Scarlet
Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles, #2)by Marissa Meyer
Cinder returns in the second thrilling installment of the New York Times-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 and 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 has no choice but to trust him, though he clearly has a few dark secrets of his own.As Scarlet and Wolf work to unravel one mystery, they find another when they cross paths with Cinder. Together, they must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen who will do anything to make Prince Kai her husband, her king, her prisoner. (goodreads.com)
Hey! This book comes out today! Totally didn't plan that when I sat down to write this post. I read Scarlet on Sunday and loved every second of it. I didn't think I could love this second book as much as I did Cinder, but I did! I was a little thrown by the new perspective in the book, even though I had known this was going to be a book about a different character. That thought was in the back of my mind while I started the story and had to get accustomed to a new character - Scarlet!Have any of you out there seen the movie Looper? If you have, you know the farmhouse and fields that much of the movie takes place on? Well, that's exactly how I pictured Scarlet's farm. I kept seeing scenes from that movie whenever the story was set in Grandmother's House. I don't know why you'd care about this, but I just needed to tell someone. That someone, Internet, is you.So, trying to not spoil anyone on the book (but in case I do, feel free to skip this post), I will say that there are three new characters introduced in Scarlet (with Scarlet being one of them) and I enjoyed them all. Fear not for fans of Cinder, because she is in the story, as well. There are chapters devoted to her story mixed in with Scarlet's story and if anything the pacing of the story is so wonderful and fast that you're at the end WAY TOO QUICKLY for my liking and now must suffer 12 long months until Cress is released. Ugh. Stupid waiting game.I think my favourite of the new characters is Captain Thorne. The way he was written kept me giggling the entire time he was on the page. Seriously. He's such a fun character and I was surprised by him in the end, too. I love when characters are more than they seem to be (in a good way, and not in a mysterious way). It was towards the end that I knew he was my favourite character BECAUSE of the surprising part and he became a much fuller character to me, too. (Trying to explain this without spoiling things is really hard. So I'm being intentionally vague, even though what I am telling you about isn't like a mysterious part of the plot, it's just about character development, as in character-character, and not a person character... ugh.. I give up.)Anyhow, my point is that I loved Thorne, ok?I also loved the Scarlet and Wolf story, which is good because most of this book is about them. I will tell you that there's a scene in this book between them that was so full of heat and tension that I thought "ok, so this is a perfect example of how this is done. Not graphic, not over-the-top, but full on emotional commitment and hotness and it WORKS!" and nothing seemed forced or fake and I was swooning, people. SWOONING! I was shocked to realize that I found a fictional character from a book, HOT. This has happened in the past on occasion, but normally I don't feel actual attraction to characters from books. Not this time though. Wolf. Yum. It's attraction like this I find fascinating because I don't have a physical description to ogle over. In fact, I'm attracted to his personality and actions really. Isn't that how attraction should work in real life? Not focus on the physical?So, yeah... I like Wolf. But mostly I like Scarlet and Wolf as a team. That works for me.A lot about this book worked for me and I loved that. I know I was sort of having an eye-roll moment at the end of Cinder as much as I adored it, but this book didn't have the same Captain Obvious parts. At least none that stuck out and annoyed me anyhow. I actually found Scarlet to be a more well-rounded story and a slightly stronger book than the first. If the writing, characters and story are just going to get progressively better with each book, I am super stoked about this. Also, I am even more annoyed that I have to wait a year between books. Impatient is my middle name. (Not really.) (But it should have been.)So, this fantastical, science-fictiony, fairy tale retelling series is one for the history books, my friends. It's fun, exciting, funny, thrilling and just well done. Pick it up and enjoy it. We've met Cinderella (Cinder), Red Riding Hood (Scarlet) so far and we've got two more to go! Cress and Winter... not sure about Cress though. I saw online that it's Rapunzel? And I'd guess Winter is a Snow White retelling? I'm curious now and I'm extra curious as to how they will all tie together, because I really didn't make the connection between Cinder and Scarlet until it was right in front of me. Not sure if it was because of the year between books and my Old Person Memory or what.. but I liked that I had that "Ohhh!" moment when the connection was made in my brain. ;)Enough of my rambling. Read this series. That is all.The Lunar Chronicles