The Red Word

Sex, drugs, myths, frats and feminist activism. A campus novel set in the mid-90ies that looks at rape culture. Our female protagonist lives in both worlds, partying and dating a frat-boy, while sharing a house with radical feminists, and reading about misogyny in Greek myths. The plot of the novel escalates when her roommates go to drastic measures to fight for what they believe in, without minding the collateral damage.

This book quite sucked me in, with the slightly scandalous fast moving plot. I especially enjoyed Karen's secretive tempting meetings with golden boy Bruce Comfort. Poor Bruce (and poor me) as he never gets the chance to either prove or damage the mythological pedestal Karen puts him on. But, while I enjoyed the book, I can't say I fully understand what it wanted to communicate. There is something muddled and unfinished about the intentions, the resolutions, the scenes set in the present. I also have to say that Karen still remained a bit of an unresolved engima to me, how she could balance the two worlds, simultaneously be curious about but also ignore and condone what happened in that frat house. All the characters had potential, but they never reached that visual clarity that their counterparts in The Secret History had.