What a great second book! We're given new characters that are just as vibrant as book one, and the plot really picks up. The beginning can be a little frustrating/disorienting as you get used to who is who, but it is quickly intriguing. It's obvious that the plot was clearly laid out from the inception of these books because of its intricacies. Some people may be frustrated with the lack of Kai in this one, and it is more gory than book one. Sometimes the new characters can be a bit toxic, but it also makes them interesting.

I do not factor audiobook narrators' performances into in my overall star rating of a book, but I would give Rebecca Soler a 4.5/5. She did better with this one than the last, with a bit more variance in her emotion, although it still drones or falls flat in parts. Her accents were quite good, actually allowing me to know who was talking when. However, I started to wonder why Scarlet has a French accent (typically, though sometimes Soler forgets to use it) but Kai, for instance, has an American one even though he lives in New Beijing.

TLDR; 5 rating, my favorite, Wolf <3
Content warnings at the bottom. :)

I remember reading this like 4 times in high school. It was my favorite of the series. I love Scarlet and Wolf, I love the French setting, and I hate tomatoes but this book made me want to like them.

Wolf and Thorne are my two favorite characters, and I love them for different reasons. Wolf is the epitome of “I can fix him” and gentle with the people he cares about while being absolutely terrifying to everyone else. This is for sure what molded my love life, at least when it came to men. Thorne is just…he’s a himbo, no thoughts only crime, and he cracks me up.

Iko as the Rampion was fantastic, even if it was a little fatphobic. She didn’t have to talk so bad about how big she was all the time, but Meyer did an excellent job describing how she emotes while an actual ship. 

Anyway. Once again, Meyer has a hard time with setting, but with Scarlet and Wolf visiting very specific French places, it’s a little easier to picture, but I wish she would allow herself to be more descriptive with the settings.

Rating: 5
Would I recommend? Yes, especially if you enjoy moon people, quippy robots, and sci-fi fairytale retellings.

Content warnings: Car accident, Injury/Injury detail, Medical trauma, Murder, Pandemic/Epidemic, War, Child death, Medical content, Classism, Death of parent, Gun violence, Ableism, Death, Fatphobia, Grief, Confinement, Alcohol, Blood, Violence, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, and Kidnapping

"She was tired of everyone deciding her life for her. She was ready to figure out who she really was — not what anyone else told her to be."

This book presents us with two major storylines. First we meet a new character, Scarlet, who resembles Little Red Riding Hood and lives in the European Federation. Her grandmother is really the only family she has ever known and now she's missing. She decides to find her grandmother herself and right around that time she meets Wolf, a peculiar character.

At the same time, Cinder escapes prison together with another prisoner, Carswell Thorne. She explores her new-found powers and struggles with the morality of it.
"She didn't want to be one of those Lunars who took advantage of her powers just because she could. She didn't want to be lunar at all.”

It was so difficult to put this book down. The chapters weren't very long and it was easy and interesting to read. If there was no need to sleep, I would have finished reading this book in one go. It's been a few months since I read the first book and I forgot some details.

For example, the royal android mentioning the name "Michelle Benoit" and that they discover a photo of Queen Levana's secret army. So I didn't instantly connect the dots and it seemed like two separate stories but I love how it gradually came together!

On to the sequel!