Review: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Scarlet by Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Puffin Books
Publication Date: February 7th 2013.
My rating: 4 stars.  

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 . . .

Well I’ve certainly been a fool for not picking up Scarlet sooner. I think that the fact that I didn’t enjoy Cinder as much as I was hoping, kind of put the rest of the books in the series on the back burner for me. But with the release of Winter around the corner and friends such as Allie, Rashika and Siiri encouraging me to give Scarlet a go, I’m glad that I finally did.

I was a fan of Cinder, but I absolutely loved Scarlet’s character, she was a strong and fierce and would go to any means necessary to get her grandmother back. Her grandmother had been missing for more than two weeks now, and the police were doing nothing about it, so Scarlet had no choice but to take things in her own hands, her grandmother had practically bought her up, and so she owed it to her. But she didn’t expect to get help from the mysterious Wolf, she’d only known him a day, he was willing to go above and beyond for her in her search for her grandmother. Could she really trust Wolf? And what were his real intentions? To be honest I fell hard and fast for Wolf, his protective demeanour, growls and green eyes were sort of hard to resist. But most of all I adored how he wasn’t really sure of himself most of the time, how he would shy away when Scarlet would question him, but also because he gave this vibe that he really didn’t want to lose himself when he was fighting and I was hoping that the time he spent with Scarlet would make him realise that there was a lot more out there such as tomatoes!

I have to admit that at first I loved the chapters we had with Scarlet and the Wolf, I wanted to be able to spend more time with them, and I could see eventually the time they spent together could end up developing into something more and I was up for this. But I did also appreciate the chapters from Cinder, I adored the introduction of Thorne, he was great at bringing humour at scenes when he and Cinder found themselves in dire circumstances. Also which other guy is willing to help a cyborg out and offer his ship to her when he knows nothing about her? I for one can’t wait to get more of Thorne in the next book. But most of all I enjoyed the small revelations that Meyer gave us along the way and how these two groups of people were connected. I couldn’t wait for them to get together; I knew they would make a formidable team.

Meyer has effortlessly reignited my enthusiasm for this series with Scarlet. Not only was Scarlet a farce to be reckoned with, the entire story had me eager for more from the very first page, there were tantalising tense scenes thrown into the mix, with me having no idea whether my favourite characters would make it out in one piece. But there were also subtle sweet scenes that tugged my heart strings that I hugely appreciated, because with all the betrayal and chaos being thrown at us, I needed it to give me the hope that things would be alright. Cress I’ve heard is a beast of a read, but with the great impressions that Meyer has left on me with her intricate writing and brilliant characters, I’m sure I will have a blast devouring it right up.