Dany: I think I’m more in love with the idea of the book, and the setting, than the actual book.
Rosey: Haaaa. Oh thank goodness. Because that is exactly how I feel but I didn’t wanna be a dampener … wet blanket?
Scarlett has never left the tiny island where she and her beloved 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 far-away, 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.
Rosey: I thought that the idea was really cool and the setting was also really interesting.
Dany: It’s alright. It definitely wasn’t perfect, and had its faults, some of which very quite irritating, but I also don’t think it was… terrible. Like, it’s a solid three for me. Given that I’ve given The Archived 3.5 stars, I’m even tempted to say it’s a 3.5. Though I do not recall why I would give the Archived 3.5 stars BUT I guess that is another story.
Rosey: Haaaaa. I think the thing about Caraval was that the characters were… pretty flat?
Dany: Yeaaaah. I mean, there wasn’t much character development either?
Rosey: I could not figure out why Scarlett cared so much about her sister? I mean, we were told why, and it has to do with abuse and the mentality of the abused, but I never felt why Scarlet cared. Also because I found Tella to be extremely annoying.
Dany: I found Scarlett to be more of a bother than Tella tbh
Rosey: Haaaa. Scarlett was… so predictable?
Dany: I did understand both of them and how their reactions to abuse differed and like, how they decided to deal with it
Rosey: Yeah, it just felt pretty… rote to me, like even when the abuse was played out for us, it wasn’t…. it didn’t make me feel bad for them, or really anything. /perhaps jaded now /from reading too much YA
Dany: Yeah, maybe. It made me feel a lot of things, so I can’t really agree with you there. I just wish I could be all “the author understood what she was doing with this” instead of “it definitely made me feel something and could have been turned into something good but I’m not at all sure that happened”
Rosey: Hmm, maybe it was the feeling of a debut author
Dany: Maybe. Maybe not. I think the thing is that it gave me ideas for how I would write the story while I was reading the book and I got more excited about what you could do with it than what was actually being done with it 
Rosey: Ooooh yes, there was so much lost potential!
Dany: Also I discovered that I have this thing for manipulative “evil” wizards that grow too removed from their surroundings due to their powers and so start treating life as a game. I love the idea of Legend a lot. I want my own Legend, except he’d be different.
Rosey: Yes, and much more logical with an ending that makes more sense and doesn’t get all hand wavey.
Dany: I didn’t care much for the boys, big surprise there, I guess.
Rosey: Hahaha. I HATED Julian and was SO annoyed with him calling Scarlett ‘Crimson’. Like, ITS NOT A NICKNAME. IT’S AS LONG AS HER REAL NAME AND NAMES AND LANGUAGES DON’T WORK LIKE THAT
Dany: I’ve heard so many terrible nicknames for people, I wasn’t at all shocked or surprised by “Crimson”. Exactly the kind of thing annoying boys do.
Rosey: I don’t know why it bothered me SO MUCH. It just was really annoying. I think it was that that made me think Julian was Legend
cause I was all ‘why why why!?’ but YA boys are always terrible
Dany: Yeah, most of ’em, that’s true. Everyone except Samm [from Partials by Dan Wells] that is /pinches his cheeks
Rosey: I was totally thinking that.
Rosey: I also spent a good portion of the book thinking Legend was tricker then he ended up being. I expected there to be a whole lot more madness going on but it never really… happened.
Dany: I thought the way Legend was being set up, that his “reveal” was going to be disappointing. I wanted him to be more devious and manipulative and just BETTER than he actually turned out to be. I wanted a real mastermind, but figured I wasn’t going to get that.
Rosey: Yeah, even Tella ending up being behind a lot of it wasn’t really satisfying.
Dany: Not entirely, no but honestly, it saved Tella for me. Like, I didn’t want Scarlett to be right about her and for Tella to be this naive girl who falls in love with Legend and doesn’t believe her own sister. So finding out that Tella had her own motivation and thought-out plans helped me view the author as less of the type who would write a story about good/smart girl vs. bad/dumb girl
Though I still feel like the book tried to get me to hate Tella, so that’s why I get kinda defensive about her.
Rosey: Really? I guess I can kind of see it, but I never really saw Tella as bad/dumb.
Dany: I mean, maybe what I just really hated was Scarlett not realizing that Tella had a brain of her own.
Rosey: Ah yeah, that was real annoying. My annoyance came from a place of Scarlet insisting on sisterly love being so strong and right without much to back it up? Admittedly we don’t get to see much of Tella. I never thought Tella was dumb though, and I thought the book was just expecting us to understand why Scarlet loved her cause of the scene where Tella takes the abuse for Scarlet. It’s all ‘look, look! Tella protects Scarlet! now, everyone love each other!”
Dany: It worked on me. Going through something like that with a sibling… It takes a lot to stand up to someone abusive, especially if you know that you can technically blame it on the other person and get away without being (physically) abused yourself.
Rosey: True. I mean, it made sense to me, and I get it.
Dany: It’s so weird. This book hit in me in a weird spot where I wanted it to be about abuse and how to escape that and big evil wizards trying to trap naive little girls and those girls just trying to figure out a way to best their abusers, I suppose. I thought the whole paranoia about everyone not being who they seemed to be would have fit well into that too but, again, different book that has not yet been written.
Rosey: Yeaaaaah, I think that would have been an awesome book. In the end though, I think the main problem with this book is that the characters were a little thin so pushing into their depths and Caraval’s depths ended up meeting emptiness and it’s kind of dissapointing.
I think a lot of people will love it though.
Dany: Yeah, I think so too.
Rosey: Cause it’s the kind of book where if you don’t read a lot, not going deeper doesn’t matter as much.
Dany’s rating: 3/5 stars
Rosey’s rating: 3/5 stars
Join us in two weeks when we’re back together to discuss:
Rosey’s up with a single review next week!
robots read 