Book Review: Scarlet

TITLE: Scarlet
AUTHOR: A. C. Gaughan
PUBLISHED: 2012
CATEGORY: YA
GENRE: Retelling, adventure, romance
PREMISE: What if Will Scarlet from Robin Hood was actually a girl?
MY REVIEW: I honestly don't have much to say about this. I was super excited for it because, come on, one of the merry men a female? Awesomeness, right? And there is much enjoyment to be had from having a female merry man. When one just reads it for that, it's a enjoyable book.
My issue is that Scarlet became a Mary Sue. Suddenly she did everything, including suddenly being Robin Hood's true love because Maid Marian is mysteriously absent all of a sudden. Not only does Robin fall for her but oh look, so does Little John! She practically runs the place. This is why stories like this fall into a slippery slope. It's one thing to change a characters gender but that characters gender shouldn't suddenly change the whole focus of a classic and make it all about that character. After awhile it sort of felt like glorified fanfiction. Well written fanfiction, but fanfiction nonetheless.
I give the authors several points for an interesting idea, and good writing, and even the plot was interesting when it wasn't all about Scarlet. But I just became too exasperated by how suddenly Robin Hood really became all about Scarlet and how awesome she is to really love it. Rec mostly as a library read.
WHO SHOULD READ: Robin Hood fans, retelling fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five daggers