A review by wealhtheow
Little Red Riding Hood in the Big Bad City by Martin H. Greenberg

1.0

Some of the worst short stories I've read in a long, long time. Trite, cliched, badly told...ugh. I finally gave up after Russel Davis's "The Last Day of the Rest of her Life." It is a retelling of The Little Matchseller in which the main character is a young girl named Angel, who runs away from her abusive father (who is addicted to "matchsticks," a new drug that look like their namesake but give dreams of happier times). Of course she tries the matchsticks, and of course she freezes to death. "The girl's face, blue and frozen--and should it have been that small?--was marked with faded bruises, but her expression was almost angelic. A faint smile showed on her lips." Her dad finds her, is all, "oh noes! what have I done!" and goes inside and shoots himself. The passing policeman who witnesses all this says to himself, "Whatever troubles they'd had were over and they'd gone to their final home. Maybe it was as close to a fresh start as anyone ever really got." Seriously, a fifteen year old gawth chick could have written this with more style. SO BAD.