Sisters Red

by Jackson Pearce

[Amber (The Literary Phoenix)]

As a lover of fairytales-retold, I adore the idea of this book, but found myself overall, disappointed. Pearce's attempts to tell an old story in a new and interesting way are only partially successful in that he falls back on too many of the same old cliches. It's one thing to be able to predict a movie ending (and, ironically, the movie that comes to mind is Red Riding Hood, whose greatest secret I had called before the first fifteen minutes passed) but it is entirely a different thing when you are able to call the ending of a book. I almost put it down several times - a dishonor which I have bestowed on very few books - simply because the events were only proving time and again that my theory was correct. It's no fun to already know the ending of a mediocre book.

That said, it does get two stars, because cheesy romance and 2/3 ridiculous cliched characters aside, Pearce did do some interesting things with the retelling - such as having the Hunters instead on exclusively weak little pixies. It also just may be the fact that I am good at finding the wolves crawling out of the woodwork - many others are may not be able to predict it as well as I did, and for them, this book will certainly be enjoyable.