Scan barcode
A review by tonjeh
Caraval by Stephanie Garber
adventurous
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
5.0
Couple things I didn’t like about this book:
1) I found Scarlett as a main character to be annoying for most of the book. She was easily embarrassed, kept on second guessing every decision she made, constantly questioning her own reasonings for doing pretty much anything and, as a result; ended up in such unnecessary troubles that could’ve easily been avoided if she even had half the faith in herself that Julian seemed to have in her from the get go.
2) Right from the beginning I felt like I was following the wrong main character. At the start of the book Donatella seemed way more confident and interesting, before completely disappearing and staying gone for most of the book leaving me stuck with her sister.
3) Scarlett had one single motivation, which was to protect her sister and play mother hen. She needed to be the responsible one thinking of ways to secure their future, because all she cares about is her sister’s safety. Or so we’re told, but literally every. single. time she has options to either gather information or clues about her sister’s whereabouts she’s a mumbling wreck asking all the wrong questions, or being more preoccupied asking about herself. Like, it’s okay to have a crush on a dude and wonder if he likes you back, and it’s okay to worry about if you’re going to be happy in your arranged marriage. It’s the constant nagging of her feeling guilty for like three whole pages after doing something “selfish” for me 🫤
For the last like 30-40% of the book the stakes were changed and it felt like Scarlett’s character became less annoying to follow and more determined to actually win and save her sister.
4) Sometimes the writing took too long getting to the point and I found myself skipping entire paragraphs because they were either over dramatic descriptions of a place, or endless rambling thoughts and internal monologue repeating itself
Overall I liked this book
1) I found Scarlett as a main character to be annoying for most of the book. She was easily embarrassed, kept on second guessing every decision she made, constantly questioning her own reasonings for doing pretty much anything and, as a result; ended up in such unnecessary troubles that could’ve easily been avoided if she even had half the faith in herself that Julian seemed to have in her from the get go.
2) Right from the beginning I felt like I was following the wrong main character. At the start of the book Donatella seemed way more confident and interesting, before completely disappearing and staying gone for most of the book leaving me stuck with her sister.
3) Scarlett had one single motivation, which was to protect her sister and play mother hen. She needed to be the responsible one thinking of ways to secure their future, because all she cares about is her sister’s safety. Or so we’re told, but literally every. single. time she has options to either gather information or clues about her sister’s whereabouts she’s a mumbling wreck asking all the wrong questions, or being more preoccupied asking about herself. Like, it’s okay to have a crush on a dude and wonder if he likes you back, and it’s okay to worry about if you’re going to be happy in your arranged marriage. It’s the constant nagging of her feeling guilty for like three whole pages after doing something “selfish” for me 🫤
For the last like 30-40% of the book the stakes were changed and it felt like Scarlett’s character became less annoying to follow and more determined to actually win and save her sister.
4) Sometimes the writing took too long getting to the point and I found myself skipping entire paragraphs because they were either over dramatic descriptions of a place, or endless rambling thoughts and internal monologue repeating itself
Overall I liked this book