Scarlet by Marissa Meyer Series: The Lunar Chronicles #2
Published by Feiwel & Friends on February 5, 2013
Pages: 454
Format: Hardcover
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The fates of Cinder and Scarlet collide as a Lunar threat spreads across the Earth...
Cinder, the cyborg mechanic, returns in the second thrilling installment of the 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 or 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 is loath to trust this stranger, but is inexplicably drawn to him, and he to her. As Scarlet and Wolf unravel one mystery, they encounter another when they meet Cinder. Now, all of them must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen Levana, who will do anything for the handsome Prince Kai to become her husband, her king, her prisoner.
While Scarlet was not as good as Cinder, I still enjoyed it. Marissa Meyer is a fabulous storyteller and she kept me engaged throughout the entire book.
I liked Scarlet right away. She was (for the most part) fair and logical and knew how to handle a gun. At the same time, she was a bit oblivious and so determined to find her grandmother, she sometimes let logic fall to the way-side. She never took the time to think through her actions, to think about what others were saying – Basically, she had a one-track mind and it often got her in trouble. Unfortunately, I loved Cinder so much that she overshadowed Scarlet a little bit.
Wolf was an intriguing character. I liked him right from the start but I never fully trusted him. There was always something off about him. I think I focused so much on the original fairy tale and the whole “the wolf is the bad guy” that it may have clouded my judgement where Wolf was concerned. It was obvious he cared about Scarlet but it was also obvious that he was hiding something. Although, the thing he was hiding? Whoa! I seriously did NOT expect it to be what it was!
I LOVED the sections with Cinder and Thorne. First of all, Cinder is my favorite so far. I haven’t read Cress yet so that could change, but I loved Cinder way more than Scarlet. And then there was Thorne.. *Swoons* I was only about 3 pages into meeting Thorne and I fell hard for him. He’s swoony and hysterical and amazing and I CANNOT wait to get to Cress so I can learn more about him! I can’t deny that Wolf and Scarlet were perfect together, though. They might not have been as interesting as Cinder, Kai and Thorne, but they were still perfect together.
I found some of the Scarlet and Wolf scenes kind of… slow and boring, honestly – in comparison to the Cinder and Thorne scenes, at least. And the parts with Kai weren’t much better. Don’t get me wrong, I liked Kai a lot in Cinder – until the end. Now, in my eyes, he needs to redeem himself. And so far, he’s not doing a very good job. He’s also such an idiot sometimes and he’s so susceptible to what others tell him. It’s like he can’t think for himself, can’t come to his own conclusions. For the most part, he acted like a scared little kid, not a grown man or a leader. And Queen Levana.. I pretty much wanted to knock some sense into Kai the whole time and I wanted to bitch slap Queen Levana the whole time. Also, Adri. I had some sympathy for her in Cinder, but NONE in Scarlet. Like with Queen Levana, I just wanted to bitch slap her the whole time.
The last 60 pages or so really picked up. There were a lot of revelations that I didn’t expect at all. There were some moments near the end where, if I were Cinder, I just would have bitch slapped Scarlet – just saying! (Yeah.. I guess there were a lot of characters I wanted to bitch slap in this book.. Whoops..)
Overall, though Cinder was way better and I love the CHARACTER of Cinder more, Scarlet was still a great book and a great character. The end leaves it open for a smooth transition into Cress and, since I’ve heard FANTASTIC things about Cress, I can’t wait to read it!