Thanks to Grove Atlantic/NetGalley for the ARC.

The Red Word is a campus thriller which takes place at an elite school in the 1990s. The campus sections are interspersed with the present-day experiences of the narrator, Karen.

Karen is a Canadian student who falls in with two hugely different groups of students at the same time. She lives in a feminist collective named Raghurst, the inhabitants of which are largely devotees of a women's studies professor, Sylvia Esterhazy. At the same time, she's also dating a classmate who has pledged GBC, one of the school's best-known and sleaziest fraternities, the members of which are alleged to be responsible for all kinds of reprehensible behavior toward women.

Fed up with the culture on campus, the women of Raghurst start a radical campaign to ensure that the members of GBC will get what they deserve. Karen finds herself caught in the middle - put off by the way the men of GBC act toward other women, but also reluctant to partake in the radical activism that her housemates endorse.

One of the things I liked best about the book was how well Henstra captured the fun aspects of life at GBC, and why Greek life might be appealing. In doing so, she also demonstrates the issue with rape culture: some women are treated like sisters or friends, while others are objectified and manipulated. Nonetheless, the book would fall apart if the members of GBC were pure, unadulterated evil, and the reader sympathized exclusively with the campus feminists. It's a difficult course for the writer to chart, and Henstra does a great job.

Unfortunately, I found the book to fall short when depicting the other side of the equation: the women of Raghurst. As difficult as it is to make a reader sympathize with hard-partying fraternity brothers, it's equally challenging to draw a community of radical feminists, many of them queer, without making them seem strident or unappealing. I'm aware of the problematic nature of the word <i>strident</i>, and that's exactly why I chose it. The characters are so caught up in the service of their feminist ideals that they aren't particularly well-rounded, and when Karen professes her love and admiration for them, it falls flat. We don't see anything that really engenders her loyalty, especially to their ringleader, Dyann. Likewise, the professor Sylvia Esterhazy is fairly charmless and uninteresting, and little of what we see of her classes is particularly revolutionary, even taking into account the time period.

Part of my issue with this book is that it reminded me so much of The Secret History by Donna Tartt, which is an all-time favorite of mine. Many of the plot elements are similar: a fringe group on campus, led by a charismatic professor, welcomes (sort of) a new arrival, who gets caught up in their internal politics and troubling activities.  Only Sylvia Esterhazy doesn't have Julian's mystique, and Henstra's campus seems far less of a fully-realized place than does Hampden College.

The other issue I have is that the present-day sections, which are few and far between, don't advance the plot or characters in any meaningful way. We learn about Karen's career, and what became of several of the main characters, but knowing those things doesn't enhance the narrative for the reader.

Overall, there were some elements of The Red Word that I enjoyed, and it will certainly provoke discussion. Depending on the age of the reader, it may also be instructive with regard to problems in campus culture, and it's interesting to consider what has changed and what has stayed the same since the time period in which the book is set.

I had a hard time getting into this book.  The characters felt very stereotypical.  Since I did not finish the book, I do not intend to publish a review.

I loved this book. Initially, I wasn’t sure of its appeal because I was rushing through it like women’s fiction which it is not.  It’s the kind of book that demands all of your attention because it presents ideas alongside an engaging plot. Karen is a young Canadian attending an American university who gets an intimate look at fraternity life when she starts dating a member. She inadvertently finds herself amongst passionate feminists and becomes indoctrinated in their ideals. When an audacious prank goes wrong, Karen gets caught in the middle of it. Blurring the lines between right and wrong, this book will make you think about both parties - the victim and the victimizer. Clever and smart, this book is great for fans of Lauren Groff and Claire Messud.

Henstra's upcoming book deals with rape (The Red Word) on college campus.  A frought subject, the author attempts to balance the scales by juxtaposing the world of a fraternity known for sexism and sexual assault with radical, sometimes violent feminism and attempts to humanize the rapist central to the narrative.  For me, I find the people-are-wrong-on-both-sides approach to systemic violence against women to be infuriating and, therefore, I did not finish or appreciate this book.

I tried so very hard to like this book!  From the description I really thought it would be interesting. However, the obtuseness of the plot/storyline quickly became monotonous. I didn't finish it.  Thank you Netgalley and Grove Press for the opportunity to read this ARC.

The Red Word is an beautifully-written, original take on advanced or post-YA (I think it's called New Adult?); it tackles gender politics in a way that does justice to the cause, but also makes it palatable. There's a mixture of mythological parallels and historical lessons, dark humor, and satire that not only sets it apart from anything else I've read, but gives it a sense of reality. I also appreciated the balanced portrayal shown here: it's not entirely one-sided, and we are able to understand the draw of guys like Bruce Comfort, to feel sympathy for him even when he behaves poorly. Henstra brilliantly portrays the protagonist as being stuck in the middle of frat life and her feminazi friends, allowing us to see how absurd both sides can be at times. As in life, no one is entirely innocent or guilty; nearly everything exists in gray area. 

I would definitely recommend this to readers aged 15 and up.

The Red Word is an introspective, and terrifying look at rape (the Red Word) on a college campus.  The protagonist, Karen, enters a world of feminists and frat boys, college ideals against sober reality, and evil that does not always have a counterpart of good.

Karen is introduced to her life Raghurst, a shared house with 4 other roommates, each with specific ideals that are foreign to Karen, by being asked if she was raped the night before. Her year at Raghurst is just beginning, but the issue of rape plays a strong theme throughout.

The main antagonist, oddly enough, is not rape or even those who perpetrated  it; instead it is the desire that is so strong to destroy rape-culture that victims, any victims, that get in the way of that mission, suffer. The innocent pay a terrible price, when instead, it should be those who do the crime.  Or should it?  

The Red Word shows just how murky the proverbial waters can get when one's desire to take out an evil causes them to commit a greater one.  And it exams the horrific fallout when such outlandish steps are taken.

Gender politics, sexualised violence, the institutionalised nature of misogyny are all hot topics in fiction, but this is one of the most complex and complicated (in a good way) treatments of these fraught questions that I've read. 

Set in a mid-1990s Ivy League university, this explores what happens when Karen starts dating a boy belonging to one of the most notorious fraternities on campus, renowned for their inbred sexism while, at the same time, being adopted by a group of radical feminists. Negotiating between the two polarised positions, Karen finds herself compromised and self-questioning as events take on the hue and character of Greek epic and tragedy.

Hensta writes from a position of theoretical acuteness, throwing in scholarly debates about gender, power and sexuality, and one of the key points in the plot revolves around the misquotation and misapplication of Audre Lorde's 'the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house'. It is, though, learning worn relatively lightly.

I found the 'now' narrative a bit unwieldy and, frankly, uninteresting and while I can see that it's done to show how things play out in the post-university years, it feels like an add-on that isn't quite integrated or organic. Nevertheless, this is a sharp and clear-eyed exploration of troubling events on both sides of the ideological divide portrayed in the novel, with some disturbing but necessary scenes of sexual assault. Smart writing, intelligence, and a sophisticated approach to complex issues made this a thoughtful and gripping read for me.

If you identified as a feminist in the 90s, this book will intrigue you.  If you are a college student or recent grad at a college or university that has a Greek culture, this book will intrigue you.  If you a young woman or man about to enter college, you should read this book!  THE RED WORD focuses on male and female friendships and relationships in a college setting where, perhaps for the last time in our lives, we express the most extreme forms of ourselves and try on different ideologies as we explore who we truly are.  The novel focuses on the rape culture prevalent in a fraternity at an ivy league university and the feminists who try to expose and stop it.  Karen, the protagonist, is comfortable in both worlds - until they collide with lasting consequences.  Henstra has created believable characters and set them in a situation that will make you explore your own values, sometimes in uncomfortable ways.

Political idealism, feminism, academia, and hero worship form an explosive climate in one house on a college campus. Karen is fascinated with both her feminist intellectual housemates, and the frat culture her boyfriend Mike is a part of. She's also strangely  infatuated with Bruce, one of Mike's frat brothers. Her roommates take drastic action against the fraternity because of the horrible things that are rumored to happen to women who go to parties there, and the consequences are shattering.

Although, this was an interesting book it took a while to finish. It was very wordy in places and could use a little more editing.

I think this book is based on a Veronica Mars episode, the bad third season. This book was painful to read, not just because of the rape aspect but for its terribly written stereotypical characters. The cool name dropping especially at the beginning was ridiculous after a while. How many times does one have to mention Jack Kerouac and Doc Marten's? I thinks this book needs a serious rewrite before it could be taken seriously by an adult audience. I would suggest taming down some of the graphic depictions of sex and releasing it as a YA book.

Wanted to like this book. So wordy that it wasn't likable. Too much!