sky's journal

A very loose take on "Little Red Riding Hood," set in modern times post-apocalypse!

Cordelia, nicknamed Red because she hates her given name and always wears a red hoodie, is the sole survivor of her family. She's traveling the post-pandemic wilderness to get to her grandmother's house in the woods, armed only with an axe. She's used a prosthetic leg since losing one in a car crash when she was a child, so people underestimate her. They shouldn't.

The story alternates between her post-pandemic journey and the events leading up to it, when Red lived with her mom (a Black college professor), her dad (white, I forget his job) and her older brother Adam. Red is about 20, Adam is about 22; they're both college students. Red is extremely into horror movies and preparing for danger, so she sees the urgency of the pandemic well before most people. Unfortunately, that's not enough to save her parents and brother.

I was absolutely glued to this book, staying up past midnight to finish it, despite its many flaws. If you, like me, enjoy a small scale apocalypse story with a focus on the logistics of survival, this is a must-read. The logistics of survival bits are GREAT.

It's repetitive (HOW many times do we need to be told that Red can't run fast because she has a prosthetic leg?), everything is over-explained, Red is somehow able to use a small axe to kill multiple men armed with guns (all at once in addition to sequentially!) despite having no training, and the ending is incredibly abrupt and has more loose ends than a half-finished sweater. I cannot believe the author's chutzpah in setting up all sorts of fascinating mysteries only to have Red conclude that she's not the main character (what?) and so no longer cares that she'll never know the answer to any of them. Okay, but I care!

And yet, I enjoyed the hell out of it, right up to the non-ending. I am just a sucker for people searching for beef jerky in looted supermarkets and rescuing kids.

Spoilery details.

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Halfway through this book, I was looking up all of Henry's other books, which are horror or thrillers, many dark fairytale retellings, so I could read them all. When I got the end, I looked up their reviews. Many mention "abrupt" endings and none of the rest are post-apocalyptic, which was by far the best part of the book, so I will probably leave my reading of her books right here.