YA Novelties

Despite my initial irritation with Scarlet, the dangerous world of the Lunar Chronicles has just become a whole ton better with the introduction of Wolf and Thorne. Two completely contrasting characters both bring smiles to my face with their idiosyncrasies: Wolf is literally a newborn babe in the new world, while Thorne is a comic relief character who keeps Cinder from going insane. Oh yeah! *spoiler* If you didn't know, Cinder runs away with Thorne, who has a stolen spaceship, to discover the whole truth of her past from Michelle Benoit (remember, Scarlet's grandma). *spoiler* The humorous retorts going on between Cinder and Thorne almost made up for the lack of Cinder and Kai romance that crackled in the first book. Although it was sad to see some of my favorite characters not featured as prominently as in the first book, these new guys totally made their absence worth it!

Your heart really breaks for Kai in this book. While everyone else is running toward a goal in mind, Kai is left to face the frightening Queen Levana without the support that he needs. Although I was cold as rock toward Scarlet's predicament, I admit to shedding a few tears to poor Kai. Not only has his heart been broken, he is forced to be diplomatic to the enemy who constantly stalks him like prey. What Scarlet does best is have incredibly lovable characters, like Kai, that allow the reader to be empathetic and feel way more passionate about the plot than they should. Basically, I'm generalizing the readers of Scarlet to be exactly how I felt as I read this. Sorry if this wasn't true for you, but deal with it.

This book doesn't have too much going on throughout the plot, but still faithfully follows the Little Red Riding Hood story, which in turn didn't have much going for it either. Cross dressing wolves, anyone? However, there hasn't been a book in a ridiculously long time who has hit me this hard in terms of character development like Scarlet did. The disappointments I had with Scarlet, herself, and a sort of lack of plot were almost completely made up with the new characters, Wolf and Thorne, as well as the maturation all of the characters are forced to face the climatic buildup for what is to come.