‘Girl in Red’ adds chilly twists to Little Red Riding Hood

Skylar Promer

Update of Red Riding Hood story provides “Grimm” twist on classic character.

“The Girl in Red” is a horror fiction novel written by author Christina Henry, published recently in June of this year. This post apocalyptic retelling of “Little Red Riding Hood” is sure to send chills down one’s spine.

Red is not the average young woman, one will come to find even in the first pages of the story. Even when dealing with her prosthetic leg she finds a way to be one step ahead of the dangers of the woods. Though sometimes, that danger finds her still:

“The man fell to the ground, and the blood seeped from the wound in his stomach… He might die, and she was sorry not because she’d done it but that she had to do it. Red didn’t like to think of herself as a killer, but she wasn’t about to let herself get eaten up just because she was a woman alone in the woods.”

Though not all dangers are completely visible. “The Cough” has also spread across the country. People are dying left and right. But not Red. She has somewhere to be. Her grandma is waiting for her in her cottage in the woods and there is nothing that can stop Red from getting there, not even when she’s forced to leave her parents behind and a truly unfortunate event falls on her brother.

But what will happen when The Cough becomes something more? Will she be able to reach her grandmother’s house before the first snowfall? Or will the wolves finally catch up with her?

This gore-y read will have even the strongest of stomachs twisting. With 292 pages, “The Girl In Red” is sure to entertain its reader with laughs and scares alike, along with the thought at the back of one’s mind that such things could possibly come true at one time or another.