Thursday 26 April 2012

Scarlet review

Scarlet
A.C. Gaughen
June 7th 2012
Bloomsbury


Many readers know the tale of Robin Hood, but they will be swept away by this new version full of action, secrets, and romance. Posing as one of Robin Hood’s thieves to avoid the wrath of the evil Thief Taker Lord Gisbourne, Scarlet has kept her identity secret from all of Nottinghamshire.

Only the Hood and his band know the truth: the agile thief posing as a whip of a boy is actually a fearless young woman with a secret past. Helping the people of Nottingham outwit the corrupt Sheriff of Nottingham could cost Scarlet her life as Gisbourne closes in.

It’s only her fierce loyalty to Robin—whose quick smiles and sharp temper have the rare power to unsettle her—that keeps Scarlet going and makes this fight worth dying for.



Well, this book was pretty darn awesome. I was expecting to like this book, but I wasn't expecting to like it this much. At first, when I started it, I thought it was just going to annoy me, because it's written in a regional dialect, but after getting used to that, it rocked. Seriously.


There were some bits that annoyed me beyond the writing style, though, so we'll get those out of the way before I get onto the good stuff, because the good stuff far outweighs the vaguely irritating stuff. Okay, so Robin and John kind of pissed me off, because they kept of treating Scarlet like some little girl that needed serious looking after, even though she'd proved on multiple occasions that she was totally capable of looking after herself, and that she wouldn't break into tiny little pieces if she got hit or anything. I get that they wanted to look after her and keep her safe and whatever, but they shouldn't have treated her so differently just because she was a girl. She was really brave and badass, and you would've thought that they'd realise that the more they tried to look after her, the more she was going to go about risking her life to prove herself to them. So, yeah. (Edit: Though this was probably because of historical context or whatever, so it made sense. And really wasn't as annoying as I was making out. So sorry about that. It's a really good book!)


Seriously, though, Scarlet was awesome as a character. I loved the fact that she wasn't cowardly or anything, even though she did, of course, get scared (and for good reason, Gisbourne is an arse.) She rarely backed down, and sometimes she was less than rational, but at the same time she was one of the smartest people in the band, and one of the most useful, which is why it annoyed me that they treated like that, Good intentions, I know, but annoying. Also, though I could tell a lot of what was going to happen and what was gonna be revealed and stuff, there was some things that surprised me. Probably because I'm really not that familiar with the story of Robin Hood. I mean, I didn't even really know who Will Scarlet was. Yeah. But now I do, so it's all good.


I didn't really like John all that much though. Even though, as far as love triangles go, it wasn't a bad one, and didn't detract from my enjoyment of the  book as they sometimes do, I didn't like the way John acted towards her. He treated Scarlet like she was one of the girls that he fools around with, and I guess that must just be because he doesn't really know how to act around girls in any other way, it still irked me how condescending he could be at times. Though I could just be reading way too much into this. I probably am just reading too much into this, actually, but as far as love and stuff was concerned, I much preferred the idea of Rob and Scarlet together. Though that being said, it was only really for the first 2/3 of the book that John irked me, and even then it was only when he was trying to flirt with Scarlet. He was pretty cool by the end of it. Rob was also pretty cool, but I felt like the romance was a little less developed than Scarlet and John, but when Scarlet and Rob were around each other, I felt like they were better suited to each other, you know?


I really enjoyed the plot, and after I got used to writing style I felt it actually added a lot to the story, and I felt a lot more like I was in medieval Nottinghamshire than if it had been written completely normally. Though it didn't  feel so stuck in the past that I couldn't connect with it at all. It just really worked well, and I loved it as a retelling. I definitely needed refreshing on my knowledge about Robin Hood, and this definitely helped me to remember. It was also a really fast read, and I had it finished in about a day, both because it was fast-paced and because I just wanted to finish it.


I feel like this review has come off pretty negatively, but that is really not the case, I assure you. Scarlet really kicked butt, and was a really quick fun read with the perfect amount of adventure and romance and excitement. I really enjoyed it :)

4 comments:

  1. That aspect that niggled at you could be due to the historial perspective of the book? I haven't read this yet (although I really want to!) but I'm so so excited! Haha, yeah your review did take a bit of a negative turn but your general points came across clear enough. :) I love kickbutt heroines so this one is high up on the wishlist.

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  2. Im glad you enjoyed this book, I really loved it :) Totally agree that scarlet was a kick-ass character! I'm so hoping for a sequel though!

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  3. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the book! Funny how conflicted you were about it, hehe. But we often find that we're more critical when we actually CARE, and we only care when we're enjoying a story. So yeah, we get it. ;)

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  4. I really liked the look of this...glad you really liked it. The idea is what got me. Seems like I have something to look forwards to when I get round to it!

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