Book Review: Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce

Sisters Red

Jackson Pearce

Publication Date: June 7th 2010

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Pages: 324

Genre:  Fairytale, Horror, Paranormal, Young Adult

Scarlett March lives to hunt the Fenris--the werewolves that took her eye when she was defending her sister Rosie from a brutal attack. Armed with a razor-sharp hatchet and blood-red cloak, Scarlett is an expert at luring and slaying the wolves. She's determined to protect other young girls from a grisly death, and her raging heart will not rest until every single wolf is dead.

Rosie March once felt her bond with her sister was unbreakable. Owing Scarlett her life, Rosie hunts ferociously alongside her. But even as more girls' bodies pile up in the city and the Fenris seem to be gaining power, Rosie dreams of a life beyond the wolves. She finds herself drawn to Silas, a young woodsman who is deadly with an ax and Scarlett's only friend--but does loving him mean betraying her sister and all that they've worked for?

"Little Red Riding Hood" as a paranormal/urban-fantasy YA book sounds like it should be in the same lines of Twilight, Beastly, Darkest Powers, The Infernal Devices, and many other books with the same tropes. It should be about falling in love with someone with a terrible past who has a werewolf problem of some type.

Sisters Red is nowhere near what most people would expect. It is urban-fantasy, it has romance and it stars teenagers, but it is so much more than that. Sisters Red is the story about two girls and how they deal with a tragedy in their childhood that shaped their entire lives. It's about sisterhood, friendship and love and how they entertwine, and it is also about killing werewolf like creatures and being incredibly good at killing them, because if they don't, others will die.

The prose of this book is very dark, but very well done. In fact the author it reminds me most of is Dia Reeves (Bleeding Violet and Slice of Cherry) a horror/urban-fantasy writer (whom I recommend if you've never read). It is not the light fantasy happy fairytale adaptation that tends to be written, but more in the lines of how Brothers Grimm recorded and wrote them.

Good for Pearce for throwing us off about Silas almost last minute. I kind of wish that she had put the information out there sooner, however, so that I wouldn't have spent most of the book suspecting that he was the 7^th son that the Fenris were after.

Which reminds me, I love the use of the "7^th Son" being special and the whole idea that Fenris did change other men by bites, but it had to be during a very specific time and person. It's very original, yet staying with fairytale tropes and motifs.

Finally, I love how Rosie and Scarlett realized that just because they needed and wanted different things in life it doesn't mean that they don't care for each other.

I highly recommend this book to lovers of horror-type adaptations of fairytales. In fact, if you enjoy the TV show "Grimm" I recommend this book, because I feel like there's a similar feel to it (obviously the mythology is very different).

4.5 Bookmarks