Reviews

What a great surprise.

All I knew about Caraval was that it involved two sisters and that there was a circus/competition or something like that involved.
This ended up being very addicting and it was easy to get through. The narrative went by really quickly and I just wanted to figure out what everyone was hiding. Who is Ledgend? What is real and what isn't? Where is Donatella and do we get to know more about her? Is Julian trustworthy or no?

So many questions and I had so many theories.

I enjoyed the mysterious vibe of it all. I do think that sometimes Scarlett would deduce something about the clues so quickly that I would question "how did she get to that conclusion?" and I'm still wondering about how I feel about the ending of the book. Some things didn't feel quite right.

Spoiler

what I mean by this is that it felt a little heavy seeing Donatella jump from the balcony like that, especially seeing that it was on purpose and she orchestrated their arrival to Caraval. If Legend hasn't always been bad or whatever then why is the game so dark? Scarlett had to see Dante dead, she had to watch Julian be killed, she had to see her sister kill herself jumping of a balcony. She had to lose a day of her life, and it could have been two. I mean... and her sister was okay with watching her go through all that? I know they did it so they could run away from her father, but still. A bit much, no? Also, I can't believe we still don't know who Ledgend is after a whole book. So it's a new character. He must have shown up disguised as someone else in the book, I actually thought it might have been Aiko, but it probably was just some of the other random characters, which is not as impactfull as I thought. And that final party was a bit weird. Seeing Scarlett finally talk to Julian about his everything. I felt the same way as Scarlett, even though we saw Julian act all those different ways with her, he also felt a bit like a stranger to me. But I'm glad things are finally ou in the open. And that he wanted to tell her the truth, he simply couldn't because of a spell. And I'm happy that I theorized that Julian might be Ledgend's brother, and I got that right.

But I'm curious about the second book and I enjoyed the writing overall.
It was a cool book.

4 stars.

salsale7's review against another edition

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emotional funny hopeful mysterious fast-paced

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

4.25

I enjoyed reading this book
The vibe on this was just ......
Magical and beautiful
At times, I felt that the author was going into depth in describing places and clothes, but this didn' bother me. It was fun to let my imagination flow.

nubbs's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

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

4.0

bmotloch's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional slow-paced

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

3.5

rylieshaye'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? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

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