Cinder set up Meyer's futuristic Earth, where the threat of war with the dangerous Lunar civilization looms constantly. Scarlet briefly leaves the story of Cinder and moves to the other side of the world--to the French countryside, where our eponymous heroine is searching for her grandmother, now missing for two weeks. The police have given up, but a fresh lead indicates that the disappearance may have something to do with the mysterious street fighter (known only as "Wolf") who's recently come into town. The book jumps back and forth between Scarlet's and Cinder's stories, while the political standoff with Luna slowly deteriorates around them.
I freely admit to geeking out a LOT over this book. Red Riding Hood is one of my favorite stories--not so much because of the story itself (which is really kind of dull), but because there's so much you can do with retellings. Meyer does an amazing job here: I genuinely couldn't decide whether to trust Wolf or not throughout the book, and there were enough twists and turns to keep me guessing right up until the end (and I mean the VERY end, not just the last quarter of the book). Cinder's story also continues to move along, though we've left the Cinderella part of it behind: Prince Kai gets his own chapters to illustrate the ongoing struggle with the Lunar queen, while Cinder escapes from prison and attempts to learn more about her past (starting with tracking down the rebel pilot who might have help smuggle her onto earth all those years ago). The stories interconnect seamlessly, and the Scarlet story, at least, has a very satisfying conclusion. My one complaint for the whole book (only one!) is that the meetup between Cinder and Scarlet could have been explained better. Cinder just sort of appears out of nowhere, with no explanation given of why she's there or how she found Scarlet. I feel like maybe a chapter was left out of the book?
This book also lists the titles of the next two books in the series: Snow (2014), and Cress (2015). I think it's pretty clear that Cress will cover Rapunzel, but "snow" could be a lot of things: Snow White (of course), Snow White and Rose Red (which is a completely different fairy tale than the aforementioned), The Snow Queen; we could even stretch it to East of the Sun, West of the Moon. I'm really excited to see where this series goes!
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