Hey, what’s black, white and Red all over? It’s ABC’s latest
attempt to hold on to audience interest in their fairytale franchise—and it’s not
too shabby, if I may say so. Certainly a step up from how our beloved Red
Riding Hood was utilized in Shadow of the
Queen.
Unlike previous addends to the OUAT lore via printed media,
Toliver’s novel takes us back to an earlier period in Red’s life, filling in
bits of backstory and fleshing out her relationships with Granny, childhood hunk-friend
Peter, and other members of her village. It also has a YA flavor, but not to an
irritating degree. It follows several tropes of coming-of-age stories without
becoming too cliché. You have romantic and sexual awakening, school bullies,
weird dreams the hero doesn’t understand but have something to do with finding
her true self—yeah, that does sound more overdone when you break it down, but
Toliver’s easy, fluid yet intelligent writing style articulates the
understandable trials of entering adulthood and makes them feeling organic and
visceral to her (well, ABC’s) characters.
