Felicity has grown up in Scarletville – a town that was founded as a sanctuary for redheaded people, in order to recognize their true potential outside of the discrimination they usually found in the world.
Not to mention to foster the redheaded gene.
Here redheads are the popular ones. The ones with the best jobs. The best opportunities.
It’s been that way since Felicity was a baby.
This is why her mother started dying Felicity’s hair a constant shade darker of red in a very measured way to make it look natural.
Now, Felicity gets touch ups and dye jobs like a spy – sneaking around, never letting anyone know her true hair color – not even her best friends.
If anyone were to find out, her life would be over. Scarletville hates arties (artificial redheads).
So, when a note is slipped in Felicity’s locker advising her that they know her secret and if she wants to keep it that way she has to do what they say – Felicity already knows.
She’s going to have to do everything they ask…
Red has a concept that is hard to believe and sometimes difficult to swallow from a serious perspective, yet somehow it did grow on me.
There’s actually a real sense of becoming your own person, an individual, here – of being honest and facing irrational bias. That was nice.
Red is entertaining, at times suspenseful and presents an overall odd, out-there town that mirrors a less unbelievable bigotry.
In the end, I was kinda won over by Red – except that it had some leftover open ends that I would’ve liked resolved. It seemed to end sooner than it should have.
So, not perfect – not as quirky or satirical as I would’ve expected for such a strange plot – but largely an enjoyable, diverting novel.
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