Review - Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Published 7th February 2013 by Puffin Books

Star Rating - 2.5*

Goodreads Challenge - 58/50

Synopsis from Goodreads

This is not the fairytale you remember.

But it’s one you won’t forget.

Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. The police have closed her case. The only person Scarlet can turn to is Wolf, a street fighter she does not trust, but they are drawn to each other.

Meanwhile, in New Beijing, Cinder will become the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive – when she breaks out of prison to stay one step ahead of vicious Queen Levana.

As Scarlet and Wolf expose one mystery, they encounter Cinder and a new one unravels. Together they must challenge the evil queen, who will stop at nothing to make Prince Kai her husband, her king, her prisoner . . .

My Thoughts

So I don't want to say too much about the plot of this one as this is the 2nd book in the Lunar Chronicles series but basically we continue to follow Cinder on her journey as well as the introduction of Scarlet and her story. Scarlet's story is a retelling of Red Riding Hood just as Cinders is a retelling of Cinderella and you can definitely see where the inspiration for the story has come from. We follow Scarlet and a mystery man called Wolf as they search for Scarlet's missing Grandmother. We also wait for Cinder and Scarlet's paths to collide.

I loved Cinder and I gave it 4 stars and I was really looking forward to this next installment of the series however, I was quite disappointed. I didn't actually think that anything happened for about the first 300 pages! There was lots of traveling from place to place and that was really it. We had no real action or excitement until the last quarter of the book and to be honest up until then I was a bit bored. I wasn't invested in the story and I wasn't wanting to pick the book up which was such a shame.

I didn't really enjoy Scarlet's chapters. I found her to be quite wingey and annoying and all she really thought about was herself and her family. Now thinking about her family is not necessarily a problem however, when came the time to consider others she came across to me as quite resentful about it. I also didn't like Scarlet and Wolf's relationship. To me it was very unrealistic and instalovey. They met each other one day and fell for each other the next and this just did not feel real to me.

My one issue with Cinder was that I didn't feel we had enough information about the world the story is set in or the world of Luna and I was hoping this might of been rectified in this book however, that was not the case. We didn't learn anything new in relation to these parts of the story, if anything we learned less about where Scarlet came from then we did about where Cinder came from. I did still enjoy Cinder as a character though. She still held her own throughout the story and fought against the odds like she did in her story. Her chapters were my favorite parts of the book.

As I said earlier the story picked up in the last 100 pages and we finally had a lot of action and excitement. I loved Cinder's closing lines and this is why I will be continuing on with the next book, I really want to know what happens next. I'm also looking forward to getting to Fairest as I love Queen Levana as a villain and I can't wait to learn more about why she is so evil! 

Overall Rating (2.5*)