My rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Goodreads rating: 3.72 with 4,586 ratings (as of 2/6/2020)

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…Synopsis from Goodreads

200 Word Review

I was provided with a complimentary copy of this book so I could give an honest review.

The Girl in Red by Christina Henry is a retelling of the classic story Little Red Riding Hood. In this version, Red is living in a post-apocalyptic wasteland caused by a highly contagious disease. Everyone Red knows has died but she hopes her grandmother will still be alive since her house is isolated. Most survivors have been relocated to quarantine camps but Red would rather go to her grandmother’s house.

It is told using alternating timelines that reveal the beginning and the spread of the disease and Red’s struggle to get to her grandmother’s house in present day.

The book took some time for me to get into the story but it has a nice pace to it. You quickly realize it is not a mystery or suspenseful book. It is a believable retelling of the perennial classic Little Red Riding Hood so there will not be any twists and turns but involves a well-written and imaginative retelling.

The Girl in Red is one of the many retellings Christina Henry has written. Others involve the classic works of Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan, and the Little Mermaid.

The Girl in Red was a 2019 Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Horror.

This review was published on Philomathinphila.com, Smashbomb, Goodreads, Facebook, Twitter, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble on 2/6/20. When available, the review will be published on Scribd.com and, using Overdrive, will be rated in 9 libraries.

Genre: Horror, Fantasy, Retelling, SciFi
Print Length: 293 pages
ISBN: 0451492285
Publisher: Berkley Publishing Group
Publication Date: June 18, 2019

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