“Every person has the power to change their fate if they are brave enough to fight for what they desire more than anything.”
In another world a magical show appears once a year for a spectacular performance which draws in the audience and features incredible shows. A girl yearns to see the Caraval before being sold into a marriage she doesn’t want and flees with her sister to go see it. Things quickly take a darker turn when the show steals her sister away to be the main part of their newest show. Is this place really as safe as she’s been told, or are she and her sister in an unfamiliar dangerous world?
I really didn’t care for Caraval. I thought it was dull and poorly written and the romance wasn’t well done. I picked it up for a book club so I felt obligated to finish the series to compare with my friends, but I likely would have dropped it had it not been for that. It wasn’t painful to read or anything, just uninteresting and cringy. It really read as very YA, which isn’t my favorite genre, but I still felt it could have been done much better, especially as the concept of a magical show/circus has been done really well before like in the Night Circus, a personal favorite of mine. I think the word that best describes this entire series is just ‘Ehh” 3 out of 5 stars.