Reveiws - Scarlett: The Lunar Chronicals

The Book:

Scarlett: The Lunar Chronicles
by Melissa Meyers

The Skinny:

Scarlett is good enough for  a sequel.  Although the new characters can't emulate the charm of the original cast, we spend enough time with Cinder, and the plot is advanced enough, to keep me happily reading this obvious filler novel of the series.

The Backstory:

Scarlett is the second book in Meyers' Lunar Chronicles series.  You need to know that this book is admittedly based on Sailor Moon fanfiction, which gives you an idea of the ensemble cast of characters we're dealing with, but otherwise doesn't detract from this good ol' fashioned robots vs. aliens science fiction romance. 

 Cinder, the first book, followed a Cinderella-esque story of girl robot meetcuteing the Prince, evil stepmother machinations, and a climactic showdown at the royal ball where - spoiler alert! - instead of her shoe, she loses her whole foot.  (Robot girls, man.  They just have it harder.) 

Anyway, there are also moon men running about, led by an Evil Queen who just so happens to be Cinder's long lost, familialcidal aunt.  When last we met our heroine, she was determined to escape jail, but waffling about reclaiming her identity as long-lost lunar princess.  

 The Dish:

As Cinder followed Cinderella, so Scarlett goes the way of Little Red Riding Hood.  I have to admit, I find the inclusion of LRRH in the cannon of Grim Princesses a little odd - but people love using the red hoodie and I'm not one to deny simple pleasures. 

That said, I find the allegory to be the weakest part of the book.  With Cinder, we readers needed a familiar structure to follow as we ajusted to Distant Future Earth, with it's cyborgs, lunar psychics, and Risk-like overly simplified political geography.  (It seems that, in the future, Africa really IS a country!) 

With Scarlett, the book gets a little TOO literal.  Scarlett (Red, gettit?)  is living with her grandmother, and she meets a guy named Wolf.  No, really.  Scarlett is not about being subtle so it's nice the author didn't dick around thinking of something lupine or such for his name.  Wolf it is!

Grandma is missing, Scarlett and Wolf set off to find her.  Meanwhile, we catch up with Cinder, who has escaped from prison with the help of her new Swiss Army Hand, latent moon psychic powers, and a bumbling con artist who happens to still have access to the space ship he's in jail for stealing.  He and Cinder pair up, and the "Captain," being as dumb as a bag of hair, serves a nice greek chorus for some of the more laborious elements of backstory.  This part of the book works. 

Scarlett, however, does not.  While Cinder charmed me with her droll tenacity and rounded character, not to mention having a vibrant life and dreams outside of meeting the prince, Scarlett is flat, silly, and naive.  Granted, we meet her at a bad time in her life, and the action of the novel takes place over only a few days, but we never get to know much about her outside of her cartoonish temper, her dedication to her grandmother, and her unsettling fascination with Wolf.  She works on a farm, but doesn't seem to have much interest in it, outside of brand loyalty.  She spends a lot of time being pissed off about not finding her grandma.  It's not unrealistic, but it makes her hard to root for as a character.  The action of the novel is largely outside or her control or understanding once she gets captured by the Big Bads, and her romance with Wolf is unconvincing and slightly creepy when taken into full context. 

I think the romance was the biggest problem for me.  As I said, this book only covered a few days, and in such constraint, sexual tension works better subvertly, not overtly.  Played as it was, it makes Scarlett look weak, daft, and willing to attach herself to the first dude who looks her way, no matter how questionable his character, or how badly he treats her.  Her sympathy for him is largely unearned, and while he makes good, there was very little in the story to make her think he would, and nothing in the book itself, outside of it's YA classification.  Younger readers will miss this, but things once or twice get a little rapey.  Overall, the romance feels like filling a quota for the genre rather than as a natural development between the characters.  

This is a shame, because I liked Wolf.  I found his story to be one of the most interesting of the book, considering that his personal struggle to establish an individual identity against a  society that seeks to actively control his thoughts and actions echoes the larger setup of the book's main question of personal freedom versus individual responsibility.  In the climax, Wolf choosing to alienate himself from his people as an act of consciousness mirrors Cinders decision to proactively confront her predetermined destiny.  It shows the damage of groupthink and the sacrifice required of all individuals to challenge the impersonal machinations of society.  But I didn't have time to appreciate that because then Scarlett starts dithering about Alpha Female (I told you this book was not subtle) and I had to go take a walk. 

Overall, this is a good beach read, and works well enough on enough levels that I enjoyed it quite a bit.  I look forward to the rest of the series.  Meyers is, in my opinion, a very talented writer, and I can't wait to read what she does next.