Review: SCARLET by Marissa Meyer

TITLE: Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles, Book 2)
AUTHOR: Marissa Meyer
AUTHOR WEBSITE: www.MarissaMeyer.com
GENRE: Young Adult, Fantacy, Sci-Fi, Romance
PUBLISHED:  February 5, 2013 by Feiwel & Friends
MY SOURCE: Books-A-Million
MY RATING: 5

FIND ON: Amazon

SYNOPSIS:

(Courtesy of Goodreads-No Spoilers!)

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.

REVIEW:


The second installment of the Lunar Chronicles did not disappoint! The plot thickened after Book One’s cliffhanger ending. The twists and turns in Scarlet we enjoyable and I couldn’t put it down. It follows the theme of Little Red Riding Hood. It doesn’t follow the plot, but just caries the theme throughout. That’s the best thing about these books, is that it’s not just a “rewritten” fairytale. The characters take on a life of their own and the sci-fi plot is original and exciting.

Three new characters (and narratives) were added in this book: Scarlet, the granddaughter of the woman Cinder is searching for and Wolf, the operative sent to kill Scarlet. Totally love their interaction together and then when Cinder enters their world… what fun! (Don’t worry, no spoilers!) I like Scarlet’s fearlessness and ferocity. Wolf is totally cool and intense.

As for the third new character, Thorne... I love this guy. He is totally Han Solo! He can’t help but be a smart-alec, cool, funny, and a total bad boy! That’s all I’ll say.

RATING:


I am rating this book at 5: Excellent and Worth Every Minute. I wasted NO time in reading this just after I finished Cinder. What a great extension of the first book. I don’t want this story to end, but I want to know what happens next and if they WIN the major plotline extending from the beginning of this series! Marissa Meyer surely can twist a tale.






RECOMMENDATIONS:


This book, thought great, has quite a bit of violence and gore. I’d probably rate this one as PG-13. (There is a PG kiss, too.) I let my teen read all the books in this series and warned her about the violence.

More books by Marissa Meyer:

The Lunar Chronicles

Book 1: CINDER
Book 2: SCARLET
Book 3: CRESS
Novella: FAIREST (Back-story on Levana the Evil Queen)
Book 4: WINTER