Reviews with content warning for Fire/Fire injury - Finale (Large Print)

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Finale (Large Print) by Stephanie Garber

36 reviews

bookboxbabe's review against another edition

adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-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

3.75

i don’t even know where to begin with this book.

i LOVED caraval and loved legendary even more. but this book was just…a huge disappointment.

first of all, there were so many plot points that went nowhere.

scarlett’s game between nicolas and julian would have been AMAZING to watch but no, it was abandoned almost immediately and nicolas was just killed for the hell of it.

tella and jacks being married was a great plot twist and i gasped. it could’ve been great to see that played out, but no it was immediately rectified the next chapter and jacks just undid it? huh? alright then

those are just two examples but there were a lot of plot points (namely with their mother) that i felt weren’t necessary and that were just abandoned/solved too quickly

second of all, wtf? this book was all over the place. it felt like stephanie implemented so many little threads throughout the other books and then realized “oh shit i have to wrap all this up”

things either happened way too conveniently and quick for these characters or frustratingly wrong and some parts of this book just felt both rushed AND drawn out. at the same time.

i do still love these characters, this world, and this whole story, but this final book was such a let down. besides the romance with

dante. love him.

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rylin_marie's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging emotional hopeful tense medium-paced

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

5.0

i loved this so much.

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chloelj27's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

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

5.0

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anxieteaandbiscuits12's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad fast-paced

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

4.25

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jessicaludden's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

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

3.0

“Most of my life, I’ve romanticized death. I used to love the idea of something being so tremendous that it was worth dying for. But I was wrong. I think the most magnificent things are worth living for.”

I liked this more than Legendary but less than Caraval. I loved getting more Scarlett and Julian and I thought it was interesting getting to learn more about the Fates. I still didn’t really like Tella and Legend but I’m glad they ended up together and happy. Overall, I liked this world and I’m excited to get to Once Upon A Broken Heart.

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szekelyewy's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

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

3.25

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hq_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark tense medium-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

4.5

This was such a fantastic end to the series! What a rollercoaster - the story just kept moving and evolving so quickly, so much happened and yet it didn’t feel rushed. garner did such a great job of maintaining the magical essence of Caraval… This book also contained much darker tones with many of the Fates acting with brutality and no mercy.

Although, is it bad I prefer Jacks…??? Although Legend is still a great love interest. Overall I much preferred Tella’s story but I wish she featured more heavily at the end. While Scarlett’s story was good, I wish we got to read more interactions between her and Gavriel

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stitchbooks22's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional lighthearted mysterious reflective relaxing medium-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? It's complicated

4.0

Finale was enjoyable and it was lovely to see the growth of some of the characters. The plot was good, despite the lack of anything to do with Caraval and the almost abandoned or rushed plot points that cropped up within. I do feel some of the characters could’ve had a stronger role in the book or been developed better.

Overall, it was relaxing, enjoyable and a good ending to the trilogy.

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1_800_fuck_off's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious medium-paced

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

2.75

what a ride

i can't really collect my thoughts right now nor do i have the energy to do so

i'll come back once i've recuperated from this devastatingly draining book

-
where should i start?

first of all, the age difference bothered me so much once i realized how old tella was and that legend was.. who knows how old but definitely old enough to make their relationship creepy. of course, i understand there's many books that do this but that doesn't make it okay.

secondly, there was a disgustingly, pathetic attempt at having some diversity in the characters' sexualities. "he doesn't like girls in that way" legend says something very similar to this to tella when she says something along the lines of "I like nice boys, like

caspar

" referring to

caspar

, a background side character. in fact, he is such a side character that the author has to remind the reader who he is and what relevant thing he did back in the first book. i strongly dislike when authors, especially cis, straight authors, try to do this thing where they make a whole book with only straight characters (which is fine) but then they try to throw in a little "let me add a queer character so it doesn't seem like i'm homophobic" or "let me add this queer character so i can get some ally points" and then makes the most irrelevant-to-the-story, forgettable character queer and it's only revealed way later and in one passing line like "he doesn't like girls that way" not even fully addressing it, just so passive about it. it just fucked me over. i felt so frustrated and disgusted i had to put the book down for a while to compose myself.

thirdly, what the fuck, legend? he is so consistent with the "do you want to collect your prize now?" question he asks tella

when he visits her dreams for /months/.

he is persistent when he finally tells her that the prize is

immortality so they can stay together forever just being obsessed with each other as immortals can't love.

when tella finally says yes he has the audacity to say "yknow what never mind lol" i understand his reasoning of you deserve better than that" but he's a fucking immortal i would assume he would have the mental capacity to have been able to think about that much earlier at some point in the months of practically begging her to

become immortal like him.

fourthly, scarlett and the fallen star. what.. what happened there? okay, so he's

her dad.

he's cruel,

he wants to practically take over the world with the rest of fates who are basically under his control, allowing them to do their cruel acts on mortals for their own pleasure.

okay, i get that. scarlett, tella, legend, and julian are trying to stop them with the help of

the assassin and the maiden death,

understandable. scarlett risks her life by trying to get

a vial of the fallen star's blood, temporarily kills him with the help of the lady prisoner and gets her head encased in a ruby prison or whatever as punishment. she risks changing the whole timeline and never getting back to this present one by going back in time to observe how her mother acted and steal a dress so she can deceive the fallen star that her mother was brought back by the assassin as a present to him. she breaks out of character for some dumb reason and guess what guys? she changes the whole character that is the fallen star with a powerful speech of friendship and magic.

okay, so maybe it wasn't friendship and magic, but it was definitely just as cringey as those are. i wouldn't have been bothered if it hadn't been so wrongly executed. it was bad timing and it seemed rushed. if the author had added at least 3 more pages to smoothly transition to it, to make it make sense, then it would have been fine. but one second the fallen star is about to

burn them alive and the next he's crying from how beautiful the paragraph long speech is, that somehow made him feel love again, and tella stabs and kills him.

it just didn't seem right to me. it felt rushed and wrong. the author went through great pains to make him the big antagonist by showing his cruel acts and in the end <spoilers>he turns good with a few words?</spoilers>i don't know, just seems kind of silly to me.

fifth, that whole part with tella

being under the prince of hearts' emotional manipulation state

was annoying too. it was just put there to prove that her love for legend was stronger. i think it could have been executed better or should have been scrapped entirely. there's better ways to show how in love tella was with legend, imo. i thought it was just a bit of a waste.

sixth, i understand why the prince of hearts just disappeared after that event, as i assume it's to be explained in his series, once upon a broken heart, but it still kind of left a sort of disorienting feeling. like, the man didn't even say anything or was mentioned in a small way at all. he just ceased to exist.

seventh, that whole thing with nicolas was confusing, too, and i think that could have been done better as well.

he was killed off so fast when we barely met him for like two pages.

he could have been a better character but he was clearly just put there to show how much scarlett loved julian. i'm seeing a pattern here now that i think about it. it's kind of frustrating. that whole thing where scarlet tried to put julian and nicolas against each other was a good incentive for something dramatic and exciting but it was cut so short and it was just a waste of a potential character development moment.

I will say that julian and scarlett are cute together though. more because they're heavily portrayed as the soulmate, meant to be, kind of a couple where it's kind of hard to find flaws in their relationship other than it's kind of basic and an overwritten, cliche type of relationship.

the only really positive feelings i have towards the couples in these books are under the influence of a love song i was listening to while i thought of julian and scarlett, legend and tella, which was 'everyone adores you (at least i do)' by matt maltese. i could imagine them with the song and it made me feel a bit better about the characters, so much so that i considered bumping my rating up to three whole stars. i still don't know if i'm going to. i'll give it another listen while thinking about the characters singing it to each other or just a cute romantic scene of them with the song playing in the background and see if it changes my heart. (damn, i just looked up fanart of the characters and it made my heart skip a beat.) anyways, yeah, i'll bump it to an at least 2.75 rating.

all in all, i'm kind of scared of reading the 'once upon a broken heart' series because there were many instances where this series disappointed me and since the author miraculously made one of the characters my favorite, i don't want to be disappointed or feel negative emotions like annoyance or frustration toward him, or his love interest, so i really don't know. i usually feel compelled to read all the books of a book universe once i've started it but i'm greatly hesitant to do the same for this world.

while i was ranting to my mother about this series she said "at least you feel something for it. that means it was good writing. books are supposed to make you feel something so if they do it's a job well done. even if they're mostly negative." and i kind of agree with that because i couldn't stop thinking about the world and the characters for a while. even if most of the thoughts i had about them were spurned from frustration, i felt something close to fondness for them. it's like when you see a pug. they're so ugly that they're cute, in a way.

ultimately, i don't regret reading this series. i'm glad i gave it a chance. maybe with time i'll look back on it thinking of only the positive events that happened but, for now, i still feel a flush of irritation thinking about them lol.

anyways. on to the next book.

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amre23's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

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

3.75

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