This wasn't as good as the first one, and mainly because I really didn't connect with Scarlet at all. She didn't really have any personality or depth - and then there was the instalove which made me hate Scarlet's whole plotline of this book even more. 
 Thankfully, we got extra plotlines from the perspectives of Cinder and Kai, which saved this book for me. I think it would have been better as a direct sequel to Cinder instead of trying to follow this new cast of characters, who were kind of shoddily constructed and felt almost secondary despite the fact that the book is supposed to be about them (judging by the title). 
 Second read: I liked it a little bit more, but I still find the Scarlet/Wolf romance a bit stretched and the Cinder/Thorne/Kai plots more compelling. The thinly drawn characters of Scarlet and Wolf stick out like a sore thumb when you can compare them to the characterisation of Cress, Thorne or even Winter.