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| Red by Alison Cherry Published by Delacorte Books for Young Readers Released: October 8th 2013 Hardcover, 320 pages Rating: 4/5 Stars Reviewed by Angela |
Having red hair is all that matters in Scarletville. Redheads hold all the power—and everybody knows it. That’s why Felicity is scared down to her roots when she receives an anonymous note:
I know your secret.
Because Felicity is a big fake. Her hair color comes straight out of a bottle. And if anyone discovered the truth, she’d be a social outcast faster than she could say "strawberry blond." Her mother would disown her, her friends would shun her, and her boyfriend would dump her. And forget about winning that pageant crown and the prize money that comes with it—money that would allow her to fulfill her dream of going to art school.
Felicity isn’t about to let someone blackmail her life away. But just how far is she willing to go to protect her red cred?
Summery from Goodreads
You know those books where you find the synopsis utterly ridiculous? But you have to read just to see if the book is actually joke or not? I seriously thought this book was a big joke when I first read the summery. Red hair gets you the golden pass in life? wHAT. it's so ridiculous I had to read it. I was SO ready to give a full blown rant about how this book was stupid. Welllll, I guess now I can't. Because it wasn't, and it took me by one hell of a surprise. I actually ended up enjoying this a lot, but had a few issues still.
(below is how I, ANGELA, comprehended this book. it might be off, it might be beside the point, heck, it might be even completely wrong but it's okay.)
To me, I think is book is still more or less a joke. The concept, at least. The meaning and message is NOT a joke, but it uses the red hair as a way to convey this message. At first you might think, WTF. Red hair? A town that loves red hair? If you got it, flaunt it. It gets you places, in this town. Front of the line and all sorts of other discriminatory luxury things. What even.
The red hair might just represent how beauty, or other skin deep attributes and how humans are twisting those attributes to be worth more than they are. I mean, red hair is great, but you don't just give the power to those who have red hair. Or beauty, for example. If you got the "ideal" traits (which is pretty much bullshit), humans automatically place them above others who do not. I'm not getting into a discussion about what is "beauty" and the meaning it. I'm not. And I won't.
In Scarletville, everyone who has red hair is respected. Felicity has gorgeous, coppery red hair so she is also popular, has great friends, a hot boyfriend and is on her way to win the pageant. When you just read what I wrote, is it not ridiculous? Now, let's compare it to something else like high school. Everyone has those popular girls in their school, am I right? And what do all those girls have in common? Their freaking looks. Most of them all are pretty. Beautiful. Gorgeous. I'm not saying that all pretty people are "popular", it all depends on the person. They've got lots of "friends", boyfriends, gets invited to all the parties, etc. This doesn't mean they are good people, it just means their looks make people "like" them more than their personality. Which is pretty much very goddamn screwed up.
We might have paid attention to this before, but perhaps we didn't think about how stupid it is. Your LOOKS, determine your social standing in life. Um, what? Okay maybe not life. I'm still young, I don't know what is life yet. Let's still stick to high school for now. I'm not saying that this is always the case, because it's not. It's not, so DONT GET THE WRONG IDEA. But it is, for a lot of cases and it's totally irrational. It's ridiculous. It is, isn't it? Now is it such a big joke that the people in Scarletville treasure red hair, and place them high on their undeserving pedestal? Maybe not.
It's stupid, and illogical and I think maybe the author is trying to get us to realize that through this book. We don't realize how idiotic it is, but this book does a wonderful job of shedding some light on this subject. WAIT. Maybe, I am wrong. Maybe the author and none of the crap I just wrote in mind while writing and it's just about a town who loves red hair. Maybe. Maybe not.
Besides all those opinions I shared above (I'm kinda cookoo sometimes), this book is addicting. It's surprisingly suspenseful, agonizing and made me realize how shallow I am. I REALLY NEED TO START WORKING ON THAT. It's interesting and kept me reading till I finished. The book includes a lot of stereotypes, some annoying characters who were so damn stupid but overall is enjoyable. The romance wasn't heavy, kind of a background thing going on. It was cute, but the story wasn't centred on it so it wasn't overwhelming.
*please do not get offended by my use of "beauty" above. don't try to talk to me about deep philosophical shit about what beauty means and I didn't consider it and how I used the example of it wrong because beauty comes from within blah blah blah don't. don't. I'm only speaking of it in the relative sense, so use your common sense and don't argue about what is beauty because I am not in the mood.*
Give this book a try. Let it enlighten you. :3
*please also do not get the impression that im trying to be deep and wannabe oh-so-wise. im not. SERIOUSLY. its only my opinion and you do not have to agree with it.*
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