Dear Aly,
Marissa Meyer has done it again!!! Another fantastic fairytale retelling!
Scarlet is the second book in the Lunar Chronicles series (and based on Little Red Riding Hood), the first being Cinder. In Cinder, we met Linh Cinder, a lowly cyborg mechanic thrust into a world of kings and princes, Lunar queens and mind control. In Scarlet, we follow Scarlet Benoit, a girl hailing from the French countryside trying to find her missing grandmother. She stumbles upon a boy, names Wolf, who she thinks can help her find her grandmother. Things of course get turned on their heads and we find that some characters are not at all who they seem. Cinder is also prominently featured in this book; she is on the run with an escaped criminal, Carswell Thorne. Scarlet and Cinder’s storylines hurtle towards each other and when they collide, there are some pretty epic scenes.
I like where Marissa Meyer is taking this series. These novels build upon each other, and the fairytales embedded within. Kind of like the TV show Once Upon A Time, the fairytales become entertwined, creating new pathways to new and original stories. Meyer’s characters are very complex; they keep you guessing throughout the whole book.
One thing I would have liked to see more of is scenes with Scarlet. She is the title character, but Cinder is also important, and we get a lot of scenes with her, and we are just sort of thrust into Scarlet’s world. To give us more of a backstory on Scarlet would have been helpful, but I see where including it would drag the story down.
Overall, I really enjoyed this second effort from Marissa Meyer. It’s a solid second book and doesn’t fall flat or hide in the shadow of Cinder. I can’t wait to see what’s next in the Lunar Chronicles!
Happy reading,
Zoe
FromAtoZBooks 