Pages: 344
Series: Fairytale Retellings #1
Read: 7th February 2011
Challenge: 1st in a Series (1/20)
Status: Owned book
Reason I Read It: I bought it because I stumbled upon Jackson's blog, I read it because of the reason stated below.
Synopsis: The March sisters, Scarlett and Rosie, have been fighting the Fenris (werewolves) ever since one of them killed their grandmother. But now the wolves are looking for one boy in all the world to be turned, and the sisters decide to take the fight to them, hoping to wipe out the whole lot before the new one can be bitten. There is violence, Platonic philosophy, tattoos, bowling, and girls kicking arse. And it is awesome.
First Line: "Strangers never walk down this road, the sisters thought in unison as the man trudged towards them."
Review: Just to quickly get this out of the way - I bought this book last summer (I think when it came out) but I only started reading it because of the Bitch magazine huha. I didn't pick it up until I read this article, especially point 6 in which Sisters Red is compared to a Buffy episode I love, and then I knew I had to read it. So, I am aware of the debate going on around this and the other two books, but I'm not sure that I'm qualified to get involved in the discussion because I haven't been following it from the beginning - all of my information about what happened is based on articles other people have written. Basically, I'm aware but don't want to get involved; I am employing the survival technique of ostriches everywhere.
Anyway...
I think the Buffy comparison is a good one, because for most of this book I was thinking that the easiest way to describe it was as Buffy-meets-Twilight-with-werewolves-instead-of-vampires*, and my love of Buffy far outweighs my dislike of Twilight so I was happy. The Twilight element was only really in the main love story, but even that is rational and explained as people's feelings changing after they've known each other for years. I didn't completely feel it, but I never tend to completely feel romances which are a bit of a sudden boom, we're in love - that's just me, and I'm aware that Buffy/Angel (Bangel?) is pretty much that. And at least no one was secretly watching anyone else sleep.
However, the romance wasn't the sole focus of the novel; that was reserved for fighting the Fenris. There was a point at which I wondered if every man in Atlanta was a Fenris, but that was addressed as logical because they're all in the city hunting for the Potential**. In fact, every time I thought "oh, come on, it's blatantly obvious that it's So-and-So", the book provided clues that it wasn't - until the end in which it turned out that what I'd seen coming was indeed going to happen, but in a twisty way that made sense. This is me trying very hard not to spoil, but I didn't see the logic behind the solution until it was presented to me (cryptic reviewer is cryptic) and then I was cursing because it was bloody obvious.
For the twistiness of the end, and girls beating up wolves in amazing action scenes - seriously, very good fights - I loved this book. The beginning creeped me the hell out, as I tweeted, and there was action in pretty much every chapter. The easiest way to sum it up is: it's one of the few paranormal romances I like. I can't wait for the second in the series, Sweetly***, even though it doesn't feature the March sisters. I'm once again glad there was a fuss over a book as it's made me read it (last time was Slaughterhouse-5).
Rating: 7/10
* I know there are werewolves in both of those series, but I'd say the primary focus is on the vampires.
** Who thankfully did not turn out to have a bad fake 'British' accent; yes, Molly, I mean you.
*** Side note: how awesome are the covers for these books?
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