Review: Red by Alison Cherry

onyxdarkling
Aug 12, 2014
2 min read

Scarletville is just like any other little town in Iowa - if you don't count it being a self-proclaimed "National Redhead Sanctuary." The vast majority of the town's population is made up of head-haired citizens. And if you're not a redhead, you're not anything. Non-readheads are treat not much better than dirt, and the high school's redheads are the perfect example of that. Redheads rule, and any student unlucky to be gifted with a mane of fiery hair is riddiculed, harrassed, or downright ignored.

Senior Felicity St. John seems to have it all. A perfect boyfriend, awesome besties, and artistic talent. But she is hidding a shocking secret - her hair is secretly dyed to maintain it's blazing scarlet, least it reveal her true strawberry blonde. But somebody has found out, and in order to make sure her blackmailer doesn't spill, Fecicity needs to do whatever they want. But with her mother putting presure on her to win the upcoming beauty pageant, having to lie more than ever to her friends, and searching for the blackmailer, it's only a matter of time before Felicity drops the ball...

The one thing I have against this book was the thing with the color red. The town is called Scarletville, and it makes sense with the number of redheads who live there. But Mayor Redding? Come on. That's a bit much. But the book was very engaging and interesting. I sort of wish that the identity of the blackmailer had remained a secret longer, because when it was revealed so early, it made the story a bit anticlimatic. I liked how there was a bit of a love story, but it was in the backround, which shows you can write a good YA novel without a hot guy, which so many of the more popular authors seem to think. The characters were rather standard and didn't do much to stand out for me, and Felicity' personality wasn't satisfactory. She didn't have the spine I expected and I hated how shallow she sometimes seemed, like when she thought the world would end if people knew the truth about her hair. While the story ended on a slightly gloomy note, it was satisfying. I would give it 3/5 stars.