Red Riding Hood: When good stories go bad.

Red Riding Hood by Sarah Blakey-Cartwright, based on the screenplay by David Leslie Johnson
First printing: January 2011 by Poppy (imprint of Hachette Book Group)
Cover Art by Craig Phillips
Hand Lettering by Jessica Hische

I have to admit that I watched the Red Riding Hood movie before reading this book. While the movie came off as a bit silly, I did enjoy it and the art that went into making it was truly beautiful. I was hoping that the book would reveal a deeper telling of the story, and bring the characters to life for me. So how did it fare?

Not as well as I was hoping.

Red Riding Hood is a dark re-telling of the famous fairy tale. The village of Daggorhorn is plagued by a wolf lurking in the woods. Animal sacrifices must be left out on full moon nights to keep the beast from turning its wrath on the villagers. This grisly town is home to a girl named Valerie. She is known not only for her beauty but for her ability to run and climb trees with the boys. She attracts the attention of Henry, a boy from the wealthiest family in town. Her parents agree to an arranged marriage between him and Valerie, but Valerie barely knows him.

"Grandmother came up behind Valerie and draped something over her shoulders.
'How's this?'
Valerie looked down. It was a beautiful, bright red cloak.
'Grandmother..." Valerie had never seen anything like it. It was the red of far away, of fantasies, an overseas red, a red that Daggorhorn had never seen,  a red that did not belong there.
'I made it for your wedding.'
Valerie looked down at her bracelet.
'The wedding doesn't feel like mine. It feels like I'm being sold.'" (page 130-131)

When Valerie's childhood friend Peter returns to town, her sister is found mauled to death in a nearby field. The wolf has broken the peace. In her grief, Valerie finds solace in Peter. They begin to have feelings for each other that are more than friendship, and jealousy flares between Peter and Henry. But the death toll rises, and Valerie begins to suspect that Peter may have something to do with it. Neighbor turns against neighbor, and soon they will call into question what the girl wearing the cloak of "the devil's color" knows. The village is stirred into madness in pursuit of an answer: Who is the wolf?

Final Rating: 2.5 out of 5
While I did love the plot in this story, the book had some major problems. I was hoping to see more detail in the characters than you see in the movie, but they fell flat. Valerie in particular had no tone. She lacked a sense of self. Any girl in the village could have replaced her and the story would have remained the same. Peter and Henry have the same issues. They are very basic characters- the typical bad boy and good guy. But the most condemning thing about this book is that you have to go to www.redridinghoodbook.com to read the final chapter. I understand that the book is based off a movie, but that is shameless self-promotion. Being that I was on vacation with no internet when I finished the book, I was doubly disappointed to find that the last chapter wasn't included. This is a book that you can pass up and be assured that you haven't missed anything.

Favorite Quote: "Everyone called Roxanne and Claude redheads, but Valerie never knew why. She thought it must have been more for lack of imagination. She would call them six-o'clock-in-the-evening-sunset-heads. Bottom-of-the-lake-tendrils-of-algae-heads. Valerie grew up feeling envious of those heads of hair because she felt they were something special, a mark from God." (page 30)

Red Riding Hood is available as a physical or digital copy through most booksellers, including Barnes and Noble and Amazon.