Scarlet Review

TITLE Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2)
AUTHOR Marissa Meyer
PUBLICATION February 5th 2013 by Feiwel and Friends
READ January 15, 2012
SOURCE Raincoast Books for review

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.

When I started my blog last year Cinder was one of the very first books that I read for it. I can remember being so torn and I actually ended up rating it a 3 & then going back a few weeks later and upping my rating to a 4. The premise for The Lunar Chronicles is just so out there and something I think I had some trouble wrapping my head around. Upon finishing Scarlet I can now say that I am a huge fan of what Marissa Meyer is doing with this series!

Scarlet picks up right where Cinder left off but it also tells the story of a new character, can you guess her name? Scarlet! While the story does start off with Scarlet’s side of things, fans of Cinder can rest assured that we still get a very strong dose of the characters we came to love in the first installment. I had worried that I would be disappointed that the sequel introduced a new story but the two tales weave together so seamlessly that it felt like Scarlet’s story was really just an extension of Cinder’s, a side of it we weren’t exposed to in the first book.

One thing that I felt really improved in Scarlet was the pacing. I was pretty bored with the first half of Cinder and that’s why I struggled so much with the rating. Scarlet starts off with a bang and just keeps getting... bangier! There was not one moment that I wanted to put it down and I absorbed it’s 462 pages in a single day. While this one is pretty predictable, just as Cinder was, I have to think that it’s on purpose because predictability seems to be a running theme in these novels. Because of that I didn’t find that it hindered my enjoyment of the story at all because it just felt like that’s how it should be.

So, back to the characters. Both Cinder and Scarlet are such strong women, I loved watching them face all the trouble they got themselves into head on. Cinder meets Cadet Captain Thorne and he really brought out the snarky side of her. I absolutely loved the witty banter the two of them had going on and once our beloved Iko was brought back into the story things got even more hilarious. Scarlet’s side of things took a more romantic route and I can say that I am totally swooning over Wolf. The internal struggle he fights through in the novel and his protectiveness of Scarlet was perfect! He didn’t feel possessive or creepy, he just felt perfectly sweet.

Scarlet is a more than worthy follow up in what is proving to be one of my all time favorite series. Once again we are left in the thick of things and left pining for Cress. I think it’s safe to say that it will be a painful wait, but one that I know will prove worthwhile!

x1000!

100th Follower Giveaway!

I'm so excited to have reached 100 followers!  It has been just over a month now and I am having such a great time getting to know my fellow bloggers and babbling on about books that I love!  As a thank you I'm going to have a small giveaway in which 1 follower (in the US or Canada) can win a hardcover copy of a book that I really enjoyed; Cinder by Marissa Meyer. You can read my review here. I really appreciate everyone taking the time to stop by my blog and leave a comment here and there.  So thank you everyone!! And I hope there are some people waiting to get their hands on this book!

*Sorry, but this giveaway is only open to people in the US & Canada, this is my first giveaway so I want to test the waters first**

If you would like to help get the word out about the giveaway feel free to grab the giveaway button and post it on your blog!

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Cinder Review

Review: Cinder(Lunar Chronicles#1)

               by Marissa Meyer

TITLE: Cinder

AUTHOR: Marissa Meyer

PAGES: 390

PUBLISHER: Feiwel & Friends

RELEASE DATE: January 3, 2012

BUY THE BOOK AT: Amazon / Kobo / Chapters.Indigo

SYNOPSIS: Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future. 

(4 out of 5 quills)

     Let me start out by saying that this is a tough one for me.  In the beginning of the novel I was having a hard time connecting to any of the characters.  I felt as if we were thrust into this futuristic dystopian world and we were just supposed to know everything.  There were people (Lunars) living on the moon and we were just supposed to accept that and dive right in.  There were people who had been on deaths door but were saved by scientists with robotic limbs and organs.  A 3rd world war had come and gone and the world had changed.  Even after finishing the novel I'm left with an unnerving feeling that I just don't know enough about the Lunars or the war.  I don't like that feeling, I like resolve.

     Our main Character Cinder is a cyborg (one of those people saved by the scientists) who lives under the firm hand of her stepmother Adri.  She also has two stepsisters Pearl & Peony, only they are not "evil" per sé.  Sure pearl seems cold hearted and distant to Cinder throughout the whole book but Peony is a friend to her.  I like the loose basing off the fairy tale and I'm happy that Marissa Meyer didn't follow it to a T, it left a space for you to feel excited rather than expectant as you turned the pages.  Of course there is a Prince (what would any tale be without one?), Prince Kai and he was a different sort of Prince.  I didn't get the feeling that he was pretentious, I instead got the feeling that he was kind and, well, scared. 

     For the first half of the novel I felt as if I was just trying to make it to the end to find out about this futuristic world.  But, once I reached the halfway point the story really picked up for me.  I began to get tingles when Kai and Cinder were together, and I began to become hopeful for their future.  Even though the big twist of the novel is predictable within the first 50 pages I really enjoyed the ending.  It definitely ends with a cliffhanger and leaves you angry that you have to wait for 2013 to find out the next chapters in Cinders' story. 

      With that I say this; although the novel is definitely slow to start, it goes out with a bang and I would say it's worth the read.