“No one is truly honest,” Nigel answered. “Even if we don’t lie to others, we often lie to ourselves. And the word good means different things to different people.”
So, like many before me I was drawn to Caraval, the hype on bookstagram, the beautiful cover and fan art and the amazing sounding premise. I thought to myself that this is a book I need in my life.
However, when I finished….
The feeling was just meh.
Don’t get me wrong there were parts of the book that I thoroughly enjoyed. The world the author had created was tangible and I was fully absorbed from the get go. There were characters I liked such as Tella (I was bitterly disappointed to find out she was barely in the book) and Dante. I also really enjoyed her writing style, especially her descriptions of Caraval.
Unfortunately…
The main character, Scarlett, who is the only perspective the story is told through just annoyed me right from the very beginning! She was a meek character who at the very start of the story apologies for slapping Julian in the boat (IMO he totally deserved to be slapped!) I appreciate that that was part of her character, she and her sister had been held under her abusive father’s thumb. At first I figured that with this breath of freedom she would develop into a less weak character over the course of the book, and although this did happen (thankfully) she somehow became even worse!
And I will tell you why.
Throughout the story she is trying to find her sister Tella, who in Scarlett’s eyes makes poor life choices, who can’t be left alone because she will get into trouble. So, after a magical, character developing adventure, Scarlett finally finds Tella who it turns out has amazingly masterminded a way to save herself and her sister from not only their abusive father but also in a way that doesn’t involve Scarlett marrying some absolute arse-wipe of a human.
To finally be able to be free.
And the price Tella had to pay for this unlimited freedom, death. She had to kill herself (spoiler alert she comes back to life, big shocker) and does Tella get any kind of thank you for all of her effort from Scarlett?
No.
Does Scarlett finally admit that her little sister isn’t as careless as she believes?
Also no.
And that is why this book will always be meh for me. Although I will say everything else in this book is stuff that I would normally enjoy and even have loved to read about, unfortunately I just could not get on with the main character!
I will however, be reading Legendary as I have heard rumours that Tella takes centre stage!
– Natasha Reads x
Have you read Caraval? What did you love/hate about it? Let us know in the comments 🙂
The Talking Bookshelf 