Book Review: Scarlet

Synopsis from Amazon:

Cinder is back and trying to break out of prison―even though she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive if she does―in this second installment from Marissa Meyer.

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.

*Warning: Spoilers if you haven’t read Cinder, the first novel in the Lunar Chronicles.*

I love how this whole series is retelling of fairy tales. Scarlet is Red Riding Hood, which is emphasized by the fact that Scarlet has red hair and always wears a red hoodie. Plus, the male lead in this novel is named Wolf…for reasons.

To be honest, at first I was annoyed by this book because all I wanted to know was what was happening with Cinder and if she escaped from prison but instead this novel starts off with Scarlet. I quickly grew to like Scarlet, though, and realized my only prejudice was that she wasn’t Cinder. Once I was over that I realized that Scarlet is a BAMF and I liked that the story switched between following her and following Cinder, while also throwing some flashes of Prince Kai and other characters.

This novel follows Scarlet, who lies in a small town in France, as she tries to find her grandmother who went missing a few weeks ago. The cops believe Scarlet’s grandma probably just left on her own accord but Scarlet knows that’s not true. While looking for clues, Scarlet meets Wolf who may be the key to finding her grandmother, but Wolf has his own secrets that may ’cause Scarlet more harm than good.

Meanwhile, Cinder, of course, escapes, otherwise this series would’ve been much shorter. This isn’t a big spoiler but if you absolutely don’t want to know anything stop reading here.

Cinder teams up with another inmate, Captain Thorne, who’s hot and cocky and I love him. Working together they make their escape and Cinder decides they need to head to Europe to discover more about what happened to her.

I really liked how Marissa Meyer set up this novel and how she eventually brings Cinder and Scarlet together. There were definitely moments where I either wanted to jump back to Scarlet’s storyline or jump back to Cinder’s. It’s such a relief when they finally converge together and I’m not looking forward to the emotional roller coaster that Cress will surely put me on.

Who am I kidding? I’m totally excited.

Honestly though, Meyer did a good jump of switching between point of views. This novel is still in close third person, which I think was the best way to go with this novel. I also liked that we got to see another country in this futuristic world. In most dystopian novels we only ever get to see America so it’s interesting in this novel that we’ve seen two different countries and neither one of them are America. I dig it.

If you haven’t read these books yet I definitely recommend it. They’re a must read.

Borrow or Buy: Buy!

Stars: