R - Red Riding Hood - Sarah Blakely-Cartwright (329 pages)

I really wanted to love this book, but I walk away with just a bit of like and a lot of confusion. It took me a little time to get into this book, I think the main reason was because it read like a screenplay - with lots of stage directions without explicitly pointing out that "Valerie walks to stage left"...it was very distracting. Once I got past that annoyance, the story picked up.

This is a re-imagining of the classic Red Riding Hood tale with a slightly modern and gothic twist to the tale. The book is still set in some undetermined time in the past, but the "wolf" in question appears to be a werewolf (as is the trend these days). The story centers around Valerie (Red) and the village of Daggorhorn, a village that is tormented monthly by the wolf. As long as the village offers the wolf a sacrifice (usually a goat or some such thing) a tenuous agreement stands. Something happens to break this bond and as often happens, things get bad.

I chose this book because it is going to be a major motion picture in March of this year. The trailer was compelling and when I saw that there was a book I checked it out so that I could read it before I saw it. I believe that this may be a rare instance where the movie may be better than the book, I am really hoping that is the case anyway.

My ultimate frustration with the book came at the end, when I was finally completely engaged in the story - it ended abruptly giving us a website address to learn the ending. When you try to open the website - you get a page that says check back soon for the final chapter! How totally and completely frustrating! 

I am very disappointed with this book - it could have been great, but it wound up being just all right.