#I hadn't read Caraval before

[mhevarujta]

Anti-Elriels(some of which are Caraval fans): The three brothers with the three sister is disgusting. It won't happen.

Stephanie Garber: Stares into the camera like she's in the office.

[wish-i-were-heather]

okay soo i just finished reading caraval by stephanie garber here are some random thoughts i had (spoiler warning ofc)

at first i was really confused because i hadn't read any spoilers or anything about it. all i knew was that it was a fantasy and there was some magic carnival game. that's literally it.

i still kinda had no idea what was going on and if someone had asked me what it was about any time before halfway through, i wouldn't be able to tell them. as i kept reading i really got into it tho

like i said i had no idea what i was getting myself into so i lowkey couldn't tell if the whole julian thing was gonna be like a locke/adam situation from the cruel prince/shatter me. because i had zero idea who she ended up with. ive still only read this one and not looked up spoilers but like i feel like everyone talks abt them together so

the taking off two days of her life situation made me angryyyyyy like i was so upset wdym shes just gonna be dead for the next 2 days?? but then julian did the whole helpy thing and i was like 😍😍

i wouldn't quite call them enemies to lovers but the way i squealed when i read "who did this to you" was actually not okay

i mean i guess yknow i obviously was shocked at plot twists, like when her dad showed up with the weird fiance guys i was mad asf.

also for some reason i kept imagining her dad as madoc from the cruel prince and the fiancé count guy as the onceler from the lorax. and i kept seeing julian in the same outfit as mr smee from jake and the neverland pirates. just pirate/sailor vibes i guess

dont ask idk

ok but the end i was very confused because everyone kept dying. like yeah they came back but i actually screeched when julian died, i thought i was abt to die. but i knew there had to be more of him (and dante and tella) so i knew somehow they'd come back. like what would the next two books be if it was just scarlet being sad

idc what y'all try to tell me i dont even care if we dont know who he is i feel like legend is fine asf. thats the point tho isnt it-

anyway i dont really like tella idk tho she kinda annoys me

i just got book 2 from the library so 😈😈

[queen-paladin]

March 2024 Reading Wrap Up!

Hiya guys, since I have been on a book reading craze lately (I want to read 30 books before I turn 30 and am now on 13 in March, which says something). I enjoy Goodreads, but little to no people read my reviews. My most popular one on Goodreads has *drumroll* six likes *confetti*. And I have a lot of feelings and thoughts and nowhere to express them...so why not here!

That being said...Books I have read in March of 2024! Better late then never!

What I read and my own personal, take it with a grain of salt thoughts on them below:

Caraval by Stephanie Garber

(YA Fantasy)

Summary:

Scarlett Dragna has never left the tiny island where she and her sister, Tella, live with their powerful, and cruel, father. Now Scarlett’s father has arranged a marriage for her, and Scarlett thinks her dreams of seeing Caraval—the faraway, once-a-year performance where the audience participates in the show—are over. But this year, Scarlett’s long-dreamt-of invitation finally arrives. With the help of a mysterious sailor, Tella whisks Scarlett away to the show. Only, as soon as they arrive, Tella is kidnapped by Caraval’s mastermind organizer, Legend. It turns out that this season’s Caraval revolves around Tella, and whoever finds her first is the winner.

I am usually not the type to stay up late reading because I have to know what's going to happen. I usually set the book down and tuck in bedtime.

This book was an exception.

I was on the edge of my seat, forgetting the time and hour, wanting to read just one more page because I had to know what would happen. The pacing was just right, the world was beautiful and dangerous, and I enjoyed the characters. Scarlett was a breath of fresh air in a genre notorious for internal misogyny in it's female protagonists. Timid and Proper and Responsible, but grows on her own and learns to take initiative.

The environment was very reminiscent of the Night Circus, imagine like, if the Night Circus was a town built on illusions, and you have Caraval. But the Night Circus, rereading it as an adult, had an insufferable MMC who has a girlfriend who sacrifices so much for him, then the MMC who cheats on his girlfriend for the FMC, and then when the girlfriend has the truth confirmed to her, she gets upset and briefly lashes out, the writing then frames her as An Evil Woman Scorned for doing so (which is...yikes) Justice for Isobel Martin. She should have done a full Carrie White style Everyone Dies rampage and I would have rooted her on the whole time.

There's none of that crap here! We have a lovely romance between Scarlett and Julian full of all sorts of wonderful, chemistry-building moments.

But what got me was the story- the various twists and turns kept me on the edge of my seat, gasping and clinging. I was captivated. Entranced by it's spell. This is a roller coaster of a book, so just hold on and enjoy the ride. I am so glad I read this book, it gave me a feeling and experience I hadn't had with a book in ages, one where I had to stay up late, because I had to read what would happen next.

5/5

The Unlovely Bride by Alice Coldbreath

(Romance, Historic, Fantasy)

Summary: Lenora Montmayne leads a charmed life as the most beautiful woman at King Wymer’s court, surrounded by admirers. And then disaster strikes. The red pox sweeps the summer palace at Caer-Lyones and Lenora’s fair face falls victim to its ravages. Without her looks, what does Lenora have left to her?

If ever there was a knight the crowd loves to hate, it’s Garman Orde. Even his own family despises him. Then one night a heavily veiled lady offers him an extraordinary bargain. And he finds out that Lenora Montmayne was never just a pretty face.

Review: Any marriage of convenience story I will read, and I will devour it. I've been looking forward to this book for a while, and I do love the premise. And most of all, I love the setting! This lovely world that is part medieval England part not because fuck it, it's not history, just the vibes. And I LOVE our female protagonist. Leonora relied on her looks and nothing else for years to get by, and now that they are gone, she relies on her own person. She loves kitty cats, she believes in prophecies and fortune-telling but is smart, pragmatic, and determined. She and Garman have a nice romance with some great lines and moments (and some nice spice). My complaint is that while the first half is amazing, the second half kind of drags, and not much happens, it could have used more tension, more stakes, and more plot. I may read another Coldbreath book sometime, just because I love the world of Karadok, but I'm not sure.

3.75/5

Medea by Eilish Quin

(Historic, Fantasy)

Summary: The daughter of a sea nymph and the granddaughter of a Titan, Medea is a paradox. She is at once rendered compelling by virtue of the divinity that flows through her bloodline and made powerless by the fact of her being a woman. As a child, she intuitively submerges herself in witchcraft and sorcery, but soon finds it may not be a match for the prophecies that hang over her entire family like a shroud.

As Medea comes into her own as a woman and a witch, she also faces the arrival of the hero Jason, preordained by the gods to be not only her husband, but also her lifeline to escape her isolated existence. Medea travels the treacherous seas with the Argonauts, battles demons she had never conceived of, and falls in love with the man who may ultimately be her downfall.

Review: Ok, ok, I have so many feelings about this. I was...sadly disappointed by this book. Medea is probably my personal favorite of the Ancient Greek Women, if not, my favorite of the spicier, more controversial, morally grey ones (Hera, Circe, Medusa, Clytemnestra, etc)

But, my biggest issue with this book, and it's big, is that I don't believe there is a love story between Medea and Jason. The writer makes him unlikable from the get-go, to where he has numerous Kick The Dog (tm) moments like physically abusing Medea and killing one of Pelleas's daughters when she won't stop crying. Medea herself doesn't justify them, and she keeps thinking of "eh, he's sometimes kind of good-looking, but he's okay."

Like, Medea in this book, after meeting Jason, she flat out tells her brother that he is the man she loves the most in her life (which...YIKES for the implications. But in order for any Medea story to work, I HAVE to believe she is madly, desperately in love with Jason. There's no oath where Jason swears before the gods to stay with her, so then there's no hurt. She kind of has to marry Jason to preserve her honor according to Aunt Circe, but not out of love. Since there's no romantic chemistry, the sacrifices Medea takes make more sense and the betrayal hurts even more so then when she does what she does in Corinth, she is extremely sympathetic at least in the beginning.

Like, she has a moment after Jason revealed he cheated on her and is leaving her for Glauce and she goes "oh, poor Glauce is a victim like me." Which begs the question for this version- why doesn't she just kill Jason himself? She calls Glauce a poor baby victim, she kills Glauce, not Jason. If she loved Jason that much, then she would hate him more, and killing Glauce would make more sense. She wants to watch Jason suffer.

Also, I feel like Eilsha Quinn is a bit afraid of the moral nuances of Medea. She has her "I didn't really MEAN to!" moments and there is one character she kills who she then re-animates (like she re-animates her brother, so oopsie Daisy, she's actually not a kinslayer! And he just...vibes with them as the third wheel lives with them, and helps look after the kids. This makes it less tragic because A) She's not a murderer who risked and left everything for him, she's more "perfect" and not as flawed, and B) when Jason betrays her, she's less alone and has an immediate support system there in her brother). And the kid- killing she does to trick Jason and then she re-animates them later, or tries, to but no, that failed and they're dead dead, whoops. Even if Medea purposely killing the kids was the invention of Euripides, I want to believe Medea is capable of purposely, intentionally doing some violent, controversial things and this seems to be afraid of her spice, her teeth.

The writing is pretty, and I liked the beginning with learning about her childhood, but this was a letdown.

I did order Hewlitt's book of Medea, which is higher ranked on Goodreads so my hope is higher for that one.

3/5

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

(YA, Fantasy, Romance)

Summary:

After centuries of sleep, the gods are warring again. But eighteen-year-old Iris Winnow just wants to hold her family together. Her mother is suffering from addiction and her brother is missing from the front lines. Her best bet is to win the columnist promotion at the Oath Gazette.

To combat her worries, Iris writes letters to her brother and slips them beneath her wardrobe door, where they vanish—into the hands of Roman Kitt, her cold and handsome rival at the paper. When he anonymously writes Iris back, the two of them forge a connection that will follow Iris all the way to the front lines of battle: for her brother, the fate of mankind, and love.

Review: This book was utterly beautiful, breathtaking, and heartbreaking all at once and yet uplifting and then it breaks your heart again. The world is simple and lovely. It's a mix of World War One/two aesthetics with a fantasy setting. It's basically You Got Mail but fantasy and more focus on the drama then the comedy.

The romance is lovely, there is such a beautiful love story between Roman and Iris as they sort out their feelings, reveal their secrets, doubts, failures, grief, and insecurities, and learn more about where they fall for each other. Plus, the twists and turns were a lot of fun and the pacing was just right.

I have no faults or complaints, this was just a lovely, lovely book and I look forward to the sequel because THAT was quite a note to end on!

5/5

Legendborn by Tracy Deonn

Summary: After her mother dies in an accident, sixteen-year-old Bree Matthews wants nothing to do with her family memories or childhood home. A residential program for bright high schoolers at UNC–Chapel Hill seems like the perfect escape—until Bree witnesses a magical attack her very first night on campus.

A flying demon feeding on human energies.

A secret society of so called “Legendborn” students that hunt the creatures down.

And a mysterious teenage mage who calls himself a “Merlin” and who attempts—and fails—to wipe Bree’s memory of everything she saw.

The mage’s failure unlocks Bree’s own unique magic and a buried memory with a hidden connection: the night her mother died, another Merlin was at the hospital. Now that Bree knows there’s more to her mother’s death than what’s on the police report, she’ll do whatever it takes to find out the truth, even if that means infiltrating the Legendborn as one of their initiates.

She recruits Nick, a self-exiled Legendborn with his own grudge against the group, and their reluctant partnership pulls them deeper into the society’s secrets—and closer to each other. But when the Legendborn reveal themselves as the descendants of King Arthur’s knights and explain that a magical war is coming, Bree has to decide how far she’ll go for the truth and whether she should use her magic to take the society down—or join the fight.

Reveiw: This is such a hyped, beloved, popular book that is so many people's baby and favorite series and it...it was okay.

It wasn't bad.

But I didn't find it phenomenal, amazing, spectacular, life chagning.

It was good. It was okay.

I honestly got extremely tired of trying to learn how the over-complicated Arthurian society worked. It's explained in a super info-dumpy way that the characters get, but I don't. And the pacing was way too slow, I feel like it needed to shave off a good hundred pages, or fifty, perhaps.

I do enjoy the main girl, Bree, alright. She doesn't take bullshit, but has moments of vulnerability. As well as exploring race, grief, family history and the scenes with root magic were amazing. The beginning was fantastically done, it was the middle part where it peterred off for me.

But the rest of it, not gonna lie, was kind of...eh.

And, ngl, I am more Team Nick. Sel is a giant jerk who treats her like garbage, yet people root for them and want them to be together, and I'm like....??????? why? At least Nick, white saviory as he can be, is trying and cares for her and affirms and appreciates her strength.

I respect that this is so many people's favorite book and that it speaks to them and moves them. But for me, if none of these people made any content around this book and said nothing, based off of my opinion independent of others, if you plopped this book on my lap and said nothing about the hype about it...I'd still say it was just okay. That might be my controversial hot take, but it's just what my personal experience was from this book.

3/5

Currently Reading: The Time I Got Drunk and Saved a Demon by Lemming, The Death of Jane Lawrence by Starling, Emily Wilde's Encyclopedia of Fairies by Fawcett, and Twisted Love by Ana Huang.

[stormhearty]

The continuation of "Breaking Like Glass", I read the summary and remembered you talking about the reader's cure, I confess that I haven't read it yet, since I decided to leave it for tomorrow, when my mind is more concentrated (I suffer from a mind that seems to work at 220) and I will probably sleep after here😅 Only heaven knows when your mind should be working to rebuild the story from scratch again, I send you my sincere strength. Sometimes starting over is so good, because we end up taking the direction we always wanted and realize that the old one seemed like an exercise to finally push us forward. Good luck <3

A design in her spare time. Lmao, why do I feel vibrations that your doll seems to be in a semi-open regime? 🤣 other doctrines could speak of private imprisonment.

Watching it on Halloween should be great!!! I've heard that although the movie is great, it doesn't quite match up to the books… At least it wasn't on the level of the PJO movie, which my friend said the movie and the books are totally different.

Read it! There's nothing better than re-reading something you love, and sometimes you feel everything and more when you do. Thick books are so "wow"

Ahn, that's a good question that I hadn't stopped to think about. I think I'd love to reread the "Six of Crows" duology, to feel everything again and pick up any details I missed in a moment of anxiety (anxious people suffer a lot) and "Caraval" to remember the plot. Would you like to reread any more after LOTR?

I'm like your friend, but only at the beginning when I'm still adapting to the universe. Imagine her reading "From Blood and Ashes". Reading those first chapters was very difficult. Yes, the first book is painful.

Lmao. Discount books are every reader's weak point… they know our Achilles heel🤣

It was pleasant 🙂

It's okay! I totally slept right after your last ask! Actually, no lie, I read a manwha first which inspired me for that other fic I am totally re-writing. I wrote on it for a good few minutes before knocking out in bed. 🤣🤣🤣

🤣🤣 That is true though. I have a Sim family in Mt. Komorebi and I haven't touched that save file since I made the house.

And the movies barely graze the books for LOTR. The lore is so humongous that the movies barely talk about it. Thick books are crazy.

I really need to ask "Six of Crows" to my TBR list if you say that you would like to put it as a re-read. Oh gosh, I know how it feels to be an anxiety reader. And I have heard of "Caraval" mostly because of Book-Tok again (and it's pretty cover).

She had ACOTAR for about three weeks and she texted me yesterday and she was like "Can't read it, got the audiobook so hopefully I can listen to it on the way to work". And I was like 😅😅😅 Oh, should that be in my TBR list too? But my attention span would have such a hard time if you tell me it was difficult to get through the first few chapters.

My moneyyy, but no regrets. I do have a goal to read like 24 books this year, so I need the books 😂😂

🤣🤣 I can imagine the face that you probably made when you typed that.

🙂🙂 It was pleasant. The slight smile with a nod of your head. Gives me all the information I need.

[shiftereris]

1. How many books did you read this year?

6. Was there anything you meant to read, but never got to?

7. What was your average Goodreads rating? Does it seem accurate?

14. What books do you want to finish before the year is over?

23. What’s the fastest time it took you to read a book? 2

4. Did you DNF anything? Why?

25. What reading goals do you have for next year?

I read 18 books this year

Yes. I meant to read a book I bought at Ollie's last year, but hadn't gotten around to it

My average is 4.41 I'd say it's pretty accurate

Throne of Fire, House of Hades, Blood of Olympus, I Fell in Love With Hope

20 days. Not that long but not that short.

I DNF'd Caraval. I think it wasn't for me at the time and I might pick it back up

My reading goals are to read 12 books and to do a 24hr readathon

[visd3stele]

REQUESTS

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Fandoms I'm in and would write for

- the folk of the air

- acotar

- hunger games

- grishaverse

- the originals

- outlander

- pjo/hoo/toa/tkc

- OUAT

- the invisible life of Addie La Rue

- Anne with an E

- Caraval

- Atla/Lok

- Criminal Minds

- Dune *though I have barely started reading the books and it's a heavy read so... not sure about this one* *only seen the recent movies*

- the King

- little women

- house of the dragon/game of thrones

*I'm in way, waaaay, WAY more fandoms, so if you want a fic, but the fandom's not listed, feel free to ask. I might know of it and write it :)

*I do not write romance within siblings/family relatives (for PJO: no same cabin ships and for OUAT: I cannot untangle the whole family tree on the spot, so feel free to ask and we'll see). If there are other topics I'm not comfortable with that I cannot think now, I'll reply to your request informing you of it and reserving the right to not write it.

*I write for any characters and any ships if/when I have a spark of inspiration. Ask away, though, please. You might just give me the needed boost of inspiration <3

*I do basically any trope and genre (it's fun to expand my writing) fluff, angst, friendships, siblings/family relationships, triggering topics, even smut (though I've never tried to write it before, I'm willing to try). If there is anything I hadn't cover, but you'd like to see, let me know ;)

*if there is anything unclear, I'm ready to help. You can leave the request in the comments of this post, in private messages on the app or in my inbox

Can't wait for your wishes 💛

CHECK OUT MY STORIES HERE

[tomesandtombstones]

I Finished the Caraval Trilogy & I Get it Now

*Be warned, this post is dark and full of spoilers.

It was about 2018 that a YouTuber I used to watched mentioned how Caraval by Stephanie Garber is her favorite book in the entire freaking world. It was a video about makeup, I'm pretty sure, but I remember that moment because I was excited to have just finished the first book of the trilogy myself. That said, it was a while yet before the second book was to come out, so I'd moved on from that wild ride of fantastical locations, imaginative characters, and an unpredictably intense plotline. In the months afterward I'd read more fantasy, and a lot of books I'd consider in the same vein, like The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, but I hadn't realized 2/3's of the story had played out and ended in the years since that first novel was published.

Cut to the last month and I have finished Legendary and Finale and I forgot how much I liked the way Garber could weave a complex plot, really difficult relationships built on the rules and workings of the world she's built, and wildly vivid environments. The fantasy is well-built within a world that's big enough to believe on its own, but the action is contained within locations enough to keep the story at a fast-moving pace. The city of Valenda is where books two and three take place, on an island among others in this like, city state where Donatella Dragna and her sister Scarlett have to live and navigate.

Garber has a way of creating circumstances within the story as it moves along, that pull the plot into interesting places, utilizing a variety of characters that all interact simultaneously. It gives the pace a nice slow build that always gets furiously intense by the last 1/4, making all three books page-turners to the end. I literally got to the last third of both Legendary and Finale and the story kicks up such a notch that I had-to-finish-them-right-then.

Before starting the second book, I had to do a quick skim of the first to reacquaint myself with the wild ride and characters that made it so colorful and imaginative. You know how you recall the visual elements and scenes your mind builds when you read a book? I had to google up some reviews of Caraval to retrieve those mental images. Legendary takes off right where Caraval ended, and Finale begins two months after Legendary's events. The largest reveal comes in Legendary, when we get the full identity of one of our mysterious mains.

This series stands out for me as far as imaginative world-building and plotlines go. The descriptions of the city and what the different areas are, how they look and how people travel to them; it's a very creative design that stretches into medieval vibes, a little steampunk, and high fantasy magic and magical, inhuman beings. There's just such a wide encompassing of elements that build the story and provide an easy believability. When it comes to a story as complex and bound by the rules of magic in Garber's world, there's ways the story can and can't go and the author keeps those boundaries intact and consistent. No reader is off in left field wondering how and why a scene played out as it did, the tie-ins of each sequence of events pull together seamlessly with the pacing.

I liked that the books take place over short periods of time, and how fast the action happens as well. Sometimes placing entire novels into a week's timespan seems like even more of a feat or accomplishment of an author. There's a balance of too much at once and a dull ride, and Garber has that pacing down well for each novel. I also enjoyed how the second and third books didn't have to rely entirely on the concept of the game of Caraval like the first one. we do see a second round of the game, but that's where things deviate as Legend is revealed. I love the way a lot of young adult authors describe their dark and mysterious main characters in similar ways. That jet black hair and tattoos really sells a sexy main, I can't lie. I can't be the only one who thinks that either, book sales don't lie.

There was quite a bit more brutality and violence in Finale, like the intensity and the characters matured into more dire circumstances. There were some characters brought into and out of the story so swiftly, it was heart-wrenching to learn their contributions were done so quickly. Most notably was Donatella and Scarlett's mother. She spent the entirety of the first book trapped in a deck of cards, and the moments we get with her physically in the story are so brief it's almost unfair that her character didn't get a more memorialized final moment. Her life is revisited in an exciting way at the end of Finale, though, so the tying up of her storyline does get a neat bow, albeit in a round-about, time-travelly way.

The ending is neatly wrapped as well, despite the death and some of the ambiguity of the final characters who go out into the world to "hide" - indicating sure enough, Garber's Caraval world is on-going. Enough times has passed since this trilogy ended in 2019 that we now have a new book coming out by Garber that gives Jacks, a magical character known as the Prince of Hearts, a much more in-depth breadth of story. Have I pre-ordered it? Yup. Ran out the end of my Barnes & Noble birthday gift card on that one on a whim. I want it. And any book that offers extra chapters and epilogues gives me joy.

The Caraval trilogy is one that can probably speak to more of an audience under 39, than over, and with the younger side of Young Adult readers, but it can suck anyone in. The magical elements give a beautifully descriptive aspect to the details around the characters, painting scenes with so much splendor and romanticism. The world-building didn't need to be vast to really paint a vivid picture as the story unfolded. With this wide umbrella of fantasy, light romance, loss and sacrifice, Caraval, Legendary and Finale are a really uncommon trilogy that leaves rich visuals throughout each read that linger on the mind long after. It's lovely, I'd suggest picking up this box set or ebooks and getting them in your brain before too much more time goes by. Play the game.

-Leigh

[passionforfic]

Novels I've been reading

I have three book clubs this school and they have me pretty busy. :-)

The Kindred Spirits Book Club is with members of the faculty and our first book is by the Japanese author, Shusaku Endo. I actually read the Spanish translation of the book and I finished reading it last week. I'm looking forward to our discussion at the end of this month.

This book tells the story of Catholic missionaries and their attempt to spread Catholicism in the Japan of the 17th century. It is crude and Endo is able to show the points of views of the European missionary and the Japanese in power at the time. It is really a book that makes us think. . .

My High School Casual Readers Book Club decided on The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde as our first book to read. We finished it and had our discussion. We are watching the film adaptation next week.

I've read other works by Wilde but I hadn't read this novel and it was really good. Very different to his usual style, this one is very dark. And it is thought provoking.

Now, my Middle School Book Club has decided on Caraval. I have read this trilogy before but I loved it so I don't mind rereading the first book.

And in between all these book clubs, I'm also reading webtoons and trying to finish Nick & Nora's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan. I love their books and I'm enjoying this one too, but it's taking me longer than usual since I have to read the others ones first.