is understandable for a girl falling in love for the first time. However, this continues ad nauseam throughout the entire book until I found myself wishing for the death of Silas, a character I didn’t really dislike (actually he was so bland I still don’t have any strong feelings toward him) just so she’d shut up.
Everything about the novel just felt forced. To me, the best stories make you forget that there is even an author at all, that there is someone behind the scenes who has created this world and these characters that you’ve suddenly lost yourself in. In Sisters Red I felt every move Pearce made. She seemed so determined to have the characters do exactly what she wanted that they seemed to go through the motions without any soul behind the story. The characters were just words on a page to me. I never really felt myself caring what happened to any of them, even Scarlett who began with so much potential.
Rosie is clearly the Pearce’s favorite of the two sisters, as she seemed to tell most of this dual point of view story. I kept waiting for Scarlett to get some semblance of a storyline of her own, but the novel was quickly and conveniently wrapped up when Rosie receives her “fairy tale ending,” while Scarlett is in the exact same position she was when the novel began. You can’t help but draw the conclusion that the moral of this story is that beauty is everything and, in the end, Scarlett is punished for being disfigured.
Verdict: D
I wish I could muster something more positive to say about Sisters Red, but I just couldn’t get into this one at all. The concept was interesting, however, it just missed the mark for me. I’d recommend picking up a few issues of Fables and saving yourself the time and energy.
It didn’t help that I hated the character of Rosie from the very moment she appeared on the page. Her sister Scarlett is physically disfigured and emotionally tormented from a Fenris attack when they were children and has made it her life’s work to defend mankind, yet Rosie’s main concern throughout most of the book is cooking, grocery shopping, and her blossoming romance with Silas.
Their romance is thrust upon the reader from the moment they meet with little explanation as to WHY they are suddenly so in love with each other. Silas and Rosie are smitten literally from first sight, so the only thing we have to base their relationship on is Rosie’s much lauded beauty. Rosie moons over Silas, which is understandable for a girl falling in love for the first time. However, this continues ad nauseam throughout the entire book until I found myself wishing for the death of Silas, a character I didn’t really dislike (actually he was so bland I still don’t have any strong feelings toward him) just so she’d shut up.
Everything about the novel just felt forced. To me, the best stories make you forget that there is even an author at all, that there is someone behind the scenes who has created this world and these characters that you’ve suddenly lost yourself in. In Sisters Red I felt every move Pearce made. She seemed so determined to have the characters do exactly what she wanted that they seemed to go through the motions without any soul behind the story. The characters were just words on a page to me. I never really felt myself caring what happened to any of them, even Scarlett who began with so much potential.
Rosie is clearly the Pearce’s favorite of the two sisters, as she seemed to tell most of this dual point of view story. I kept waiting for Scarlett to get some semblance of a storyline of her own, but the novel was quickly and conveniently wrapped up when Rosie receives her “fairy tale ending,” while Scarlett is in the exact same position she was when the novel began. You can’t help but draw the conclusion that the moral of this story is that beauty is everything and, in the end, Scarlett is punished for being disfigured.
Verdict: D
I wish I could muster something more positive to say about Sisters Red, but I just couldn’t get into this one at all. The concept was interesting, however, it just missed the mark for me. I’d recommend picking up a few issues of Fables and saving yourself the time and energy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 28, 2013
“Knowledge does have a way of making you an outcast.”
This story isn't very similar to Little Red Riding Hood though the concept is. Wolves. Or in accurate words, Werewolves. And they are completely mean and nasty and gritty and... Oh, they are just your typical mean bad wolves.
If you want me to describe this book in one sentence then this is what I would have said:
This book is action - packed.
Each action filled event is described in so much detail that it doesn't get repetitive or boring to read. Apart from the awesome cover which I completely adore, Scarlett March is a very interesting female lead. She is passionate and dedicated to ridding the world of the Fenris. Her sister Rosie is not so passionate like her sister, though I must say she is a very good hunter. The story is narrated by these two sisters and I loved reading both of their point of views.
It's a very easy and quick read. If you don't mind a little bit of gory werewolf killing then it's a good book to read; a good book for a light read.
This story isn't very similar to Little Red Riding Hood though the concept is. Wolves. Or in accurate words, Werewolves. And they are completely mean and nasty and gritty and... Oh, they are just your typical mean bad wolves.
If you want me to describe this book in one sentence then this is what I would have said:
This book is action - packed.
Each action filled event is described in so much detail that it doesn't get repetitive or boring to read. Apart from the awesome cover which I completely adore, Scarlett March is a very interesting female lead. She is passionate and dedicated to ridding the world of the Fenris. Her sister Rosie is not so passionate like her sister, though I must say she is a very good hunter. The story is narrated by these two sisters and I loved reading both of their point of views.
It's a very easy and quick read. If you don't mind a little bit of gory werewolf killing then it's a good book to read; a good book for a light read.
September 25, 2020
No, just no. The book started off so well! We have two sisters (Scarlett and Rosie) who are at their grandmother's home when a Fenris (werewolf) breaks in and attacks her. Scarlett puts herself between the Fenris and her sister and ends up killing it after being attacked and losing an eye. That beginning was everything. Then the rest of the book was just a slow slide to a total letdown. There's a lot of problematic things in this one and I didn't even sleep well because I had to finish this and then I was even more annoyed when I got to the end. I was hoping that Pearce would be a good author to read after Halloween bingo is over since she has done other retellings that looked interesting. I decided to pass on that though and just keep looking. The writing becomes repetitive, things don't make any sense (the world building is a mess), the characters...yeah will get in to that below. The ending just made me tired.
"Sisters Red" follows sisters Scarlett and Rosie who as teens now hunt Fenris in a town outside of Atlanta. When Scarlett's ex-partner Silas (he's 21) a woodsman that comes back from the year sabbatical he took off from monster hunting, Scarlett is worried that things are changing between him and her sister. More Fenris seem to be around and they seem to be after someone or something. When the group of three finds out that the Fenris want a Potential, a human who has not turned into a werewolf yet, they decide they will find that person to foil any plans the Fenris have. Of course we have YA mess going on so there's stolen glances and lust going on between Silas and Rosie. Ugh. I loathed those two a lot by the end.
I liked Scartlett until there was a whole thing about her not liking the "dragonfly girls" she was protecting from the Fenris. There was definitely a lot of jealousy going on there about these perfect girls with no cares. She and Silas even share a scene where they pretty much are saying so these girls are totally asking for it based on the way they dress and move. I don't even know what was happening.
Rosie got on my nerves. I think that if Pearce had just focused on the sisters and how Rosie wants a real life away from hunting, but doesn't want to leave her sister that would have worked more.
I don't even understand how teens are leaving alone with no parent around. The two sisters mother is mentioned and not seen. Silas apparently is the only adult around and he should have left after having feelings for a 15/16 year old kid. The supposed love between Rosie and Silas did nothing for me and it just read as false and beyond messed up.
Silas was a heck no from the word go. His whole family made zero sense and even after we get told it made less sense than ever. He is 21 though and him running around kissing Rosie and wanting to be with her and go away from hunting made him extremely selfish. I loved that it was just, yeah Scarlett can keep doing this, but we can get away and travel the world. And also it goes without saying that Rosie and Scarlett have no money and they even mention selling off things to pay for food and everything else and I wanted to scream. Seriously where are the adults at in this book?
The writing didn't work at all after that first explosive chapter. Pearce switches between the two sisters, but you have a lot of Rosie's chapters being about Silas and you get bored real quick. And Scarlett is obsessed with the Fenris and also angry she is being pushed out of what she sees as her only family.
The flow was painful for this one and the book leads up to a reveal that everyone saw coming.
The world building is a mess in this one. So we have Fenris that apparently are only ever men and only seem to attack "attractive" young girls in order to tear out their hearts? And we have to hear over and over again how if the Fenris caught a look at Scarlett they would not take her and the book implies again and again that Scarlett is broken and I just hated it.
I also have to wonder how in the world are young girls going missing and no one is figuring out why? This book moved the whole "Little Red Riding Hood" to modern times. And if in this version we know that Scarlett and Rosie cannot be seen fighting Fenris (shades of Grimm here) why in the world would police not be wondering about missing dead girls?
Also why in the world is Scarlett and Rosie the only hunters? I am not even getting into Silas and his BS I took a year off self? You have monsters hunting people but the three of you are it? And you just go around using hatchet's and knives? Do any of these people think maybe silver bullets or no? I guess that's too much myths crossing or something.
The other piece of world building that was beyond dumb was the whole "Potential" just made my head hurt. It makes zero sense and the whole seventh son thing just....once again I started wondering where Pearce was getting this since it made no sense.
The ending was terrible. I don't want to do spoilers. It was just awful.
I read this book for the "A Grimm Tale" square. I am having issues with Goodreads and it won't let me update my lists on my player's thread right now.
"Sisters Red" follows sisters Scarlett and Rosie who as teens now hunt Fenris in a town outside of Atlanta. When Scarlett's ex-partner Silas (he's 21) a woodsman that comes back from the year sabbatical he took off from monster hunting, Scarlett is worried that things are changing between him and her sister. More Fenris seem to be around and they seem to be after someone or something. When the group of three finds out that the Fenris want a Potential, a human who has not turned into a werewolf yet, they decide they will find that person to foil any plans the Fenris have. Of course we have YA mess going on so there's stolen glances and lust going on between Silas and Rosie. Ugh. I loathed those two a lot by the end.
I liked Scartlett until there was a whole thing about her not liking the "dragonfly girls" she was protecting from the Fenris. There was definitely a lot of jealousy going on there about these perfect girls with no cares. She and Silas even share a scene where they pretty much are saying so these girls are totally asking for it based on the way they dress and move. I don't even know what was happening.
Rosie got on my nerves. I think that if Pearce had just focused on the sisters and how Rosie wants a real life away from hunting, but doesn't want to leave her sister that would have worked more.
I don't even understand how teens are leaving alone with no parent around. The two sisters mother is mentioned and not seen. Silas apparently is the only adult around and he should have left after having feelings for a 15/16 year old kid. The supposed love between Rosie and Silas did nothing for me and it just read as false and beyond messed up.
Silas was a heck no from the word go. His whole family made zero sense and even after we get told it made less sense than ever. He is 21 though and him running around kissing Rosie and wanting to be with her and go away from hunting made him extremely selfish. I loved that it was just, yeah Scarlett can keep doing this, but we can get away and travel the world. And also it goes without saying that Rosie and Scarlett have no money and they even mention selling off things to pay for food and everything else and I wanted to scream. Seriously where are the adults at in this book?
The writing didn't work at all after that first explosive chapter. Pearce switches between the two sisters, but you have a lot of Rosie's chapters being about Silas and you get bored real quick. And Scarlett is obsessed with the Fenris and also angry she is being pushed out of what she sees as her only family.
The flow was painful for this one and the book leads up to a reveal that everyone saw coming.
The world building is a mess in this one. So we have Fenris that apparently are only ever men and only seem to attack "attractive" young girls in order to tear out their hearts? And we have to hear over and over again how if the Fenris caught a look at Scarlett they would not take her and the book implies again and again that Scarlett is broken and I just hated it.
I also have to wonder how in the world are young girls going missing and no one is figuring out why? This book moved the whole "Little Red Riding Hood" to modern times. And if in this version we know that Scarlett and Rosie cannot be seen fighting Fenris (shades of Grimm here) why in the world would police not be wondering about missing dead girls?
Also why in the world is Scarlett and Rosie the only hunters? I am not even getting into Silas and his BS I took a year off self? You have monsters hunting people but the three of you are it? And you just go around using hatchet's and knives? Do any of these people think maybe silver bullets or no? I guess that's too much myths crossing or something.
The other piece of world building that was beyond dumb was the whole "Potential" just made my head hurt. It makes zero sense and the whole seventh son thing just....once again I started wondering where Pearce was getting this since it made no sense.
The ending was terrible. I don't want to do spoilers. It was just awful.
I read this book for the "A Grimm Tale" square. I am having issues with Goodreads and it won't let me update my lists on my player's thread right now.
January 3, 2019
4/5 stars
My sister has the heart of an artist with a hatchet and an eye patch. And I, we both now know, have a heart that is undeniably, irreparably different.
Something to listen to while reading this
Two sisters. One world crumbling. Monsters lurking in every shadow. One mission, to kill them all.
I'm running in the forest. My cleaver is tied in my belt, and my hands are itching to use it. Behind me, two girls run. The one wears a red hood, and an eyepatch, and she moves like bloodshed and lightning. The other, softer, kinder, is staying behind, but not hesitating. She'd rather do something else, but she does't forget her job. Somewhere close to us, there's a boy, his face pale, eyes shining, sweat dripping down his skin. I smile at them. "You do realize you're inside a book, right?" they say. "You're not part of our story."
I sigh and roll my eyes. "I'm part of every story I read."
And I was a part of this one as well. Of its quick plot, and its twists, and it's writing that made me feel anxious about what was about to happen, and the blood, and the battles, and the mystery, and the romance. The plot was kind of predictable, and I had seen something coming, but I still loved and enjoyed the twist anyways, and the atmosphere it gave to the story. The writing was powerful, and made the flow of the story even quicker.
As for the characters, I have to say that I did love them. I loved Scarlet, who was a beating heart of stone, and never ever stopped fighting, and I loved Rosie, who was kind, and soulful, and dreamy, and a hopeless romantic. And I also liked Silas, with his witty humor and his bravery. What I did not like was that at some point, Scarlet's scars and lack of one eye made her feel bad about herself, and she admitted that she thought "nobody could love her." In my opinion, this was a bad handling of her unique appearance, as she sounded like someone who hated herself because she wasn't up to society's expectations, and this was so unlike her character.
As for Rosie and Silas, at some point their romance turned a little bit cheeesy, but it was still warm and cute and passionate and powerful, and I really, really loved the way it was written in some parts of the story. I really liked these three as a team, and their bonding brought tears to my eyes more than once.
The mystery, the mythology and the world building wer exquisite, and I absolutely loved the connection between Red Riding Hood and Plato's allegory of the cave. The idea blew me away, and made me like the book even more, as I found it to be very original and clever.
Overall, it was a fun read and I will recommend for lovers of fairy tale retellings, kick-ass female protagonists, heart pounding romance and monster hunter business ♥
Until the next review, stay unique and keep reading ♥
~Mary
My sister has the heart of an artist with a hatchet and an eye patch. And I, we both now know, have a heart that is undeniably, irreparably different.
Something to listen to while reading this
Two sisters. One world crumbling. Monsters lurking in every shadow. One mission, to kill them all.
I'm running in the forest. My cleaver is tied in my belt, and my hands are itching to use it. Behind me, two girls run. The one wears a red hood, and an eyepatch, and she moves like bloodshed and lightning. The other, softer, kinder, is staying behind, but not hesitating. She'd rather do something else, but she does't forget her job. Somewhere close to us, there's a boy, his face pale, eyes shining, sweat dripping down his skin. I smile at them. "You do realize you're inside a book, right?" they say. "You're not part of our story."
I sigh and roll my eyes. "I'm part of every story I read."
And I was a part of this one as well. Of its quick plot, and its twists, and it's writing that made me feel anxious about what was about to happen, and the blood, and the battles, and the mystery, and the romance. The plot was kind of predictable, and I had seen something coming, but I still loved and enjoyed the twist anyways, and the atmosphere it gave to the story. The writing was powerful, and made the flow of the story even quicker.
As for the characters, I have to say that I did love them. I loved Scarlet, who was a beating heart of stone, and never ever stopped fighting, and I loved Rosie, who was kind, and soulful, and dreamy, and a hopeless romantic. And I also liked Silas, with his witty humor and his bravery. What I did not like was that at some point, Scarlet's scars and lack of one eye made her feel bad about herself, and she admitted that she thought "nobody could love her." In my opinion, this was a bad handling of her unique appearance, as she sounded like someone who hated herself because she wasn't up to society's expectations, and this was so unlike her character.
As for Rosie and Silas, at some point their romance turned a little bit cheeesy, but it was still warm and cute and passionate and powerful, and I really, really loved the way it was written in some parts of the story. I really liked these three as a team, and their bonding brought tears to my eyes more than once.
The mystery, the mythology and the world building wer exquisite, and I absolutely loved the connection between Red Riding Hood and Plato's allegory of the cave. The idea blew me away, and made me like the book even more, as I found it to be very original and clever.
Overall, it was a fun read and I will recommend for lovers of fairy tale retellings, kick-ass female protagonists, heart pounding romance and monster hunter business ♥
Until the next review, stay unique and keep reading ♥
~Mary
May 17, 2014
This book suffers terribly from that "target age of readers is smarter than the plot of the book" syndrome. Never do that. It's not fun to watch characters go on and on for 2/3 of the book trying to figure out something you already have. And with it being so blatantly obvious, even with the misinformation she tried to throw in, it's just boring to read. *sigh*
I was also so tired of hearing about the hunt the hunt the hunt hunting wolves I am a hunter potential wolves hunting hunt hunt potential hunt AUGH. The whole book was repetitive in vocabulary, and scene structure. Hunt, sit around in apartment, hunt, sit around in apartment.
One dimensional, boring, stale. Her characters had potential (oh noooo I said it again), but the love story was hard to watch. (Is a relationship between a 16 year old and a 21 year old weird? I was kinda gettin' weird vibes. I know that when you're older 5 years isn't much of a difference but when you're a teen it's a huge difference.)
If there had been more things to make the world more interesting, more characters, more places, I don't know, I feel like it could have been better, since the writing style was fine. It just felt like we were stuck in a boring box doing the same things over and over. Ah well.
As I said, I'm trying to get the last of the YA I bought off of my bookshelf for good so I'm slowly gettin' through these.
I was also so tired of hearing about the hunt the hunt the hunt hunting wolves I am a hunter potential wolves hunting hunt hunt potential hunt AUGH. The whole book was repetitive in vocabulary, and scene structure. Hunt, sit around in apartment, hunt, sit around in apartment.
One dimensional, boring, stale. Her characters had potential (oh noooo I said it again), but the love story was hard to watch. (Is a relationship between a 16 year old and a 21 year old weird? I was kinda gettin' weird vibes. I know that when you're older 5 years isn't much of a difference but when you're a teen it's a huge difference.)
If there had been more things to make the world more interesting, more characters, more places, I don't know, I feel like it could have been better, since the writing style was fine. It just felt like we were stuck in a boring box doing the same things over and over. Ah well.
As I said, I'm trying to get the last of the YA I bought off of my bookshelf for good so I'm slowly gettin' through these.
November 26, 2018
Me gusto, aunque hubo ciertas cosas que no fueron de mi agrado
Un libro entretenido
Un libro entretenido
July 25, 2012
Sisters Red is a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood. There's a wolf and a grandma but that's really all the two have in common. In this version there are two sisters, Rosie and Scarlett, and after their encounter with a werewolf they become hunters.
Dislikes: I don't understand why the girls dropped out of school. I think it would have been totally possible for them to hunt and go to school. Buffy finished high school while guarding the Hellmouth. Why are they wearing cloaks? They could wear anything red and it would still parallel the original story. Also, how long can they really survive by pawning off stuff?
Likes: I like Scarlett, I think it's very easy to understand why she's so motivated to hunt. I'd never heard of werewolves being called Fenris, so that was something new!! I like that the Fenris had tattoos to identify their packs. And the stuff about the potential was very interesting...
Dislikes: I don't understand why the girls dropped out of school. I think it would have been totally possible for them to hunt and go to school. Buffy finished high school while guarding the Hellmouth. Why are they wearing cloaks? They could wear anything red and it would still parallel the original story. Also, how long can they really survive by pawning off stuff?
Likes: I like Scarlett, I think it's very easy to understand why she's so motivated to hunt. I'd never heard of werewolves being called Fenris, so that was something new!! I like that the Fenris had tattoos to identify their packs. And the stuff about the potential was very interesting...
December 17, 2018
Aunque no pintaba mal, las lagunas en la narración me han hecho perder el interés. Una pena.
August 10, 2010
Before I started to read this book, I had kind of mixed feelings about it. Whereas I have only heard good things about Jackson Pearce's debut, As You Wish, Sisters Red has received mixed reviews.
A cruel attack of a Fenris, a soulless wolf-man craving young women's blood, has destroyed the lives of the two March sisters Scarlett and Rosie. Now Scarlett, heavily scarred and thinking of herself as an outcast, is committed to hunt the monsters and revenge her grandmother's death. Her younger sister Rosie is accompanying her on almost every hunt, but secretly she longs for a normal life.
Now that attacks on young girls are increasing again, the two sisters decide to move to Atlanta to try to stop the violence together with their childhood friend and hunting partner Silas. They find out that the wolves are searching for a Potential, a young man who can be made one of their own only during this month's moon phase ...
First of all, I really liked the characters in this book. Scarlett and Rosie are both fierce and strong in their own way, accepting their fate and trying to make the best of their situation. I found it rather depressing to read about their everyday life (they have no family left and had to drop out of school to be able to hunt the nights and are now slowly running out of money).
I sometimes had difficulties relating to Scarlett because of her obsession to hunt; I could understand where it came from though and why she had to do it.
Rosie was my favourite character, and Pearce really did an amazing job in showing her love for her sister on the one side, but also her longing for a different life and the guilt she felt because of this wish she couldn't share with Scarlett.
The romance between Rosie and Silas was very sweet, but not particularly thrilling in my opinion. But Silas's charater was a great addition to the two sisters. However, I have to say that the information we get about him from the summary is misleading: I found him in no way "brooding and mysterious", he simply is a great friend and someone the sisters can rely on. Of course he has his issues as well, but he is a fun guy and not focused on hunting too much.
What made this book only 3 stars for me was mostly the predictability of the plot (partly because the blurb on the back cover gives too much away; seriously, I hate that). I guessed how the whole story would turn out fairly early, and therefore it dragged on a little for me in between. There is a lot of hunting, the three run into Fenris in the most common situations, but otherwise the plot doesn't really move forward.
All in all, an interesting take on the classic fairytale Little Red Riding Hood with lovely characters. If you like darker urban fantasy and fairytale retellings, this could be a great read for you.
A cruel attack of a Fenris, a soulless wolf-man craving young women's blood, has destroyed the lives of the two March sisters Scarlett and Rosie. Now Scarlett, heavily scarred and thinking of herself as an outcast, is committed to hunt the monsters and revenge her grandmother's death. Her younger sister Rosie is accompanying her on almost every hunt, but secretly she longs for a normal life.
Now that attacks on young girls are increasing again, the two sisters decide to move to Atlanta to try to stop the violence together with their childhood friend and hunting partner Silas. They find out that the wolves are searching for a Potential, a young man who can be made one of their own only during this month's moon phase ...
First of all, I really liked the characters in this book. Scarlett and Rosie are both fierce and strong in their own way, accepting their fate and trying to make the best of their situation. I found it rather depressing to read about their everyday life (they have no family left and had to drop out of school to be able to hunt the nights and are now slowly running out of money).
I sometimes had difficulties relating to Scarlett because of her obsession to hunt; I could understand where it came from though and why she had to do it.
Rosie was my favourite character, and Pearce really did an amazing job in showing her love for her sister on the one side, but also her longing for a different life and the guilt she felt because of this wish she couldn't share with Scarlett.
The romance between Rosie and Silas was very sweet, but not particularly thrilling in my opinion. But Silas's charater was a great addition to the two sisters. However, I have to say that the information we get about him from the summary is misleading: I found him in no way "brooding and mysterious", he simply is a great friend and someone the sisters can rely on. Of course he has his issues as well, but he is a fun guy and not focused on hunting too much.
What made this book only 3 stars for me was mostly the predictability of the plot (partly because the blurb on the back cover gives too much away; seriously, I hate that). I guessed how the whole story would turn out fairly early, and therefore it dragged on a little for me in between. There is a lot of hunting, the three run into Fenris in the most common situations, but otherwise the plot doesn't really move forward.
All in all, an interesting take on the classic fairytale Little Red Riding Hood with lovely characters. If you like darker urban fantasy and fairytale retellings, this could be a great read for you.
January 31, 2010
First let me explain that a wonderful friend shared her ARC copy of Sisters Red, so I had the pleasure of reading prior to its release date on June 2, 2010.
I often think that re-told fairy tales can go only one of two ways: slightly dull or brilliantly twisted. Sisters Red is definitely in the latter category.
Take the tale of Little Red Riding Hood and turn it around into a story about sibling bonds and rivalry. Now, mix in the mythology of The Wolf only make it darker and more modern. Then you'll begin to grasp the wonderful story Jackson Pearce wrote.
As part of the new twist on the story, Jackson's wolves are good-looking men who prey on young girls. I know, WHAT A TWIST!!! The sisters' mission is to fight the wolves and protect young girls like themselves.
If this was the entire story, it would be quite good. But there's oh so much more. There's a family friend, a young woodsman, Silas, who grew up with the girls and is also charged with hunting the same dangerous wolves. His relationship with each of the sisters makes the story so much more than just an urban fantasy or a retold fairy tale.
To keep this review spoiler free, I'll just add that if you enjoy reading about how sibling bonds change over time and with need, you will love this book. Add to this a delicious romance with a gorgeous, rich mythology and you have Sisters Red. Pre-order yours today.
I often think that re-told fairy tales can go only one of two ways: slightly dull or brilliantly twisted. Sisters Red is definitely in the latter category.
Take the tale of Little Red Riding Hood and turn it around into a story about sibling bonds and rivalry. Now, mix in the mythology of The Wolf only make it darker and more modern. Then you'll begin to grasp the wonderful story Jackson Pearce wrote.
As part of the new twist on the story, Jackson's wolves are good-looking men who prey on young girls. I know, WHAT A TWIST!!! The sisters' mission is to fight the wolves and protect young girls like themselves.
If this was the entire story, it would be quite good. But there's oh so much more. There's a family friend, a young woodsman, Silas, who grew up with the girls and is also charged with hunting the same dangerous wolves. His relationship with each of the sisters makes the story so much more than just an urban fantasy or a retold fairy tale.
To keep this review spoiler free, I'll just add that if you enjoy reading about how sibling bonds change over time and with need, you will love this book. Add to this a delicious romance with a gorgeous, rich mythology and you have Sisters Red. Pre-order yours today.
April 8, 2018
I absolutely love fairy-tale retellings! So when I saw that this was about Red Riding Hood.. well, I dove right into this book!
Sister Red is obviously about Red Riding Hood.. I mean I did just mention it, right? This book definitely reminded me of an episode from Supernatural.. which yeah, it has been a while since I've seen that show but it still made me think of it! ...and now I want to watch an episode from that show!
Well I loved that this was a dual POV from the sisters, Scarlett and Rosie. UGH SCARLETT! That name makes me think of Cinder and that wonderful series <3 Either way, I love their different views and reading about their strained family relationship. I also really liked the whole werewolf hunting aspect. I would never go, personally, but I did like reading about it.
I could've done without the "love triangle" but that's mostly because I despise them. I wont say which sisters I liked more .. because they are both unique and see things a little bit differently. I will , however, say that they are both bad ass females who slay constantly.
Overall, this book was highly entertaining, interesting, and just hooks you in. I loved everything about this book. It was such a quick and easy read that you will devour very quickly.
Sister Red is obviously about Red Riding Hood.. I mean I did just mention it, right? This book definitely reminded me of an episode from Supernatural.. which yeah, it has been a while since I've seen that show but it still made me think of it! ...and now I want to watch an episode from that show!
Well I loved that this was a dual POV from the sisters, Scarlett and Rosie. UGH SCARLETT! That name makes me think of Cinder and that wonderful series <3 Either way, I love their different views and reading about their strained family relationship. I also really liked the whole werewolf hunting aspect. I would never go, personally, but I did like reading about it.
I could've done without the "love triangle" but that's mostly because I despise them. I wont say which sisters I liked more .. because they are both unique and see things a little bit differently. I will , however, say that they are both bad ass females who slay constantly.
Overall, this book was highly entertaining, interesting, and just hooks you in. I loved everything about this book. It was such a quick and easy read that you will devour very quickly.
June 1, 2010
Sister Red is the modern day version of the timeless storybook; Little Red Riding Hood, only in this re-telling, it's much darker, deeper and desperate.
We begin our tale with two sisters, Scarlett and Rosie March.
Scarlett is devoted to the hunt, or more like obsessed, given that seven years before, a Fenris stole the lives of there grandmother and left her with countless battle scars, including an eye. Now, an eighteen year old Scarlett, with the help of partner-in-crime Silas, has made it her life work to kill, fight and hunt ever wolf and keep other girls and her sister Rosie from the same fate.
Rosie will always be indebted to her sister for saving her life when they were just kids. She too is dedicated to the hunt, and deadly with a knife, but Scarlett is so overprotective she can barely do any hunting on her own. Sometimes she finds herself guiltily dreaming of what it would be like outside of the hunt, can there be more for her then the death and decay of monsters waiting in the shadows? Can there be time for both the hunt and maybe even...love?
This is the second book I've read from Pearce, the first one being As you Wish, which in my opinion was simply perfect.
Pearce has once again captured my hearts and soul through colorful characters, an ingenues plot and impeccable writing.
Sister Red is an incredibly imaginative masterpiece that really impressed me how a simply childhood story can twist with the right creativity. It's Amazing!
The sisters truly come from one heart, but I thought they were also very night and day. There bond is powerful, touching, and cherished. But Scarlett was written with the intent to show her as out-of-control-obsessed with her passion for the never ending hunt. At times it was a bit too stretched and while the responsibilities that she has to endure gains my utmost sympathy and respect, the intensity and insanity of her focus was frustrating me at times. She is written with extreme amount of control in a world that is very much out of control, even if she did wanted to change, she just...can't.
I really liked Rosie and had a easier time relating to her situation. Clouded by guilt and obligation towards her sister on one hand and then the dream of wanting something more on the other. It's tough, and yet Rosie is a hunter, a fighter and she will do what needs to get done.
I love Silas. Love, love, love him. He's such an awesome character. He holds so much weight in this book, keeping the girls levelheaded and calm but is also kick ass, kind hearted , open mined and basically very, very, yummy.
Sister Red has everything you need in a good fantasy story. It was action packed and fast paced, suspenseful, exciting and intriguing. But it also had tender romantic moments that makes you gush and sweet sisterly devotion that will pull at your heart strings.
A brilliant and sensational new series that will entertain you from start to finish!
This is the stuff that makes reading the wonderful escape that I live for!
A Fantastic, Fun and Remarkable Must Read!
We begin our tale with two sisters, Scarlett and Rosie March.
Scarlett is devoted to the hunt, or more like obsessed, given that seven years before, a Fenris stole the lives of there grandmother and left her with countless battle scars, including an eye. Now, an eighteen year old Scarlett, with the help of partner-in-crime Silas, has made it her life work to kill, fight and hunt ever wolf and keep other girls and her sister Rosie from the same fate.
Rosie will always be indebted to her sister for saving her life when they were just kids. She too is dedicated to the hunt, and deadly with a knife, but Scarlett is so overprotective she can barely do any hunting on her own. Sometimes she finds herself guiltily dreaming of what it would be like outside of the hunt, can there be more for her then the death and decay of monsters waiting in the shadows? Can there be time for both the hunt and maybe even...love?
This is the second book I've read from Pearce, the first one being As you Wish, which in my opinion was simply perfect.
Pearce has once again captured my hearts and soul through colorful characters, an ingenues plot and impeccable writing.
Sister Red is an incredibly imaginative masterpiece that really impressed me how a simply childhood story can twist with the right creativity. It's Amazing!
The sisters truly come from one heart, but I thought they were also very night and day. There bond is powerful, touching, and cherished. But Scarlett was written with the intent to show her as out-of-control-obsessed with her passion for the never ending hunt. At times it was a bit too stretched and while the responsibilities that she has to endure gains my utmost sympathy and respect, the intensity and insanity of her focus was frustrating me at times. She is written with extreme amount of control in a world that is very much out of control, even if she did wanted to change, she just...can't.
I really liked Rosie and had a easier time relating to her situation. Clouded by guilt and obligation towards her sister on one hand and then the dream of wanting something more on the other. It's tough, and yet Rosie is a hunter, a fighter and she will do what needs to get done.
I love Silas. Love, love, love him. He's such an awesome character. He holds so much weight in this book, keeping the girls levelheaded and calm but is also kick ass, kind hearted , open mined and basically very, very, yummy.
Sister Red has everything you need in a good fantasy story. It was action packed and fast paced, suspenseful, exciting and intriguing. But it also had tender romantic moments that makes you gush and sweet sisterly devotion that will pull at your heart strings.
A brilliant and sensational new series that will entertain you from start to finish!
This is the stuff that makes reading the wonderful escape that I live for!
A Fantastic, Fun and Remarkable Must Read!
June 14, 2015
This isn't a run-of-the-mill werewolf book, but a very intelligently written story loosely based on the Red Riding Hood fairy tale. This is quite a special little book, from the depth of emotion felt by the characters to the attention to detail of their lives and surroundings.
I really enjoyed the relationships between the characters, Scarlett, Rosie and Silas. The relationships are quite complex and yet simple at the same time. Simple because they all love each other and would do anything to protect each other, but complex because they love each other in different ways for different reasons and this causes all sorts of complications.
It's not just the relationships between the characters that are complex, but the characters themselves. My favourite is Scarlett who protected her sister from a wolf at the price of disfigurement. Her face and body are full of scars and she wears an eyepatch to hide the fact she has no eye. Her inner pain and anguish over this is palpable and I felt for her so much.
The werewolves in Sisters Red are not pretty or romantic, once turned the soul is ripped from the body to reveal an evil creature with no emotion and no remorse for killing. These are truly sinister werewolves.
There is a wonderful twist during the second half of the book, but unfortunately for me I had my suspicions quite early on, but the realisation of these suspicions was exciting all the same.
The first and last hundred pages were just magic, but sadly the middle lagged a little. The two sisters and their friend Silas move to the big city to hunt and it felt as though that's all they did and it became a bit tedious. However, this didn't deter me from reading the rest of the book and I was soon rewarded with an ending full of emotion combined with life-like fighting scenes that had me completely enthralled and my eyes brimming with tears.
VERDICT:
Sisters Red is a fantastic read, with interesting characters and a great plot. This is now one of my favourite young adult books. And of course I have to mention the amazing cover - gorg! ;)
I really enjoyed the relationships between the characters, Scarlett, Rosie and Silas. The relationships are quite complex and yet simple at the same time. Simple because they all love each other and would do anything to protect each other, but complex because they love each other in different ways for different reasons and this causes all sorts of complications.
It's not just the relationships between the characters that are complex, but the characters themselves. My favourite is Scarlett who protected her sister from a wolf at the price of disfigurement. Her face and body are full of scars and she wears an eyepatch to hide the fact she has no eye. Her inner pain and anguish over this is palpable and I felt for her so much.
The werewolves in Sisters Red are not pretty or romantic, once turned the soul is ripped from the body to reveal an evil creature with no emotion and no remorse for killing. These are truly sinister werewolves.
There is a wonderful twist during the second half of the book, but unfortunately for me I had my suspicions quite early on, but the realisation of these suspicions was exciting all the same.
The first and last hundred pages were just magic, but sadly the middle lagged a little. The two sisters and their friend Silas move to the big city to hunt and it felt as though that's all they did and it became a bit tedious. However, this didn't deter me from reading the rest of the book and I was soon rewarded with an ending full of emotion combined with life-like fighting scenes that had me completely enthralled and my eyes brimming with tears.
VERDICT:
Sisters Red is a fantastic read, with interesting characters and a great plot. This is now one of my favourite young adult books. And of course I have to mention the amazing cover - gorg! ;)
June 7, 2010
Jackson Pearce's dark retelling and continuation of Little Red Riding Hood is really good: Excellently written, cleverly adapted and highly original. So do not be put off by my rating. It's not the book, it's me: As I passed the first-third-mark I sensed that I was feeling more and more depressed and my sympathy for both sisters overshadowed my pleasure in reading the story. It must be a sign of Pearce's great writing that the tension, the guilt and the strange bond between the sisters, who have both dedicated their lives (they didn't even finish high school) to hunting cannibalistic, soulless werewolves for contrary reasons, were able to create such a large cold lump in my guts.
I had to decide between continuing to read later and making a clean cut and chose the latter. I could not abandon the book without peeking at the climax and the solution, though. (And my guesses had been correct).
I had to decide between continuing to read later and making a clean cut and chose the latter. I could not abandon the book without peeking at the climax and the solution, though. (And my guesses had been correct).
July 18, 2010
Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce delivers a perfectly crafted, suspenseful modern twist on a famous fairy tale.
Pearce does not miss a beat when it comes to blending all the right elements to keep the reader engaged and riveted as two sisters, who are committed to protecting the world of the dangerous Fenris, risk what it takes to fight for what they believe in. Scarlett and Rosie’s sisterly devotion mixed with Silas’ bond to the girls was a captivating read that kept me engaged with page after page of action packed moments.
Great read for those who enjoy their paranorm slightly twisted and full of dark and dangerous adventures. I enjoyed Sisters Red and highly recommend this modern telling of an unforgettable tale.
Pearce does not miss a beat when it comes to blending all the right elements to keep the reader engaged and riveted as two sisters, who are committed to protecting the world of the dangerous Fenris, risk what it takes to fight for what they believe in. Scarlett and Rosie’s sisterly devotion mixed with Silas’ bond to the girls was a captivating read that kept me engaged with page after page of action packed moments.
Great read for those who enjoy their paranorm slightly twisted and full of dark and dangerous adventures. I enjoyed Sisters Red and highly recommend this modern telling of an unforgettable tale.
August 5, 2021
#68 of 2021
Such an original retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Scarlett was a tad too much sometimes, but one can understand her all consuming focus on the hunt.
Such an original retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Scarlett was a tad too much sometimes, but one can understand her all consuming focus on the hunt.
September 30, 2013
“When they attack her, I scream until my voice is hoarse so I don't have to hear the shredding sounds.”
****3.5 stars****
That may be one of my favorite quotes of all time.
Plot synopsis:
There is one thing about this Sisters Red that really bothers me concerning the ages of Rosie and Silas.
Silas is Rosie's love interest, so keeping in mind that Rosie is 16 and Silas is 21, I got to wondering exactly how legal it was for them to be together. Here's what I found after looking into the laws in Georgia, where Sisters Red is set:
16-6-3. Statutory rape
(a) A person commits the offense of statutory rape when he or she engages in sexual intercourse with any person under the age of 16 years and not his or her spouse,(...)
and
(b) (...)a person convicted of the offense of statutory rape shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than one nor more than 20 years; provided, however, that if the person so convicted is 21 years of age or older, such person shall be punished by imprisonment for not less than ten nor more than 20 years. (http://www.womenslaw.org/statutes_det...)
So yes, it is legal for them to be together, though they're treading a very thin line here. If Rosie had been a few months younger, Silas would be a sex offender, in prison for years. You're probably thinking "Oh, love is just a number.", but it bothers me because there is a point where Rosie herself wonders why Silas wants to be with her:
"Well I’m sixteen, close enough. Scarlett is eighteen, which makes Silas . . . wow. What does someone Silas’s age want with a kid like me?"
I bothers me, okay? It just bothers me.
But one thing I will say it absolutely awesome about this book is Scarlett and Rosie's relationship. Being that I myself have an older sister whom I'm very close to, their strong sisterly bond was really easy to relate to. I can honestly say this is the first book I've come across with two sister for main characters.
Scarlett is part of that small group of strong, independent female characters in YA. Badly scarred and missing an eye after saving her sister from one of the killer Fenris, she has made it her passion to hunt down and destroy the Fenris and save as many girls from a violent fate as possible. Scarlett is a kickass chic if I ever saw one.
Her confidence, unwavering determination, bravery, and devotion to her sister are just amazing. She'll be facing a pack of Fenris, outnumbered and scared shitless, and still be like
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She has her flaws, but she's definitely the strongest character of the book.
Rosie is younger, and secretly wants more in her life than just Fenris-hunting. However, she feels deeply indebted to her sister and can't fathom letting her down. Rosie was an okay character, I could understand how she felt but overall thought there were times when she should've been stronger.
Silas is Scarlett's lifelong friend and hunting partner, recently returned from spending a year away. He's okay, I just didn't feel much of a connection with him. His character really lacks depth, imo.
Though the word-building and writing are good, the plot itself is rather weak. Not a whole lot of detail and kind of less action than I expected. I didn't understand the importance of the whole "Potential" thing. Supposedly, a Potential is a person with potential to be a Fenris during a moon phase every so often. The thing I didn't get about it is why all the Fenris packs were so obsessed with finding that one person.
Let's just think about it for a second. Supposedly there are hundreds of Fenris in the world, right? Yet out of all those, they are obsessed with finding one, many even dying in the process. Why would they be risk so much for just ONE more potential Fenris? It just doesn't add up.
Either way, the action scenes are just downright awesome. All of the main characters can kick butt. I love reading both Scarlett and Rosie's POV, I could relate to them well and understand their feeling towards each other.
BUT OH THAT BITTERSWEET ENDING.
Yeah right, I didn't cry.
In Doneness,
The weak central plot can be a drag sometimes, however, it's still an enjoyable book that is also an interesting retelling of "Little Red Riding Hood" featuring a strong sisterly bond, great action scenes and some romance. The ending was surprisingly satisfying, but it does leave you with a linger feeling of sadness.
-JennTheAwesum
February 24, 2018
Sisters Red is the best kind of fairytale retelling, in that Jackson Pearce takes the kernel of a fairytale (“Little Red Riding Hood” here, obvs) and then … just runs with it. There’s no need to hew too closely to the “original” story—because what is the original story, anyway? Instead we get this cool, thrilling urban fantasy adventure about sisters who slay werewolves … like, yeah. I’m down with that.
Scarlett and Rosie March are young when a werewolf kills their grandmother, leaving them orphaned and virtually alone in the world. They grow up and start hunting wolves, partly out of revenge, partly to protect other would-be victims. However, the sisters are not as close as they want to think. Hunting is an all-consuming calling for Scarlett, who has honed her body and mind into a weapon with a single purpose: hunting wolves. Rosie, younger, less scarred (physically and emotionally) is devoted to her sister and their shared cause—yet she feels the tug of the outside world, and an attraction to the March sisters’ close friend and hunting partner, Silas the woodsman, in a way that Scarlett just doesn’t. That, of course, is the source of tension as the sisters and Silas temporarily relocate from their sleepy town to Atlanta to stop the werewolves from finding and turning a Potential new wolf.
The relationship between the March sisters reminds me so much of the relationship between Dean and Sam Winchester in Supernatural (which I adore). The parallels aren’t quite exact, but Scarlett is such a Dean and Rosie is such a Sam when it comes to their outlooks on hunting and whether or not they can have a life outside of it. And Scarlett has that same over-protectiveness of her younger sister that Dean has with Sammy, even after all these years. It’s this dynamic that is largely the reason why Supernatural has stayed so strong for 13 years, and this dynamic works just as well in Sisters Red, largely as a result of Pearce’s storytelling and narrative structure. By alternating chapters between each sister’s point of view, we understand each one’s perspective and thinking. To Scarlett, Rosie can seem young and feckless and too … alive. There’s an envy there, and a sadness as well. To Rosie, Scarlett is this heroic, driven, but also hollowed-out person. Rosie measures herself against Scarlett and always feels like she’s falling short—yet she is so reluctant to strike out on her own, for it would mean abandoning her own sister.
These are never easy issues to address, so I love how Sisters Red tackles it. I love that the drama and conflict that comes out of these issues never feels contrived. Silas is literally in the middle of it, with his and Rosie’s nascent romance. He tries to appease both sisters, and it’s so interesting, watching the three-way interactions, the way each person’s desires to help the others conflicts with their own needs. I think Pearce does an excellent job of keeping everything feeling real and balanced while still driving the characters and story forward.
The actual setting and plot are less impressive. There isn’t a great deal of worldbuilding here. That is for the best, in some ways—too much exposition can definitely ruin many a good book. And I guess it replicates the fairytale atmosphere. You never see someone explaining the socioeconomic structure of Snow White after all. However, because of the urban fantasy-esque setting in an actual city, I think I would have liked a little more attention to what’s happening in the wider world. How big a problem, exactly, are these Fenris?
Similarly, the plot is a so-so journey of fights and sleuthing and cleaning of apartments. The revelation regarding the identity of the Potential is fairly easy to see coming a long way off. The fight sequences are OK, but those are never why I come to a book in the first place.
Sisters Red is a great, interesting way to take “Little Red Riding Hood” and transpose it into the present day. With more knives and hatchets. And werewolves! I liked it, and I’d recommend it, but it also didn’t knock my socks off. Not sure yet if I’ll read more of Pearce’s retellings.
I want to conclude with: shout out to the cover artist, strawberryluna, for an amazing cover. Just marvel at all the different layers and elements, the way you see Scarlett, Rosie, and a wolf in there (did you miss the wolf? I missed the wolf at first). Bravo.
Scarlett and Rosie March are young when a werewolf kills their grandmother, leaving them orphaned and virtually alone in the world. They grow up and start hunting wolves, partly out of revenge, partly to protect other would-be victims. However, the sisters are not as close as they want to think. Hunting is an all-consuming calling for Scarlett, who has honed her body and mind into a weapon with a single purpose: hunting wolves. Rosie, younger, less scarred (physically and emotionally) is devoted to her sister and their shared cause—yet she feels the tug of the outside world, and an attraction to the March sisters’ close friend and hunting partner, Silas the woodsman, in a way that Scarlett just doesn’t. That, of course, is the source of tension as the sisters and Silas temporarily relocate from their sleepy town to Atlanta to stop the werewolves from finding and turning a Potential new wolf.
The relationship between the March sisters reminds me so much of the relationship between Dean and Sam Winchester in Supernatural (which I adore). The parallels aren’t quite exact, but Scarlett is such a Dean and Rosie is such a Sam when it comes to their outlooks on hunting and whether or not they can have a life outside of it. And Scarlett has that same over-protectiveness of her younger sister that Dean has with Sammy, even after all these years. It’s this dynamic that is largely the reason why Supernatural has stayed so strong for 13 years, and this dynamic works just as well in Sisters Red, largely as a result of Pearce’s storytelling and narrative structure. By alternating chapters between each sister’s point of view, we understand each one’s perspective and thinking. To Scarlett, Rosie can seem young and feckless and too … alive. There’s an envy there, and a sadness as well. To Rosie, Scarlett is this heroic, driven, but also hollowed-out person. Rosie measures herself against Scarlett and always feels like she’s falling short—yet she is so reluctant to strike out on her own, for it would mean abandoning her own sister.
These are never easy issues to address, so I love how Sisters Red tackles it. I love that the drama and conflict that comes out of these issues never feels contrived. Silas is literally in the middle of it, with his and Rosie’s nascent romance. He tries to appease both sisters, and it’s so interesting, watching the three-way interactions, the way each person’s desires to help the others conflicts with their own needs. I think Pearce does an excellent job of keeping everything feeling real and balanced while still driving the characters and story forward.
The actual setting and plot are less impressive. There isn’t a great deal of worldbuilding here. That is for the best, in some ways—too much exposition can definitely ruin many a good book. And I guess it replicates the fairytale atmosphere. You never see someone explaining the socioeconomic structure of Snow White after all. However, because of the urban fantasy-esque setting in an actual city, I think I would have liked a little more attention to what’s happening in the wider world. How big a problem, exactly, are these Fenris?
Similarly, the plot is a so-so journey of fights and sleuthing and cleaning of apartments. The revelation regarding the identity of the Potential is fairly easy to see coming a long way off. The fight sequences are OK, but those are never why I come to a book in the first place.
Sisters Red is a great, interesting way to take “Little Red Riding Hood” and transpose it into the present day. With more knives and hatchets. And werewolves! I liked it, and I’d recommend it, but it also didn’t knock my socks off. Not sure yet if I’ll read more of Pearce’s retellings.
I want to conclude with: shout out to the cover artist, strawberryluna, for an amazing cover. Just marvel at all the different layers and elements, the way you see Scarlett, Rosie, and a wolf in there (did you miss the wolf? I missed the wolf at first). Bravo.
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