I’ve been waiting (somewhat impatiently) for this book since I read the first entry in the series last fall (Cinder), and I’m happy to report that Marissa Meyer’s Scarlet is better than the first book. To catch everyone up with this series quickly, Meyer has turned well-known fairy tales into some very innovative science fiction involving androids, cyborgs, and thought-manipulating humanoids from the moon.
Scarlet picks up right where Cinder left off. (Thankfully, because Cinder ends in a cliffhanger and I hate it when that happens.) But where Cinder was a retelling of Cinderella, Scarlet uses Little Red Riding Hood as its inspiration. Scarlet Benoit, a vegetable farmer who lives with her grandmother in southern France, meets a man who calls himself Wolf and has more than a few similarities to the canine. Scarlet’s grandmother has recently been kidnapped, though the police think she wandered off somewhere. With Wolf’s help, Scarlet sets off for Paris to find her grandmother. Meanwhile, Cinder escapes from prison in Beijing with the almost inept assistance of a thief.
It takes a while for the two plots to converge, but when they do, much is revealed about Cinder’s origins and what her next steps need to be. Both stories are equally interesting and well-written, keeping the story charging forward. I read it in one sitting and now I’m back to where I started, waiting for the next book in the series.