A review by l1ndz7
Red Hood by Elana K. Arnold

3.25

This is a feminist retelling of Red Riding Hood written in second person. It touches on toxic masculinity, women empowerment and shame. 

It uses menstruation as an empowering tool instead of something to be ashamed of, which I appreciated. It definitely feels taboo to talk about. Judging about the amount of reviews saying how gross it was that menstruation was a component of the story, I wish talking about it was more normalized. At first, I was taken back by how much menses was mentioned but once I understood the purpose, it didn’t bother me as much.  

This book portrays toxic men as wolves which was great but her message at the end of the book implies that the only way to deal with this is to treat men the same way they’ve treated women. I don’t agree with that message at all and judging by the reviews, a lot of people heard the same message. At first, I thought this book was portraying all men as wolves but it was refreshing to see that our FMC had a wonderful, loving, supportive bf the whole book. 

I wish this wasn’t categorized as YA because there is explicit content in here that I wouldn’t let someone as young as twelve to be reading. I would categorize this more as new adult.


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