Meisha and I are back with the book discussion for Scarlet, book two of The Lunar Chronicles series. We had previously discussed book one, Cinder, a few weeks back and it’s been fun to read this one together. With new characters and another fairy tale retelling offering the inspiration to this tale, Scarlet is a captivating read. Take a look at the synopsis below before we dive into the discussion.
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.
Content Notes: Portrayal of violence, kidnapping, death.
Scarlet
The Reading Discussion
It’s finally time to discuss Scarlet! We breezed through this book in a week and I am excited to say I liked it more than Cinder which was great too in my opinion! Meisha, what were your thoughts when you finished the book?
I 100% agree on liking it even better than Cinder. Cinder had a lot of important world-building, but we got to jump straight into the action with Scarlet. I loved how fast-paced and how fun of a read it was. As soon as I finished Scarlet, my first thought was how excited I am to get to Cress. I have the feeling that this is a series that just gets better and better as it goes along.
I have the same feeling. I had thought of this series as more of a retelling for the fairy tales but the more we get into the world and the characters, I am realizing how unique and diverse The Lunar Chronicles world is! While Cinder was about the Eastern Commonwealth, Scarlet took to other parts of the world including Paris. I found that this quenched my initial curiosity with Cinder about the rest of Earth.
My version of Scarlet had a little Q&A with Marissa Meyer in the back. In it, she mentioned how she actually had a Parisian editor read Scarlet and give her pointers on France. She did say she didn’t have that same thing when writing Cinder. I’ve never been to either locations, so I can’t say if one book is more accurate than the other, but I do love how wildly different the settings are.
I just finished a book about Paris and I totally agree with you that the feel of the locations in Cinder and Scarlet are widely different and Meyer’s research on France made it more real. Some parts of Paris like the opera house try to keep it true to the Parisian culture we have grown up as the hub for art. I really liked that old world connection because Cinder’s world is after World War 4.
How did Luna and the Lunar subjects develop in Scarlet, compared to Cinder? What did you think of the new additions to the cast?
Scarlet took a direction with the Lunar subjects that I never expected. Cinder gave me the impression that they were all evil and all pretty humanoid in terms of looks and behavior. So when we got animalistic people in Scarlet, I was blown away. I’m glad it went this direction because we have a society that is completely different from what you can find on Earth plus Scarlet also gave us more of a sense of how the rest of Luna are not all like the queen.
I think Scarlet sets the stage for us to discover Luna now. That was done really well in my mind!
I also really, really, really love Thorne.
YES! He reminded me so much of Captain Hook (the Once Upon a Time version).
I also get Han Solo vibes with him.
That is so cool. What if this is retelling with Star Wars elements? That would be very unique since retellings are usually of older stories.
I would not be surprised at all to learn if Star Wars was one of the inspirations for this series. Between the sassy androids to the devil-may-care pilot characters, there are quite a few similarities. I think Marissa Meyer is at least a big fan of Star Wars!
You are right. Those are connections I had not made before! 🙂
So how closely was Scarlet the story of Little Red Riding Hood? I will add here that I loved the feisty heroine. She has so much spunk.
I found this retelling to be closer than Cinder was to Cinderella. Cinder kind of threw me off since we never got the part where the prince has the shoe (or foot) and tries to find the mystery girl who is the perfect fit. I mean, the only similarity really is that Cinder loses something at the ball, and there’s a prince. Of course, maybe that whole search and foot thing will come in a later book… But Scarlet felt really close to Little Red Riding Hood with the wolf luring someone in, especially the scene where one of the pack pretends to be her grandmother.
I found Cinder could also have been another story (I am curious to see if she has elements of Snow White). Winter gives me the vibe for that fairy tale. Scarlet was definitely closer to Little Red Riding Hood. I loved how her relationship with her grandmother was portrayed and how much they loved each other.
It was really nice to see a positive familial relationship since poor Cinder didn’t have anyone except Peony. And even there, it was more like Cinder took care of Peony, so I was happy Scarlet actually had someone who watched out for her.
I also appreciated that the mystery around Cinder and her coming to Earth was unravelled a bit and my questions from book 1 were addressed.
What did you think of the pack idea and the whole alpha/beta/omega thing?
I think that was well researched and the aggressive behavior of the wolves and their instincts were portrayed well. Wolf made me think of werewolves and how werewolves transformed during the moon so I sensed some Luna connection by this strange logic. Did you like this introduction of another genetically engineered/enhanced species, if androids and cyborgs could be put in a similar category?
Ahhhhhhh, I didn’t even think about werewolves and the moon. My dense self was completely surprised when he turned out to be Lunar, but now it makes so much more sense thinking of it that way. I am a huge sucker for creatures who are genetically modified (shout-out to Rocket from Guardians of the Galaxy), so I was thrilled we got another type of being in the series. I also like stories with pack dynamics and find them really interesting, so I was not complaining about getting a wolf pack in Scarlet. I thought it was an extremely clever way to unravel the retelling.
100% agreed! Anything else we want to mention about Scarlet?
I’ll just finish by saying that I loved when the storylines merged near the end, and one of the reasons I’m thrilled to read the rest of the series is to get to those moments when the rest of the cast all converge!
I felt that the different perspectives were balanced well and I wanted to know more from each and every one of them but there was enough to learn and keep me going to the next chapter!
It was definitely not a challenge to finish our reading goal each day. If anything, I just wanted to keep reading! 🙂
Overall, Scarlet was a wonderful buddy read. We read 7 chapters a day and towards the end, it was very hard to put down and we finished earlier than planned. We have just started Cress and are loving how the rest of the plot is unfolding. We took a little detour to read A Deadly Education. Stay tuned for its discussion going live on the 15th January!
** Scarlet is available in stores along with the rest of The Lunar Chronicles series and short story collections. I am sure you will be able to find them at your local library too. **
Amazon Print
Amazon Kindle
Cover Photo by Jongsun Lee on Unsplash
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