Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Published: February 5, 2013
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends
Author: Website
Info: Goodreads

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.  (goodreads.com)

I read CINDER.  Loved it to little, itty, bitty pieces.  Why wouldn’t I read SCARLET?  May this be the series that gets my toe in the water for sci-fi.

Okay, so I read somewhere, and I think it was by Meyer but don’t quote me on that, that this book was about Scarlet and Cinder only made vague appearances throughout the story.  That is so wrong it hurts.  The two share equal page time, if not allocating more to Cinder.  While not a bad thing it definitely threw me off and it was hard for me to get into the story with so much Cinder going on.

But I loved Scarlet and her feistiness and her adamance to stand up for what’s right instead of what’s easy.  She was an easy heroine to like.

The world-building.  Character development.  Meyer’s threading of Wolf into the story and making him something in between.

I’ve always liked how underhandedly ruthless Meyer is with her characters.  The Lunars are some nasty bitches and they do some rather awful things.  To not only see that on the page but watch as Cinder struggles with it, and the morality, or lack thereof, that it brings is an equally amazing battle.

Iko is also rather awesome in her new body.  I’m glad Cinder was able to regenerate that likable little robot, even if it was into a less than appealing body for her.  Hey, at least she had something.

I didn’t like how Scarlet faded from her own story at the end of it.  Cinder became this overwhelming force in someone else’s tale and she just took it away from her.  There are elements there at the end that string the two girls together but ultimately this was Cinder’s book, not Scarlet’s.  I was hoping it’d be more about the feisty red-head.

Let’s not forget Scarlet’s and Wolf’s relationship.  Totally killed the ending for me.  Thank GOD this part didn’t come to fruition until the last couple of pages otherwise I would have been even more pissed.  What makes it even worse is that the situation pokes fun at insta-love and then hits it in the face with a shovel.  Kind of annoying.  Yeah, how cute and totally avant-garde to attack that right there and then just push it out of the waste hatch in the ship and do it anyway.  And it was heavy-duty too, I think, like pack mates forever type of shit.  Seriously.

An incredibly entertaining addition to this quartet of books.  Meyer left enough pieces dangling at the end to tie into book number three without being obnoxious about it but tied up the loose ends created by SCARLET nicely.  Yes, Cinder’s greater overarching story carried on beyond the end of the book but at least, for now, Scarlet gets her resolution and the book is left feeling finished.  Not a stand alone by any means and it certainly can’t be read out of order, otherwise you’d be completely lost but Meyer does good by not making the book look like it was written as one long manuscript and chopped up at random intervals throughout.

Subtle nuances are brought to light as the chase carries on and I wonder what Meyer will do with them, like Cinder’s growing power or the Captain.  Well, I guess those two things aren’t all that subtle but they’re not exactly the spines of the book.  They don’t prove a viable function until much closer to the end and, you know, don’t show a gun in the first act and not have it go off in the third and all of that.

I will, without a doubt, be reading book three because, well, I’m kind of all about Kai and Cinder and I want to see how that one works out, especially considering how SCARLET ended.  Things don’t bode well for our Romeo and Juliet and me doth wonder how much worse it couldeth get.  Considering Meyer’s writing style, I’m guessing quite a bit before it shows any signs of getting better.