The commercials for the Red Riding Hood movie coming out soon intrigued me. I mean, sure, chances are it's as horrible as the Twilight movies. But the possibility that it isn't is exciting. & as you know (or are about to find out), a YA novel was recently released as a "companion" to the movie. So you know I bought it. Here's the cover (which I adore):
I was really hoping to like this book. I like fairy tales. I like new twists on fairy tales.
I also, however, like good writing. This book didn't have that particular characteristic.
I liked the ideas & I could have liked the characters, if they had been fleshed out a bit more. The story is mostly told from Valerie's point of view, in a meandering fashion that makes her seem extremely indecisive and somewhat flaky.
Basically, the writing is very simple. That's not always a bad thing. A lot of great writers write in simple sentences. It's concise, and often beautiful in it's lack of unnecessary complication. So it's not really the simplicity that bothers me - it's that the simplicity is paired with a lack of sophistication. There's no grace to the story. One sentence wobbles along after another, like a toddler learning to walk. It is clumsy and sometimes completely misses the mark and falls on its' butt.
There were two sentences that I liked:
"Valerie was not who she had been. She felt parts of herself softly crumbling off, like a cliff falling into the sea."
That was it. The others sentences revealed too little or revealed too much or just didn't strike my intellect in an appealing way.
Have you read Red Riding Hood? What was your opinion?
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