Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

This is the second novel in the Lunar Chronicles series by Melissa Meyer.

My review of #1: Cinder.

WARNING - There will be spoilers from the first novel! Proceed reading with caution!

Near Paris, Scarlet's grandmother has been missing for 2 weeks when she got the comm saying that the police were going to stop searching for her. The police thinks that her grandmother, Michelle, ran away instead of being kidnapped like Scarlet believes.

Now that the police are no longer a part of it, it's up to Scarlet to find her grandmother. And she gets a hint as to how to find her when her father lets out a clue after he had been taken by the same men: they have a tattoo on their bicep of letters and numbers.

And Scarlet just happened to meet a man who had that same kind of tattoo on his arm.

So she went hunting for Wolf, the street fighter, to get her answers. And he has answers, just not the one that she's looking for. But Wolf decided that he will help her find her grandmother, since he knows the people who took her and where they are located.

On the other side of the world, Cinder is escaping the prison she was put into after the horrible ball Prince Kai held and where Kai found out that not only is Cinder a cyborg, she is also Lunar.

Now Cinder needs to run away, and fast, before she is exchanged to Queen Levana, queen of Luna, where Cinder will be executed for being a "runaway Lunar". Or that's what the whole world believes. In fact, she is going to be killed because Cinder is the missing Princess Selene, the little girl Levana tried to kill when she was only 3 years old so she would be the only ruler of Luna.

She successfully escaped prison with the help of Captain Thorne, who just happen to steal an American spaceship before he was caught. And so they are two fugitives who are running to survive for their lives.

But Cinder needs to know more about what happened when she was younger, as the Princess Selene. And the one living person who might have some answers is Michelle Benoit - Scarlet's mother.

So the two cross paths together, both having their very own big problems to deal with, but mutually trying to find the same solution: Michelle Benoit and the answers to their pending questions.

It won't be easy though. Wolf is not a normal man, and the men who stole Michelle are really not normal. Things are about to change for Kai, as well, when an attack occurs on Earth, by command of Queen Levana herself.

Can each character find what they are looking for, or will they run out of time and find that everything will crumble? Read Scarlet by Melissa Meyer to find out!

My Thoughts/Reflections
I flew through this novel! Since I was already introduced to this setting, I didn't have the troubles that I had throughout the first novel so I was able to understand what was going on and didn't need to pause to understand certain things.

I loved Scarlet even more than Cinder, I think! She's spunky. She knows how to fly a ship, has a permit for a gun, and even used a few throughout the novel! And she is always looking for the good in everyone, no matter what the situation may look like.

The one thing she wanted the most was to find her grandmother, so when she found out that Wolf may have had a part in her kidnapping, she took charge and confronted the undefeated street fighter - very brave for a small female.

And I also liked how this book had different narrators, unlike the first who was only Cinder's point of view. The reader got to experience Cinder, Scarlet, Captain Thorne and Kai's viewpoint, along with one small chapter from Queen Levana.

It was nice to view all of these viewpoints because we got more of a feeling from each characters and what they were thinking about the events from Cinders revealing at the Ball of being Lunar and a cyborg.

I think the most entertaining character was Captain Thorne. He thinks he's hot stuff and is a ladies man, so the introduction between him and Cinder when she busted through his jail cell was very entertaining.

Cinder is one heck of a fighter, though. Not only is she trying to escape her fate from Queen Levana, but she is also trying to figure out how to control her Lunar powers. She doesn't want to mind control anyone, or make anyone do her bidding or see what she wants to see, which makes her polar opposite of Queen Levana.

I very much enjoyed this novel and I cannot wait for more to come! Unfortunately, the third novel, Cress, won't come out until 2014!! It's just now 2013... I don't want to wait that long! However, it's going to have the RAPUNZEL character in it, and I really love that character :) I do hope Scarlet and Wolf will be in it too, though the small synopsis on Goodreads doesn't say as of yet.

This is turning out to be an amazing series, so I would definitely recommend it to other readers!