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goodyeargoodbooks's review against another edition
4.0
This was the first fairytale retelling I had read in a very long time, and I was not sure whether or not I would enjoy it. This book was not as I pictured it to be; it was a lot more contemporary and relate-able than I had expected.
I will admit that I grew very fond of both Silas and Rosie. The characters were very well written, and I felt that I could identify with Rosie's worries about needing to satisfy Scarlett, despite it contradicting her heart. I very much loved Rosie's chapters and the way the character thought and handled situations. Scarlett, however, was another story. It was only her that stopped me giving this book a 5-star rating and a place on my 'favourites shelf'. Unlike her sister, I found Scarlett to be a totally confusing and selfish character. Her views were so self-centred, and the way she treated her little sister at times was dreadful. I get that she feels that it is her responsibility to help others around her, but it was painful to read the parts where she preached to Rosie about how to behave, when it was clearly hurting Rosie's feelings. I feel that the characterisation crossed the line from 'pitying Scarlett' to 'loathing the self-centred cow'.
The plot twist was very obvious from the beginning, which at the time disappointed me a bit. However, in hindsight, I did like the climax of the book, despite having called the outcome many chapters earlier. I wouldn't have changed it, and it was unfortunate that the nature of the situation made the plot twist inevitable.
I'm glad I read this book, as I enjoyed the story immensely, however I was so disappointed in the characterisation of Scarlett March that it resulted in this unnecessarily dropping a star and the opportunity to be my favourite read of the summer.
I will admit that I grew very fond of both Silas and Rosie. The characters were very well written, and I felt that I could identify with Rosie's worries about needing to satisfy Scarlett, despite it contradicting her heart. I very much loved Rosie's chapters and the way the character thought and handled situations. Scarlett, however, was another story. It was only her that stopped me giving this book a 5-star rating and a place on my 'favourites shelf'. Unlike her sister, I found Scarlett to be a totally confusing and selfish character. Her views were so self-centred, and the way she treated her little sister at times was dreadful. I get that she feels that it is her responsibility to help others around her, but it was painful to read the parts where she preached to Rosie about how to behave, when it was clearly hurting Rosie's feelings. I feel that the characterisation crossed the line from 'pitying Scarlett' to 'loathing the self-centred cow'.
The plot twist was very obvious from the beginning, which at the time disappointed me a bit. However, in hindsight, I did like the climax of the book, despite having called the outcome many chapters earlier. I wouldn't have changed it, and it was unfortunate that the nature of the situation made the plot twist inevitable.
I'm glad I read this book, as I enjoyed the story immensely, however I was so disappointed in the characterisation of Scarlett March that it resulted in this unnecessarily dropping a star and the opportunity to be my favourite read of the summer.
breezy610's review against another edition
4.0
A different turn at the Little Red Riding Hood ( I think). Scarlett is a little bit to headstrong for my taste. It's no wonder that she can't get a guy, remind the scars that she has. and Rosie, she just needs to learn how to be her own person and not follow in the footsteps of her sister. It was a pretty good book. I feel like she left it open for other one, but i dunno.
kate4ez's review against another edition
2.0
I am clearly not the intended audience for this book. I figured out the twist way too early. Plus the relationship between Silas (21) and Rosie (16) fell very flat. I know it's supposed to be romantic, but it gave me creepy vibes.
I really hated Scarlett. Well, I disliked all the characters, but Scarlett was the worst. She was completely void of personality, although that could be said of both of them. The sisters were written as female versions of Sam and Dean Winchester--the self-sacrificing older sibling focused only on hunting, the younger sibling trying to have a life. Plus, the wolves were way too easy to kill. Buffy had a harder time killing supernatural creatures, and she's the Chosen One. These three are just some kids with no special powers.
Finally, the lengths the wolf packs go to to find the potential is nonsensical. Why on earth would they sacrifice even a single member to find a potential new member, much less the dozens they sacrifice? It's a net loss of members!
I save one-star reviews for books that are unreadable, which does not apply to this book. Disappointing as it was, I finished it.
I really hated Scarlett. Well, I disliked all the characters, but Scarlett was the worst. She was completely void of personality, although that could be said of both of them. The sisters were written as female versions of Sam and Dean Winchester--the self-sacrificing older sibling focused only on hunting, the younger sibling trying to have a life. Plus, the wolves were way too easy to kill. Buffy had a harder time killing supernatural creatures, and she's the Chosen One. These three are just some kids with no special powers.
Finally, the lengths the wolf packs go to to find the potential is nonsensical. Why on earth would they sacrifice even a single member to find a potential new member, much less the dozens they sacrifice? It's a net loss of members!
I save one-star reviews for books that are unreadable, which does not apply to this book. Disappointing as it was, I finished it.
annashiv's review against another edition
3.0
2.5 stars maybe? I may have enjoyed this more when I was younger and it doesn't help that I've never really liked Little Red Riding Hood. I felt this book was largely directionless but also extremely predictable. I think it would have helped to have a clearer plot earlier and more information about the Fenris earlier on. The revelations weren't shocking, and it seemed like they knew nothing about the Fenris despite being taught about them. Also, I'm not sure any of the rules make sense. Why do the Fenris only eat beautiful young women? How are there so many werewolves when the potential people who could become one are so few? Why only men? There were just a lot of odd things. I think it could have been told better. I did enjoy the ending, and there were good moments, but there was way too much fruitless researching and wandering and random fighting and origami classes. However, it just might be that this story wasn't for me. I've enjoyed the other two Jackson Pearce books I've read, so maybe this is just a fluke.
byp's review against another edition
4.0
Totally kickass girl characters, exceptionally well-crafted story, and, while the mythology isn't perfect (I'm unclear on how the sisters are as strong as werewolves), it works for me.
fantasynovel's review against another edition
1.0
*1 star*
Okay, so first of all, when I started this book, I had high expectations. High, high, high expectations. I mean, how could I not?
The Characters:
Scarlett: Femme Fatale (I think. What exactly is a femme fatale? Not exactly sure. I feel like it has to do with black and white movies. Huh. They're seductive, right? And then they stab you. #fun) Anyway, the book sells Scarlett as a badass motherf****** who kicks wolf ass and takes names. She's a girl with a vendetta, out to kill the wolves who ruined her life. Except her vendetta's kind of vague bc she's already killed the wolf who's ruined her life, so she doesn't really have a goal. Kill all the wolves, I guess? But it's not much to work to because there are So. Many Wolves. So we don't really get anything interesting from Scarlett. Her driving force just isn't interesting enough, even as we go through the book? Finding the potential? Snooze-fest. (I didn't care, and, besides, if you didn't figure out who the Potential was, you're probably a character in this book.) And Scarlett didn't have a personality. It didn't take long to figure this out. It was mainly tell, no show: "I am so angry. I want to kill the wolves. My anger melts away and I am strong." She's supposed to be all about killing those wolves, but instead she's all about saying that she's all about killing those wolves. We don't see it anywhere else. We don't see it in how she thinks, how she acts. Basically how she thinks is just a narration of what she's doing at the moment, with a little of "I was angry" thrown in. She doesn't have any idiosyncrasies, except that she likes Chinese food? Chinese food and hunting does not a character make. My favorite Scarlett quote? Silas has just asked her if she wants to be more than a hunter, and she responds with, "Can you really see me as a wife? A mother?"
...
Let that sink in. I don't even know where to start. This book, for assuming that the only thing a woman is good for is being a wife or a mother? For how she's defined in relation to men? For giving us the quote a few pages back, "Someone's friend, someone's daughter, granddaughter, someone's sister . . . nothing more than food for a monster." Yikes. Never once in this book is a woman saved for her own sake--it's always for the men in her life. Or am I angry because Scarlett doesn't have enough of a character to be able to comprehend anything besides hunting? We heard that she likes libraries a few chapters ago (one of my least-favorite tropes by the way. Making a character say she likes libraries is a quick way of giving her a personality, but it doesn't work. I'm sick of all these lost souls being drawn to the libraries in town but never saying anything else about it. We see her in the library later, but she's never happy to be there--so does she really like libraries? Food for thought), so why doesn't she say, "Can you really picture me as a librarian?" Or what about joining the military? Has that never occurred to her? Just being a wife or a mother? Aaaaarggggghhhh!!!!!!
Okay. Enough about Scarlett. Let's move on to Rosie: If anything, she has less of a personality than Scarlett. Actually, that's not fair. Scarlett didn't have much of a personality either. In fact, they both had such weak personalities that I had to keep flipping to the front of the chapter to see who was speaking. Also, for some reason, Rosie keeps leaving her knives at home. It's really fucking stupid. Every other scene, Rosie's being attacked by a Fenris and going, "Oh, shoot! My knives!" MAYBE YOU SHOULD STOP FORGETTING YOUR KNIVES, ROSIE, HUH? HUH? Wow. That girl really could not catch a break. And by catch a break, I mean "be reasonably prepared in a city filled with dangerous murder-wolf-demons."
And, finally, the third character, Silas: Hot. So hot. Wow. He's so, so hot. So hot that when Rosie sees him for the first time in a year, her ovaries burst into flame. At least, judging by that scene, that's what happened. Silas really isn't worth mentioning. He's even more of a paper cut-out than the girls, but at least being in the girls' heads gave me something to talk about.
Finally, my final point: this book was filled with slut-shaming. Gratuitous, nasty slut-shaming. The girls who don't know about the Fenris are "innocent" and "giggly" and "stupid." Scarlett even wonders at one point if the girls would dress the way they do if they knew they were attracting Fenris. Like, what? Slut-shaming for the win, guys. And, also, the way girls who weren't the two main characters were infantilized really drove me up the fucking wall. Every time we see them, they're giggling and falling over themselves. This bothers me on two counts: One, it's presented as the only way girls can act if they're not the super-special MCs, and Two, it presents being giggly as a bad thing. Do you like to giggle and wear sparkly outfits and do your makeup and get dressed up? I'm sorry to say, but you are a moron. Or at least that's what this book would like to have you think. Also, give these girls some credit, ok? There's just been a rash of violent murders. These girls--and you know what, I'm calling them girls bc that's what the text called them, but some of them were at clubs so that had to have been at least 21, so WOMEN, not girls--these women wouldn't just follow random guys around when people have been getting murdered lately.
Basically, this entire book was a fail, which really sucks because I wanted to like it. Oh, well.
Edit: Also, this book was boring AF. Just, like, really boring.
Okay, so first of all, when I started this book, I had high expectations. High, high, high expectations. I mean, how could I not?
The Characters:
Scarlett: Femme Fatale (I think. What exactly is a femme fatale? Not exactly sure. I feel like it has to do with black and white movies. Huh. They're seductive, right? And then they stab you. #fun) Anyway, the book sells Scarlett as a badass motherf****** who kicks wolf ass and takes names. She's a girl with a vendetta, out to kill the wolves who ruined her life. Except her vendetta's kind of vague bc she's already killed the wolf who's ruined her life, so she doesn't really have a goal. Kill all the wolves, I guess? But it's not much to work to because there are So. Many Wolves. So we don't really get anything interesting from Scarlett. Her driving force just isn't interesting enough, even as we go through the book? Finding the potential? Snooze-fest. (I didn't care, and, besides, if you didn't figure out who the Potential was, you're probably a character in this book.) And Scarlett didn't have a personality. It didn't take long to figure this out. It was mainly tell, no show: "I am so angry. I want to kill the wolves. My anger melts away and I am strong." She's supposed to be all about killing those wolves, but instead she's all about saying that she's all about killing those wolves. We don't see it anywhere else. We don't see it in how she thinks, how she acts. Basically how she thinks is just a narration of what she's doing at the moment, with a little of "I was angry" thrown in. She doesn't have any idiosyncrasies, except that she likes Chinese food? Chinese food and hunting does not a character make. My favorite Scarlett quote? Silas has just asked her if she wants to be more than a hunter, and she responds with, "Can you really see me as a wife? A mother?"
...
Let that sink in. I don't even know where to start. This book, for assuming that the only thing a woman is good for is being a wife or a mother? For how she's defined in relation to men? For giving us the quote a few pages back, "Someone's friend, someone's daughter, granddaughter, someone's sister . . . nothing more than food for a monster." Yikes. Never once in this book is a woman saved for her own sake--it's always for the men in her life. Or am I angry because Scarlett doesn't have enough of a character to be able to comprehend anything besides hunting? We heard that she likes libraries a few chapters ago (one of my least-favorite tropes by the way. Making a character say she likes libraries is a quick way of giving her a personality, but it doesn't work. I'm sick of all these lost souls being drawn to the libraries in town but never saying anything else about it. We see her in the library later, but she's never happy to be there--so does she really like libraries? Food for thought), so why doesn't she say, "Can you really picture me as a librarian?" Or what about joining the military? Has that never occurred to her? Just being a wife or a mother? Aaaaarggggghhhh!!!!!!
Okay. Enough about Scarlett. Let's move on to Rosie: If anything, she has less of a personality than Scarlett. Actually, that's not fair. Scarlett didn't have much of a personality either. In fact, they both had such weak personalities that I had to keep flipping to the front of the chapter to see who was speaking. Also, for some reason, Rosie keeps leaving her knives at home. It's really fucking stupid. Every other scene, Rosie's being attacked by a Fenris and going, "Oh, shoot! My knives!" MAYBE YOU SHOULD STOP FORGETTING YOUR KNIVES, ROSIE, HUH? HUH? Wow. That girl really could not catch a break. And by catch a break, I mean "be reasonably prepared in a city filled with dangerous murder-wolf-demons."
And, finally, the third character, Silas: Hot. So hot. Wow. He's so, so hot. So hot that when Rosie sees him for the first time in a year, her ovaries burst into flame. At least, judging by that scene, that's what happened. Silas really isn't worth mentioning. He's even more of a paper cut-out than the girls, but at least being in the girls' heads gave me something to talk about.
Finally, my final point: this book was filled with slut-shaming. Gratuitous, nasty slut-shaming. The girls who don't know about the Fenris are "innocent" and "giggly" and "stupid." Scarlett even wonders at one point if the girls would dress the way they do if they knew they were attracting Fenris. Like, what? Slut-shaming for the win, guys. And, also, the way girls who weren't the two main characters were infantilized really drove me up the fucking wall. Every time we see them, they're giggling and falling over themselves. This bothers me on two counts: One, it's presented as the only way girls can act if they're not the super-special MCs, and Two, it presents being giggly as a bad thing. Do you like to giggle and wear sparkly outfits and do your makeup and get dressed up? I'm sorry to say, but you are a moron. Or at least that's what this book would like to have you think. Also, give these girls some credit, ok? There's just been a rash of violent murders. These girls--and you know what, I'm calling them girls bc that's what the text called them, but some of them were at clubs so that had to have been at least 21, so WOMEN, not girls--these women wouldn't just follow random guys around when people have been getting murdered lately.
Basically, this entire book was a fail, which really sucks because I wanted to like it. Oh, well.
Edit: Also, this book was boring AF. Just, like, really boring.
reedandright's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
Content Warnings
Moderate: Dementia, Sexual harassment, and Stalking
Minor: Death, Death of parent, Body horror, and Blood
sng2098's review against another edition
4.0
Scarlette and Rosie are sisters. When they were younger they got attacked by a Fenris (werewolf), and the attack left Scarlette covered in horible scares (except over her heart). During the attack their grandma, Oma March, was killed by the Fenris.
They lived by theirselves, leaving Scarlette to raise Rosie by herself since their mother ran off. They now have to spend the rest of their lives hunting down the Fenris and making sure no one gets killed agian because of them.
The Fenris population is increasing and the girls, plus Silas (there family friend) must go to Atlanta to hunt. They then learn about "The Potential", a fledling Fenris. Now they must save the boy and protect themselves.
So, I rate this book 4.5/5. I didn't find the characters whiny at all (which was nice). I really liked Rosie's character, she was strong and independent. Scarlette is a very strong female character, she saved her sister from the attack. Silas is also a strong male character, he is the youngest of nine children.
The writing was very easy to read and understand. I actually enjoyed the writing style. I was glad to read something that had a writing style that was the way we talk, not something that included a lot of sarcasm that people hardly ever use.
I definitly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a good romance, werewolf, or a book with strong female characters!
They lived by theirselves, leaving Scarlette to raise Rosie by herself since their mother ran off. They now have to spend the rest of their lives hunting down the Fenris and making sure no one gets killed agian because of them.
The Fenris population is increasing and the girls, plus Silas (there family friend) must go to Atlanta to hunt. They then learn about "The Potential", a fledling Fenris. Now they must save the boy and protect themselves.
So, I rate this book 4.5/5. I didn't find the characters whiny at all (which was nice). I really liked Rosie's character, she was strong and independent. Scarlette is a very strong female character, she saved her sister from the attack. Silas is also a strong male character, he is the youngest of nine children.
The writing was very easy to read and understand. I actually enjoyed the writing style. I was glad to read something that had a writing style that was the way we talk, not something that included a lot of sarcasm that people hardly ever use.
I definitly recommend this book to anyone who is looking for a good romance, werewolf, or a book with strong female characters!