Book Review: The Girl in Red by Christina Henry

Title: The Girl in Red
Author: Christina Henry
Publisher: Titan Books
Publication Date: 18th June 2019

Synopsis: It's not safe for anyone alone in the woods. There are predators that come out at night: critters and coyotes, snakes and wolves. But the woman in the red jacket has no choice. Not since the Crisis came, decimated the population, and sent those who survived fleeing into quarantine camps that serve as breeding grounds for death, destruction, and disease. She is just a woman trying not to get killed in a world that doesn't look anything like the one she grew up in, the one that was perfectly sane and normal and boring until three months ago.

There are worse threats in the woods than the things that stalk their prey at night. Sometimes, there are men. Men with dark desires, weak wills, and evil intents. Men in uniform with classified information, deadly secrets, and unforgiving orders. And sometimes, just sometimes, there's something worse than all of the horrible people and vicious beasts combined. 

Red doesn't like to think of herself as a killer, but she isn't about to let herself get eaten up just because she is a woman alone in the woods....


Review:

I always love how Christina Henry takes a classic story and plays with it. Twisting it into new forms, asking questions of it and putting it into new light but this level of reality. It's the story we all know, just in a different way to how we would normally tell it.

You're a wolf and I'm a hunter. I'm no Red Riding Hood to be deceived by your mask. I know what you are

We're all familiar with the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, going through the forest to see her granny (I've suddenly got Into the Woods stuck in my head) and this draws out that theme but elevates it, creating harsher, darker reality the Grimm brothers would be proud of. Here Red isn't simply going to visit granny she's on a survival mission, there is an apocalypse and it FITS PERFECTLY. How have I never read this into the original story before. It's fairy tale future extravaganza!

Red carries the book and it is through her that we understand the world and the sacrifices that have lead to this point. And there's a lot in there to unpick! Red, or Cordelia as she is here, named after the Shakespeare heroine for her strength and resilience has a physical disability and the book explores the ableism around her, with peoples perceptions of what she can and should be doing and how she adapts and pushes past that. Much like the fairy tale we get a sense of Red as a carer and her family as much as herself as dependent on her in different ways. This made Red a fighter, with a staunch determination that I deeply emphasised. There's a beautifully sad moment when Red tries to emphasis how her life isn't story and she'd been smarter and prepared, and yes its a touch cheesy but DAMN you understand her in that moment. 

And where would Red Riding Hood be without a wolf...or wolves. The wolf was always the villain in the story but when you scale up the story you have to do so with the villain too and here the evil is rooted within the world and Henry has created this beautiful analogy of human as the wolf. It gave me chills. It's something you can inherently understand and that almost makes it worse. 

It's somewhat weird to be writing this review when the world is as it is. Loneliness and paranoia were big themes that played out in the book and lines like this really hit home: The virus hadn’t just stopped existing relationships in their tracks. It had taken away the promise of the future, of all the connections that might be made. It makes me sad for the situation Red had to go through but glad for the support and connections that I have around me. I really do always end up making these reviews about me huh. 

This is a genre that we're very familiar with, but I appreciated the fairytale twist that took Henry in a different style. Luckily I haven't read too much around this genre so I enjoyed the journey it took me on. 

About the Author: CHRISTINA HENRY is the author of the CHRONICLES OF ALICE duology, ALICE and RED QUEEN, a dark and twisted take on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, as well as LOST BOY: THE TRUE STORY OF CAPTAIN HOOK, an origin story of Captain Hook from Peter Pan.

She is also the author of the national bestselling BLACK WINGS series (BLACK WINGS, BLACK NIGHT, BLACK HOWL, BLACK LAMENT, BLACK CITY, BLACK HEART and BLACK SPRING) featuring Agent of Death Madeline Black and her popcorn-loving gargoyle Beezle.

She enjoys running long distances, reading anything she can get her hands on and watching movies with samurai, zombies and/or subtitles in her spare time. She lives in Chicago with her husband and son.