Reviews with content warning for Kidnapping - Caraval

Reviews tagging 'Kidnapping'

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

132 reviews

mysterybindsme's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.0

- Definitely intended for a younger reader (probably about 13-15)
- Main character is incredibly naive and has like two personality traits: protecting her sister, and having trust issues. Oh and the third trait of being incredibly quick to trust things she hears despite trust issues
- Becomes way more interesting about 2/3s in (which at that point is a bit late really)
- Far too many plot twists. Like I'm not kidding, past the half way mark the entire situation changes context about five times
- The ending ruined the entire thing. All the stakes were gone and it made me absolutely hate most of the characters (aside from Aiko who was genuinely helpful but there for like five seconds and Scarlett who was just a normal girl in an awful situation)
- Yes I'm planning on reading the next two books (unless the second one's worse). No I would not recommend
- The prose is beautiful tho

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alex1's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging mysterious tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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psnchz's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

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savvyrosereads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Rating: 4/5 stars

Scarlett and her sister Tella escape their abusive father and plunge into the magical game of Caraval…but when Tella goes missing, Scarlett soon learns everything is not as it seems.

This book took me AGES to read for reasons that are not remotely its fault, so the buddy read very much left me behind (and I can’t blame them). That said, I really enjoyed this one and had a great time discussing it once I was finally able to do so!

The world building here is particularly fun to me—the entire setting felt super trippy and made my brain hurt a bit, but in a good way. This is more complex (and a bit darker) than YA sometimes skews, but I enjoyed both of those things!

A lot of the folks in my buddy read were frustrated by the ending and/or by the character of Tella, but I actually loved both. I’m excited to see where this trilogy goes next (as of this posting I’ve already finished and really enjoyed Legendary but have Finale left to go)!

CW: Kidnapping; physical and emotional abuse; blood/violence/death; suicide

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