Red Again by Barbara Lehman

Rating: ★★★★★

Genre: Children’s literature

Medium: Hardcover

Synopsis: Two more children find the mysterious red book…

Review: I opened a box to receive at my bookstore and saw this on top and I was like.  Huh.  This looks…different?  And lo and behold, this was published in 2017.  And so I devoured it (when I probably should have been working).  And holy shit.  It was.  So good.  Like.  It falls within the same theme as the first, hence the title but.  The ending???  Lehman did THAT and just messed with metafiction and intertextuality AGAIN.  I’m.  It’s too much.  These books are too much and I need MORE, please.  I am such a huge fan of the Red Books, and I will not be stopped.  They’re just too good.

The Red Book by Barbara Lehman

Rating: ★★★★★

Genre: Children’s lit

Medium: Hardcover

Synopsis: A boy finds a red book, and discovers that it has properties that no other book has…

Review: I’ve been telling everybody I know about this book–IT’S SO GOOD.  I don’t know if I ever had a book where I opened it up and then just couldn’t stop flipping through the pages with such intensity.  I’ve told so many people about this (coworkers, friends, roommates…) solely because of how much I love it.  And now I’m telling you all!

This book is so metafictive and it basically made my mind burst with how creative it is.  Because, I mean, the characters in the story have a red book, and what do you have???  A red book???  And they stare DIRECTLY at you even though they’re supposedly staring at each other???? It’s too much, man.  An assumed pro-tip would be not to read this book while you’re on anything, because I tripped when reading this and I’ve never done any sort of drug.  It’s just.  Oh my god.

How does Lehman convey her characters so well using absolutely no words whatsoever?  How does she completely blow apart the fourth wall?  How does she subvert the reader-subject power dynamic so easily?  How does she do these things???  I’m still blown away by this book.  Please, please read it.  It’s too good not to.