I'm Finally Reading The Lunar Chronicles- Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

From Goodreads:

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.







So as a goal to go out of my comfort zone this year, I decided on The Lunar Chronicles to start it off.  I mean what could be more out of my comfort zone than a cyborg Cinderella??  I went into reading Cinder kind of nervous.  First, there's all this hype... and hype makes me nervous.  Second, I just really like books set in today's world.  Maybe that makes me lame or whatever... but it's just what I like.  Then I ended up LOVING Cinder.  So of course, I had to immediately go out and buy Scarlet.

Here are some of my thoughts on Scarlet:

1.  I wasn't expecting Cinder's story to continue for this book.  I sort of thought it would be all about the Red Riding Hood retelling, but it wasn't.  Don't get me wrong, a LARGE portion of this book is about that, but we still check in with Cinder and Kai.

2.  I didn't love Scarlet as much as Cinder.  I know that's probably normal for the people not to like the second book in a series as much as the first... but I don't think it's normal in this series.  Most people adore this book.  And I liked it a lot... but not as much as Cinder.

3.  Part of the reason I didn't like it as much was that I didn't like the girl Scarlet's story as much as Cinder's.  And I wasn't feeling the insta-love with Wolf and her.  Maybe the same thing was going on with Kai and Cinder, but I just FELT that connection better.  And it was more than 1 day.  Scarlet only knew Wolf for ONE day and she's thinking about how she can't live without him.  That sort of stuff turns me off.

4.  So for most of the book I kept wondering WHEN it was going to go back to Cinder and Thorne.  And it did.... but a majority of the book was about Scarlet and Wolf.  And I liked it.  But I didn't LOVE them as characters.

5.  I was SO happy that Iko was back!!  At the end of Cinder, I was really worried that she wouldn't be in this book at all... or even the rest of the series!  She was my favorite character in Cinder, so I was relieved that she was back... and as fun as ever!

6.  I love how in this book the plot is mixed with the fairy tale version of the story perfectly.  Just like in Cinder where there's the ball and the "glass slipper" thing... in this book there's the whole "Grandmother, what big eyes you have" scene.  It just worked really well.

7.  I hope this isn't a spoiler, but it might be- Once they all meet up, I freaking love every second of it!!  I love Scarlet and Wolf once they are apart of the group.  Their story just didn't interest me enough to love them by themselves.  And I also love how everyone fits together in this group.  It really is fantastic story-telling to make all these different retellings fit together in a futuristic world.  I give mad props.


OVERALL: I'm really glad I started this journey to go out of my reading comfort zone.  I loved Cinder... and I really liked this book as well.  It's easily going to be one of my favorite series ever.  Like I said about Cinder, I think any and every body should read this :)

Add it to your To-Read List!!

My Rating: 4/4

How I got this book: I own it
Date Published: 2/5/2013