Book Review - Caraval

 

I have been loving the easy Young Adult reads lately - especially ones like these where they're absolute dream worlds and absolutely non-realistic. 

In this, one sister is desperate to flee and the other sister is betrothed but both want to get away from their father's cruelty and leave the isle where they live, so finally one year one sister is invited to the Caraval - a world where everything is pretend...or maybe nothing is? It's a game to be played and the sisters are just thrown right in. One disappears..or is she kidnapped? But whatever happened, Tella is to be found by all the players of the game and the winner receives one wish. 

From the beginning I could tell that everything about Caraval is not what it seems. Some of the players in the game, well, performance, are actual performers and others are not. However, because Scarlett is obsessed with finding her sister and not being at Caraval purely for herself, the story takes a different turn - this teen is definitely not as narcissistic as normal and she actually cares and has feelings. Scarlet meets someone, falls in love - but then, is he a character in the game or is he a real person? Little details start to come out - such as that Julien had already played the game. 

Obviously this is YA - so as you're reading this, teen decision-making is terrible through the eyes of adults. The magic in this book is just MAGIC. And the whole thing that Legend has is just...a game...

The characters have a little depth to them but the real feature with this book is the whole world of Caraval that Stephanie Garber creates. You can feel the water, feel the mist, feel the black and white world in a scene, feel the boats, feel the rocks and cobblestone streets, and imagine the dresses and clothing. The one piece that Garber describes is a color-changing dress that changes depending on Scarlet's mood. A part of me wants her to sell the rights to the book for someone to create it as a movie or tv show and part of me just wants to be able to see what I've imagined in my head. I feel as though fantasy books are hard to create in real-life and I really don't want someone else's imagination to ruin what I have imagined - because I'm not sure if it will live up to what I picture in my mind. 

Overall: recommend

This was a seriously fast read for me, maybe 2 days total. I felt as though I was dropped into the world and came back out with a book hangover. Caraval is number one in a series of three. I have the number two on hold at the library but with COVID-19, I'm not sure how long it will take to get. It looks as though there's several copies that are checked out so I have to wait. BOO.