Title: Scarlet [The Lunar Chronicles 2]
Author: Marissa Meyer
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fairytale Retelling
Length: 452
Rating: 4 Star
Series Review: Novelas, 1, 2, 3, 4
Description/Synopsis:
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 – MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS
After the last one, this one let me down a bit but I still thought it was an amazing story.
I think the only reason why this one fell a start from the first for me was that we were introduced to some new people, two of which are Scarlet and Wolf, and they are telling us the story of little red riding hood (but not really that much). While I liked these two new characters, compared to Cinder and Kai I didn’t really care about them at all. Pretty much the entire time I was reading about them I was thinking to myself how they were going to connect up with Cinder and the rest of her crew, I wasn’t really concerned much with their story.
Sadly, we don’t get any Cinder an Kai time because CInder starts off in jail and must break out and Kai is off doing Emperor like things elsewhere. This made me very very sad. This was kind of made up for however in the new non-romantic partner is crime (because they are off being criminal together) Thorne. Thorne is the accidental person Cinder picked up along the way while breaking out of prison who happens to have a ship. Their relationship is just amazing. It starts off with Cinder being really annoyed by him but by the end you know they love each other. Iko also ends up being the ship and this was just so funny. She made a pretty damn awesome ship. My favorite moments in this book involve Thorne and Cinder and sometimes Iko. There is a part where ‘captain’ Thorne was trying to fly ships, something he apparently doesn’t do well, and Cinder is just there saying “We are going to die.” Then Thorne comes up with lines like “We’re having another moment aren’t we?” when Cinder only kind of wants to hurt him. So funny.
If you don’t want spoilers, you should probably leave here for the rest of this review will be going into detail about events in the book.
I loved the scene were Cinder and Thorne find the very creepy basement at Scarlet’s house where her grandmother had helped Cinder’s adoptive father build her and piece her all back together after she was nearly burnt to death. A process that took eight years! Wow. Yes, that would explain why Cinder has no memory before the age of eleven. She was submerged in goo. I also thought it was really interesting that that was why she has the google thing inside her head, because she had no idea of the world and this would allow her to find things out without people really noticing that she had no idea what anything was or how things go.
I was so ashamed of myself when it came to the whole Scarlet and Wolf side of the story. So many hints were dropped that Wolf wasn’t from Earth but was in fact a Lunar but I didn’t make the connects at all until he ‘turned’ on Scarlet and lead her into his pack’s ‘den.’ Not that he could turn crazy and rip a person to bits with just his hands, not the fact he had wolf teeth, not when Scarlet’s father was saying that the people who had him captured forced him to hurt himself, and not when he didn’t know what a tomato or a carrot was. Nope. Not even a thought about it. So shameful.
At the same time though when Scarlet gets captured and Wolf is secretly trying to help her, I got really happy because I just knew that Cinder was going to fly in with Thorne and save the day. I tell you, that saving scene was so action packed. I thought it was pretty funny that Cinder shot Wolf with tranq dart because she thought he was going to eat Scarlet. Part of me was screaming at them to leave him there because it was such a hassle to save everyone with this giant guy all knocked out and useless.
Cinder was so much more kick confident in this book I feel. She went about everything with a determination that she didn’t completely have in the last book. I was actually really worried that this would make her go a bit evil with her Lunar powers, so I pray that doesn’t happen by the end of the series. I think maybe perhaps she will build new chips to make is to the Lunar’s don’t have to use their powers without side effects and so humans can be protected. I think the part the showed her toughness the best besides breaking out of jail and saving everyone, would be at the end Scarlet is yelling at her. Why hasn’t she done something sooner to save everyone/fix everything since she is the lost Lunar princess? Cinder just turns around and is basically like, well for your information Scarlet I only found out three days ago and since then I have broken out of prison, fixed a ship and come and saved you. Haven’t had the time to overthrow an evil queen just yet. Scarlet is just standing there going oh… ok then. Hahaha so good.
ANYWAY that is enough rambling from me. I liked this one but there were a few things I didn’t like as much as the first but I still loved it and I am picking up the next book in the series right this second. Tell me your thoughts on everything that happened in the book. Did you pick up on the Wolf thing quicker or am I the only that was blind?
Till Next Time…
