But for the love of God, this book is only two hundred pages. If she had described Rob’s eyes using the English Channel simile once and then maybe referred to his eyes as “blue” now and again, that would’ve been fine. “All soft wet-wheat hair, eyes that were gray blue like the English Channel…” “My cheeks felt hot and red under his fingers, and he smiled, his eyes heavy like the weight of the ocean.” “Loving him felt like drowning in his ocean eyes, like a tide I couldn’t hold back…” Gaughen seems overly fond of maritime metaphors and similes when it comes to Rob’s eyes. The descriptions and diction could use some work too.
Narrating Scarlet from a third-person perspective and highlighting Scarlet’s speech patterns through dialogue with other characters might have made the book more bearable while still capturing her voice and character. Sanderson manages to convey all of that through Lift’s third-person narration. Brandon Sanderson’s character Lift from The Stormlight Archive cannot read or write but is one of the cleverest characters in the series. It’s not impossible to capture Scarlet’s manner of speaking in a way that’s much more palatable to readers. I understand that Scarlet speaks this way in an effort to dissociate from her former life as a noble, but it drives me absolutely crazy to read two hundred pages in which the narrator pretends that she’s never so much as heard of an adverb. “It were Rob, sitting with his back against the door.” “The words fell soft between us, and they settled and grew till all I could think of were the quiet.”
Yes, I am a self-described grammar snob, so it really rankles me that Scarlet talks like this through the entire book: The narration is first-person, which wouldn’t be a problem if Scarlet could adhere at least somewhat decently to grammar. It’s difficult to choose a starting point from my litany of complaints, but I’ll begin with the narration. I was only able to stomach so much each day. It took me almost three days to finish reading this book – and not because the story was so intricate and riveting that I wanted to savor it. Those of you who’ve read my previous blog posts know that I frequently buy books when the Nook Store has them on sale in their “$2.99 and Under” section. This book might share the title with Marissa Meyer’s fantastic Scarlet, but readers will find no such entertainment here.
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