Review: Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer

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.

I received Scarlet last year during ALA, and well my plan was to read it around December and get a review out around February. But like most of my plans, there are always hitches. I ended up reading Scarlet last week and finishing it in 2 nights. WHY DID I WAIT SO LONG!?! DGBJI:FHDGIBD...sorry about that. I loved Cinder, one because I love retellings of classic stories, and also because Cinder was the perfect mix of sci-fi and the retelling. It definitely stayed true to the original story, which really made it worthwhile.

Then you have Scarlet. It not only had Scarlet's story, but it also had Cinder too. They were all intertwined into one *laughs manically* creating this book of amazingness. I'm a sucker for recreations of classics, that too when they are children stories. I love how the classic is the base, but the story is completely renovated creating something totally new. Meyer is definitely one of my favorites who recreates such stories. She combines sci-fi with romance but still has the base story which she goes off of. The combination of Little Red Riding Hood and Cinderella (Cinder from Cinderella) definitely made reading Scarlet worthwhile.

In Scarlet, Scarlet's grandmother has disappeared, and she will do anything to find her. Alongside her search she meets Wolf (You know, the big bad wolf) *swoon*, who is mysterious, dark, and well one of her only hopes for finding her grandmother. In her search for her grandmother Scarlet comes across Cinder, Captain (Cadet) Carswell Thorne, and Iko(who I must say is hilarious).

With the introduction to so many new characters, plus all the old characters seriously confused me at times. Now I don't blame anyone for the confusion, that was all me. It had been such a while since I read Cinder, and I read Scarlet at 3 am, so me not remembering is totally on me. Though I forgot a few, Captain Thorne and Wolf definitely caught my eye.


Thorne is one of the funniest characters in the whole book. He is sarcastic, handsome, and well bloody hilarious! I have a favorite scene with him- it's between Iko and Captain, I don't want to spoil it, but I have to say it was my favorite part of the whole entire book. Here is one quote off of Goodreads that gives you the essence of the awesome that makes up Thorne:

“A relieved grin filled up Thorne’s face. “We’re having another moment, aren’t we?”
“If by a moment, you mean me not wanting to strangle you for the first time since we met, then I guess we are.”

I would put more quotes, but at the moment my copy of Scarlet is sorta hidden in a stack of books *woops*. Thorne brings the light into the novel, Meyer's characters are all distinct and have some importance. She wrote a large fantastic book that did not have any excess boring detail. All of what she wrote was needed to get the story to come together, in my opinion anyway. I'll give my details on what I think about Wolf in a special Special Someone Saturday, well because to be honest, he is definitely now on my top 10 book boyfriends and he definitely deserves his own post ;)

Overall, I fell in love with Scarlet, and I need more of the Lunar Chronicles ASAP! You have no idea how excited I am for Cress and I have no idea how I am going to wait a year for it to come out. Until then, please read Cinder and Scarlet, because once you do, you will be banging your head on why you hadn't read it already!

Rate: 5/5