A farm girl hunting her missing grandmother teams with a dangerous street fighter as the cyborg fugitive's rebellion grows.
- Score
- 79.9
- Spice
- 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️Sweet
- POV
- multi
- Ending
- HEA / HFN
Tropes
Content warnings
Curated signals, not an exhaustive guarantee.
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What readers think
Readers broadly regard Scarlet as an improvement over the first book, praising sharper plot twists, more layered character dynamics, and the natural banter between Cinder and the new breakout favourite Captain Thorne. The Scarlet/Wolf romance is widely described as sweet and emotionally earned despite its compressed timeline — readers enjoy the tension of Wolf's hidden nature and divided loyalties. Queen Levana continues to be cited as a magnificently hateable villain. The main criticisms are that the dual storylines can feel uneven in pacing, that Wolf's resolution in the climax strikes some as too convenient, and that a few returning characters get less screen time than readers wanted. Goodreads ratings hover comfortably above 4.1 stars across well over 200,000 reviews, cementing the series' reputation as one of YA's most reliable fairy-tale retelling sequences.
Read it if
- · Readers who loved Cinder and want escalating stakes, a wider cast, and a second charming new romance
- · Fans of fairytale retellings who appreciate the Little Red Riding Hood twist played through a sci-fi lens with genuine menace
- · Anyone seeking ensemble YA fantasy with found-family dynamics, sharp dialogue, and a villain who genuinely threatens
Skip it if
- · You prefer standalone novels or dislike series with multiple interconnected threads — Scarlet is firmly mid-series and ends on open threads
- · You want high-spice romance — heat stays firmly at a single kiss level throughout
- · You need deep single-POV immersion; the dual-perspective structure means neither Scarlet's nor Cinder's storyline gets full page-time
If you liked this
- · For fans of Cinder by Marissa Meyer — the direct sequel raises the stakes and adds a second equally compelling heroine
- · For fans of An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir — morally grey soldiers, oppressive regimes, and slow-burn forbidden romance
- · For fans of Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard — genetically engineered super-soldiers, political manipulation, and a rebel underdog heroine
- · For fans of Graceling by Kristin Cashore — fierce young women pairing with dangerous men who must choose between their conditioning and their conscience
In this series
Part of The Lunar Chronicles — read in order:
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