Jackson Pearce

Here are just a few of the things I love about this book:

Scarlett is so tough. She's deadly with a hatchet and harshly truthful and fiercely loyal and secretly proud of while being secretly self-hating because of her many battle scars. She feels overwhelmingly obligated to do the work that she does, and she's good at it. She's generally kick-ass.
Rose is so conflicted. She wants Scarlett to trust her to hunt alone, but she also wants Scarlett to need and protect her. She wants to remain show more half of a pair, but she also wants to break away into a different life. She's got wicked aim with throwing knives, and she holds Scarlett together when no one else can. She's generally kick-ass.
Silas is quite literally the boy next door. As such, he's managed to win the crushes of both Scarlett and Rose over the years. But he is first and foremost Scarlett's partner; they are a team and they act like one. He also manages to be first and foremost Rose's support. He pushes Scarlett to trust Rose on the hunt, and he pushes Rose to break away from hunting and live her own life. And he does all of this without being two-faced or playing one sister against the other. He totally gets that no matter how much Rose might swoon over him or how much Scarlett depends on him, he will never be able to compete with the relationship Scarlett and Rose have with each other. So he doesn't try.
The twist that Pearce puts on werewolf mythology is great. They're still totally evil people-eaters (unlike some other werewolves you may be familiar with), but they're not the werewolves of B-rated horror films (or Harry Potter) either. How she weaves the girl in the red riding hood into this mythology made me giddy. She's created a werewolf that is, a lot of the time, victim to his own senses and sensations. In showing how Scarlett and Rose manipulate these monsters, she completely immerses the readers in a rich fantasy: the one that Scarlett and Rose (with help from Silas) nightly create.
None of this compares to the twist Pearce has put on the ending of her own story. I thought I had it figured out about halfway through the book, then I lost it, then I figured it out again, but by then things were so complicated that I didn't know how Scarlett, Rose, and Silas were going to pull it off.

Seriously guys, I loved this book. The opening hook worked like a charm, and by the end, I was reading with my heart in my throat. I was so invested in these characters. Highly recommended. show less

Scarlett and Rosie March were orphaned as children when a wolf attacked and killed their grandmother. Scarlett was nearly killed in the attack and escaped with only one eye and a great many scars. This wolf was no ordinary wolf, but a soulless creature that takes the form of a man and can turn into a wolf, called a Fenris. Eight years later, the sisters train hard and hone their skills to be able to kill as many of these creatures as possible, with the help of their woodsman neighbor Silas. show more As a result of their constant training and slaying Fenris, the girls haven’t had a chance to go to school, have friends, or even think about dating like normal girls their age. They live in the same small rural country town they grew up in and their world is pretty small. Scarlett is satisfied with this the hunt consuming her life, but Rosie longs for some semblance of normalcy. Rosie also starts to have feelings for Silas, which proves to be more of a problem when they all relocate to a small apartment in a big city in pursuit of a Potential, a male that can be turned into a Fenris with very specific conditions. Can Rosie have a relationship with Silas without alienating her sister? Will they find the Potential and protect him before the Fenris turn him?

I’ll admit it: I’m a sucker for a good retelling of a fairy tale. This is one of the most exceptional that I’ve read in general. Jackson Pearce takes the simple fairy tale, Red Riding Hood, and adds beautiful detail to it. The flat characters become realistic and multidimensional. The story is transported to the present. The setting starts as rural and then becomes urban. The city, not the forest as in so many fairy tales, serves as the setting for transformation and the main action in the story. The single wolf becomes a group of werewolves. The woodsman that acts as the savior in the story becomes an ally and a friend. These changes still reference and use the original story as a starting point, but ends up going against such fairy tale conventions as the cliché happily ever after and the helpless damsel in distress. They ultimately transform a fairly flat tale into a story that speaks to (and is relevant in) the modern world.

Scarlett and Rosie are fierce warriors and very close sisters with an intense relationship. They are about as different as night and day: Scarlett is perfectly happy just hunting and killing Fenris for the rest of her life and Rosie wants something more. The novel is told from both of their points of view, switching between them each chapter. It’s a great way to get a better idea of both of their thought processes and where both of them are coming from. My favorite thing about them is how they destroy what the original fairy tale essentially says about women. The girls dress up in red hoods, heavy makeup, and sexy clothing to lure in the Fenris for the kill. They use their sexuality as a weapon and don’t depend on the woodsman to come and save them. They are self sufficient and fierce. The original tale can be interpreted in many ways. In my opinion, it can be interpreted as rape being the fault of the victim or as a negative view of a young woman’s burgeoning sexuality. Scarlett and Rosie prove to be the complete opposite of these two views. It’s wonderful to see this frankly misogynistic tale made into one of empowerment.

Sisters Red is an excellent story with adventure, werewolves, grisly deaths, and even a little bit of romance. I would recommend it to pretty much anyone that has seen or heard of any rendition of Red Riding Hood. show less

In kindergarten, I wanted to be a veternarian. So I have some empathy for Pip, the main character in a series by Pearce and Stiefvater, who is fascinated by all creatures magical, especially because her unique–and unfortunately for her, unbeliveable–talent of being able to talk to magical creatures. In order to help her identify and memorize the wide variety of magical species, she carries a copy of the mostly-useful Guide to Magical Creatures by Jeffrey Higgleston. Since Higgleston show more couldn’t talk to unicorns, her first encounter with a herd of them goes disasterously awry (“I hadn’t ever realized that show Unicorns were really show-off Unicorns”).

After that, she’s sent to visit her aunt in Cloverton. Since her aunt is a veterinarian for magical creatures, it isn’t exactly a punishment. It’s not all about the animals, however, when she’s expected to make friends with Tomas, a youngster who seems to have a lot of allergies, along with an anxiety disorder:

“Everything is too dangerous. All my brothers get to play football, and go to camp, and eat dairy products. I never get to do anything.”

But before you know it, Pip and Tomas are out in the dangerous world, motivated to overcome their fears (and allergies) in order to save some magical creatures.

Pip has an entertaining voice that’s mostly matter-of-fact but somehow still captures the sense of the absurd:

“We learned pretty early in the school year that life was easier if you were as orderly as possible, so we lined up as straight as his eyebrows.”

Every time a new creature is introduced into the text, there’s an illustration with notes, as if taken from Higgleston’s book. Too bad it is in black and white! But the story has a fun voice, nice characterization, a good message and an excellent amount of unique creatures. I definitely would have loved as a youth. As a grown-up, it was a pleasant, entertaining read. Except those unicorns. What a bunch of jerks.

Epilogue: Like Tomas, I suffered from profound allergies, although with not nearly as cute as manifestation as he has. So I switched to people, who are surprisingly more like unicorns than I would have expected. show less

Little Red Riding Hood re-imagined, and she is packing! The Sisters Red are Scarlett and Rosie March, and grandma got eaten by a werewolf. Scarlett managed to fend off the wolf until the neighborhood woodcutter arrived, but she lost an eye in the attack and was horrifically scarred in the attack.

Set in current time the two sisters are now hunters on a mission to keep their town safe from seductive werewolves who prey on beautiful young women. The red cape they each wear hides their weapons show more of choice. A hatchet for Scarlett and hunting knives for Rosie.

These werewolves are not the sexy kind found in the Twilight series. Nobody will be swooning over these greasy, matted, reeking monsters because they have no souls. While the wolves harbor no romantic aspirations, the same cannot be said for Silas, the son of the woodcutter. He partners with the sisters in their quest to rid the world of wolves. Until things begin to get...deliciously complicated.

Written in the first person, the story shifts back and forth between Scarlett and Rosie. At first the construction felt awkward but the narrative soon developed into a nice rhythm, and the novel turned into a real page turner.

I really enjoyed the story and the sheer brilliance of the sisters. They are powerful role models and put Bella Swan to shame. Fans of Twilight will really enjoy this book and it will be a great companion to the growing genres of werewolves and fairy tales re-told. show less