Kin
by Lili St. Crow
Razorbill Books (March 3, 2015)
Audience: Young Adult
IndieBound | WorldCat
Description from GoodReads:
"Dreamily dark and spellbinding with a hint of horror, New York Times bestselling author Lili St. Crow stuns with this toothsome retelling of Little Red Riding Hood.
Full moon. Glowing eyes. Red lips. And such sharp, sharp teeth…
In the kin world, girls Ruby de Varre’s age are expected to play nice, get betrothed, and start a family—especially if they’re rootkin, and the fate of the clan is riding on them. But after a childhood of running wild in the woods, it’s hard to turn completely around and be demure. Even if your Gran is expecting it.
Then Conrad, handsome and charming, from a clan across the Waste, comes to New Haven to seal alliance between their two families. The sparks fly immediately. Conrad is smart, dominant, and downright gorgeous. Yet as Ruby gets to know him more, she starts to realize something's...off.
Then, the murders start. A killer stalks the city streets, and just when Ruby starts to suspect the unimaginable, she becomes the next target. Now Ruby’s about to find out that Conrad’s secrets go deeper than she ever could have guessed—and it’s up to Ruby to save her Gran, her clan, and maybe even herself....
Prepare to become thrillingly lost in the third, final, and simply mesmerizing installment of Lili St. Crow’s Tales of Beauty and Madness series."
Carolyn's thoughts on the book:
The Tales of Beauty and Madness series is easily one of my favorite fairytale-retelling YA series. Set in a lavishly complex and magical world, each book paints more and more of a picture of the enchanting setting, and specifically dives into the sub-community each heroine lives in. In Nameless, a retelling of Snow White, the reader learns about the Vampire Family (eerily similar to an Italian crime mob); in Wayfarer, a retelling of Cinderella, the Charming clan system is explored; and in Kin, a retelling of Little Red Riding Hood, the Clan system of the werewolf community plays an integral role in the story. There are other great details that add even more to the story - the alternate history, the religious systems. Each of the three protagonists - Cami, Ellie, and Ruby - come from different backgrounds, but band together in the face of their hardships. One of my favorite things about this series is while all three girls do have borderline-extremely low self esteem (which may or may not be ultimately cured through validation from the opposite sex), and other high-school girl tropes, their ultimate triumph, or rather, their ultimate survival through everything they've experienced, is in no way because of the love interest - it's always two girls rescuing the third. They might as well have just hung up a sign reading 'No Prince Charming needed'.
Something that I particularly appreciated in Kin was the brilliant and complexly nuanced portrayal of an emotionally abusive relationship - something that is all too often glossed over in YA (Stockholm syndrome much?). Kin is deeply psychological in that regard, which added a nice depth to an already lovely novel. I'm sad that this series is ending, but Kin closes it out perfectly.
Carolyn is a teen blogger who shares her favorite YA reads and favorite book related finds with readers on Fridays.