Book review: SCARLET by Marissa Meyer (SPOILER-FREE!)

Last month, I became OBSESSED with the Lunar Chronicles series. I read all three of the books that are out during my spring break, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about them! I've been meaning to write this review for a while, so here we go! (This review will be spoiler-free, so if you haven't finished CINDER yet, you can still check it out!)

The books in the Lunar Chronicles series are all fairytale retellings set in a futuristic world. CINDER, the first book, retells the story of Cinderella, where Cinder is a cyborg living in New Beijing (check out my review of CINDER here). SCARLET, book two in the series, explores a new version of Little Red Riding Hood.

Scarlet lives on a farm in France with her grandmother. As the story begins, her grandmother has gone missing and the police seem to be doing nothing to help find her. Convinced her grandmother has been captured, our heroine in a red hoodie decides to take matters into her own hands and sets out on a search for answers. Along the way she meets Wolf, a mysterious streetfighter who might have those answers Scarlet seeks. But after sneaking into a fighting match, she quickly sees the violence Wolf is capable of. Should she trust him?

After reading CINDER and loving the protagonist so much, my first concern was that we wouldn't see much of Cinder and Kai in this new installment. Boy was I wrong! This book rotates through several points of view, including our favorite cyborg! No spoilers about what she's up to in this book, but I enjoyed her sections even more than in the first book. I didn't like Scarlet quite as much (I think because I became so attached to Cinder, I looked forward to her sections more than Scarlet's), but Marissa Meyer did a great job at making her voice and personality different from Cinder's. Scarlet is spunky, passionate, and doesn't always think before she acts. At times her decisions had me screaming at the book, but I was still flipping pages like crazy!

As far as romance goes, I felt it happened a bit too quickly in this book, especially after the slow burn in CINDER. But there is plenty of action in SCARLET, too, much more than in the first book, because the world has been set up and now we're launched right into the conflict with the Lunars. We see some sections from Prince Kai's point of view, too, as he attempts to deal with the growing tensions between Earth and the Lunars.

Overall, this was a great sequel to CINDER. We see the two storylines begin to weave together, and we are set up very well for CRESS, book three. I highly recommend these books...they're my favorite series I've read so far this year!

Are you loving the Lunar Chronicles? Who do you prefer: Cinder or Scarlet?

I'll have my review of CRESS up soon. Get ready for some Rapunzel!