nottheprotagonist 's review for:

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

2.5

adventurous emotional mysterious fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: No

Diverse cast of characters: N/A

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

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Most of the writing felt like it would be considered quality on wattpad, which was alright and I still had fun with it, but then the ending was so horrible I almost DNFed with ten pages left. Maybe the sequel is better, but I’m not wasting my time on it.

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Child abuse, Death, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Gore, Sexual assault, Toxic relationship, Blood, Trafficking, Kidnapping, Gaslighting, Toxic friendship

Julian and Scarlett’s relationship always felt wrong to me, very unhealthy. Julian straight up lied to her about literally everything the whole week, dying in her arms near the end and not even telling her he was for sure going to come back once the game was over. His death was practically just a gorier version of getting “out” in a game of tag. And then there’s Tella, who has equally poor communication skills and willingly put her sister through a week of hell because there wasn’t a better way to get them away from their father. It could have all gone splendidly for both of them if Tella had just told Scarlett even part of the plan so she didn’t think her sister had just been kidnapped by a magical being. Speaking of kidnapping, I don’t care what your master plan is, you don’t get to just steal your sister onto a boat with a strange man while she’s begging you not to and act like you saved her. I’ve got my gripes with Scarlet, too, because after all of the lying and kidnapping and no one telling her anything she just… took Julian back? And let Tella off that easily? Absolutely not.