Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

*Image and Summary taken from goodreads.com

Book: Scarlet

Author: Marissa Meyer

Summary: 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. 

Release Date: 2/05/13

Rating: 5/5

I have to admit, I was slightly nervous to read Scarlet. We were saying good bye to having Cinder as our main character and gaining a new one, and I just wasn't sure how I would feel about the lack of Cinder in the book. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find myself quickly enjoying our new main character, Scarlet, and barely noticed the length of time we went without sight of Cinder.



I'm not really sure what it is about this series that just continues to pull me in. Actually, that's a lie, I know exactly what it is that pulls me in the more I continue to read. Its the characters, the plot, the flow, everything about this series just continues to pull me deeper into this new world that Marissa Meyer has given to us. I love how she uses the fairy tales that we all know and love and yet completely makes them her own, that shows great craftsmanship and she wields this genre so beautifully.

As I've already said, I was a bit nervous to be putting Cinders story on the back burner for a while and taking on a completely new character when I knew that Cinders story was really only just getting started. I wasn't sure what Scarlet would have to offer me and even as I began reading the first few chapters, I was still hesitant to fully allow myself to let Scarlet and her problems become a main point for me. But then slowly, as I kept reading page after page, I began to fall in love with Scarlet and Wolf, even cheering and hoping for the pairing. I did all of this even knowing with  him being the Wolf, that things were not likely to turn out so great. None the less, I got so entranced with them and their journey to get back Michelle Benoit, Scarlet's grandmother, that I hardly cared about the lack of Cinder.

Of course, the times that we did get to see Cinder during the series, it only continued to make me hope for good things for our main characters, and really helped to make the pieces of the puzzle click into place. Cinder was still very much herself in this book and she was very human to me. She was not without her faults or problems, just as Scarlet was not without her faults or problems, and that really makes the series feel alive.

Another thing this book gave me, was so many other perspectives brought forward. We still got to see snippets of Kai's life, as well as Queen Levana's and both of those points of views really helped to continue bringing the story forward and progress towards events that I'm sure will be happening in the future books.

With each page turned, the plot continued to thicken and twists and turns were made throughout the book, making the 400+ page book fly by so quickly and kept me constantly on my toes. I was never sure if the next page was going to bring about good events or bad events for our main characters and found myself continue to barrel through pages even when I knew that I should have put it down long before to go to bed.

I also happened to notice in this book, the variety of sentences and paragraph lengths. Maybe that's because I'm getting ready to journey into a month long of writing for Camp NaNoWriMo or may be just my mind picking up on it. Whatever the case may be, I definitely appreciated the variation and it really helped to make the thoughts and actions seem much more natural and lifelike.

The story line is wonderfully executed and Marissa Meyer never seems to give out too much information at a time. Instead, she gives us small morsels to taste with plenty of time for the information to sink in before dropping us another tidbit. There are turns around every page, and while some of the turns may have been a bit predictable, others were not.

This book definitely made the story even more compelling to continue with the series and there is still plenty of action and questions left to be answered with the following books. If you have not already picked up The Lunar Chronicles, its not too late! Winter is to be the fourth and last book in the series and will be coming out November 10, 2015 so keep your eyes out for it!