Not what I was thinking when I started but was pleasantly surprised and enjoyed the Caraval.
I guess I enjoyed it because I wasn't playing.
Interesting fantasy and reality blended together with all kinds of different upside down rules and clues.
Finding and knowing who really loves you is the best prize along with knowing your self worth.
I guess I enjoyed it because I wasn't playing.
Interesting fantasy and reality blended together with all kinds of different upside down rules and clues.
Finding and knowing who really loves you is the best prize along with knowing your self worth.
*Trigger warning, there is domestic violence depicted in this story.
I picked this up after reading Stephanie Garber's novel Once Upon a Broken Heart and wanted to check out her first series. Even more so, after I heard that some characters from the Caraval series are mentioned/shown in Once Upon A Broken Heart as well. I've had the first two books in the Caraval series since they were published. This book has more of a dark, mysterious, and sometimes dangerous feel to the atmosphere of the world. I really enjoyed the adventure and felt like I was at Caraval. Who doesn't wish they had an enchanted dress!? I was invested in finding Tella alongside Scarlet. I look forward to continuing the trilogy and learning more about the Fates.
I picked this up after reading Stephanie Garber's novel Once Upon a Broken Heart and wanted to check out her first series. Even more so, after I heard that some characters from the Caraval series are mentioned/shown in Once Upon A Broken Heart as well. I've had the first two books in the Caraval series since they were published. This book has more of a dark, mysterious, and sometimes dangerous feel to the atmosphere of the world. I really enjoyed the adventure and felt like I was at Caraval. Who doesn't wish they had an enchanted dress!? I was invested in finding Tella alongside Scarlet. I look forward to continuing the trilogy and learning more about the Fates.
I just don't know what to think about this book...there was some good points to it, the mystery of the game, the twists and turns of it all, but then it just felt like someone threw together a ton of ideas and it never panned out the way it was meant to. Plus the descriptions of feelings as colors was beyond annoying. There was so much potential for this but it was all very confusing (still is at the ending) and the lies, the twists, the who is, who isn't, is it real, is it not real..ugh. I'm not sure I even want to read the next in the series. I wish I could say this book kept my attention and at the beginning it did, I really liked it, but then as it go weirder it lost me.
I was not sure what to expect when I chose to read this novel but I was disappointed. I'm almost certain that the author read The Night Circus by by Erin Morgenstern before she wrote this novel. Again and again my mind went back to that novel as this tale unraveled. Yes, the author takes the reader on a different path but I felt that she could not quite divorce her thoughts and writing from that novel. And, yes, she sets the reader up for a followup novel focusing on Tella, Scarlett's sister, as if she can write a series so much better. Perhaps she can but I doubt it and will choose other stories to follow instead.
Yet I give the author credit for imagination, character development (especially for Scarlett), and weaving a good story. If I hadn't read the other novel this one would have been enchanting. However, I have to say that the other novel was so imaginative and so outstanding that I cannot find it in my heart to give this book as outstanding a rating. Other readers may feel differently and for that reason I recommend reading both novels and rating them accordingly. Whichever one reads first will be the most fascinating.
Yet I give the author credit for imagination, character development (especially for Scarlett), and weaving a good story. If I hadn't read the other novel this one would have been enchanting. However, I have to say that the other novel was so imaginative and so outstanding that I cannot find it in my heart to give this book as outstanding a rating. Other readers may feel differently and for that reason I recommend reading both novels and rating them accordingly. Whichever one reads first will be the most fascinating.
