Review: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles #2)
By Marissa Meyer

Published: February 5, 2013
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Hardcover, 464 pages

Cinder returns in the second thrilling installment of the New York Times-bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She’s trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn’t know about her grandmother and the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother’s whereabouts, she has no choice but to trust him, though he clearly has a few dark secrets of his own.

As Scarlet and Wolf work to unravel one mystery, they find another when they cross paths with Cinder. Together, they must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen who will do anything to make Prince Kai her husband, her king, her prisoner. --Goodreads

4 Stars

Review

The first time I read this (yes, I read this), I found Scarlet to be an underwhelming disappointment to desperation I felt to read this book as quickly as possible. Because I finished this book in an hour (I was busy!) I lost everything that made this book as amazing as it was. Luckily, after a re-read, I can say that Scarlet is a fantastic sequel to the one-of-a-kind Cinder.

Scarlet picks up immediately after the ridiculous cliffhanger of Cinder and transport us to France, where Scarlet, the granddaughter of the missing Michelle Benoit, is panicking and going off her rocker, desperate to find her grandmother. Not to say that a relative of a missing person will literally go off her rocker like Scarlet was throughout the entire book, but man! Scarlet was one fierce, and extremely impetuous heroine to root for. At many points, her desperation to find her grandmother fell a bit flat, considering the danger she keeps causing Wolf and herself to run into. If there was one person I wanted to knock a few marbles into, Scarlet would be my pick number one.

Despite my initial irritation with Scarlet, the dangerous world of the Lunar Chronicles has just become a whole ton better with the introduction of Wolf and Thorne. Two completely contrasting characters both bring smiles to my face with their idiosyncrasies: Wolf is literally a newborn babe in the new world, while Thorne is a comic relief character who keeps Cinder from going insane. Oh yeah! *spoiler* If you didn't know, Cinder runs away with Thorne, who has a stolen spaceship, to discover the whole truth of her past from Michelle Benoit (remember, Scarlet's grandma). *spoiler* The humorous retorts going on between Cinder and Thorne almost made up for the lack of Cinder and Kai romance that crackled in the first book. Although it was sad to see some of my favorite characters not featured as prominently as in the first book, these new guys totally made their absence worth it!

Your heart really breaks for Kai in this book. While everyone else is running toward a goal in mind, Kai is left to face the frightening Queen Levana without the support that he needs. Although I was cold as rock toward Scarlet's predicament, I admit to shedding a few tears to poor Kai. Not only has his heart been broken, he is forced to be diplomatic to the enemy who constantly stalks him like prey. What Scarlet does best is have incredibly lovable characters, like Kai, that allow the reader to be empathetic and feel way more passionate about the plot than they should. Basically, I'm generalizing the readers of Scarlet to be exactly how I felt as I read this. Sorry if this wasn't true for you, but deal with it.

This book doesn't have too much going on throughout the plot, but still faithfully follows the Little Red Riding Hood story, which in turn didn't have much going for it either. Cross dressing wolves, anyone? However, there hasn't been a book in a ridiculously long time who has hit me this hard in terms of character development like Scarlet did. The disappointments I had with Scarlet, herself, and a sort of lack of plot were almost completely made up with the new characters, Wolf and Thorne, as well as the maturation all of the characters are forced to face the climatic buildup for what is to come.

Purchase Scarlet here: Amazon/ B&N/ TBD