#hate that i already know the vague shape of that spoiler because of book fans in the tags

[msevelynsilver]

SPOILERS AHEAD FOR ALL FOUR SEASONS OF BLACK SAILS AND ALL SEVEN SEASONS OF BUFFY + SEASON 1 OF ANGEL

I wonder what the level of overlap between these two fandoms is. I think it’s probably low and definitely should be higher.

One thing I can’t get out of my mind is the comparison between Buffy and Faith and Flint and Silver. There’s an especially good Buffy and Faith fan video that really inspired me to think about this, so I’ll leave the link below.

Amazing Buffy + Faith video: https://youtu.be/GpIHwrPhJyQ

But essentially both of these relationships have a friends-with-homoerotic-subtext-to-enemies-with-homoerotic-subtext story arc. And both play with the idea of morality, responsibility for others, the burden of power, and being/becoming the same person.

In Season 7 of Buffy, she becomes the leader of a group of young slayers and shoulders the responsibility of looking after that. But she is seen by the Potentials as cold and standoffish and as not having their best interests at heart. (Sound like anyone we know?). Faith then tries to take control of the girls and finds that it’s hard being first in command instead of second because you have to make the hard decisions and the people under you will resent you no matter what you choose.

Buffy says to Faith: “Whether you wanted it or not, their lives are yours.”

(I’m not bothering to look up episodes right now, but I have a near encyclopaedic knowledge of Buffy and I think this is 7.19 “Empty Places”.)

Does this not sound like something Flint would say to Silver? Silver, who as quartermaster was the better liked of the two but who had to shoulder more responsibility due to Billy’s creation of Long John Silver as a pirate king and who found that he didn’t like the role he was forced to play? Silver was responsible for the lives of all the men on the Walrus crew and while he liked the power it gave him, it also terrified him to have to account for and rely on people other than himself.

Here is more dialogue from Buffy. (Technically I think this is Angel 1.19 “Sanctuary”):

Buffy: “You told me I was just like you.”

Faith: “And you can’t stand that. You’re all about control. You have no idea what it’s like on the other side. When nothing’s in control, nothing makes sense. There’s just pain, and hate, and nothing you do means anything. You can’t even-“

Buffy: “Shut up!”

Re-read that but swap Buffy’s name for Flint’s and Faith’s for Silver’s. It’s not a perfect analogy. Buffy was created to be an expendable hero and Flint is seen as a pirate menace to society, so they face completely different issues regarding their role in the narrative. Faith and Silver do better. Both have relatively unspecified tragic backstories that turned them into cynical, self-serving people who are mistrustful of authority figures (Faith’s is never specified at least in-show, and I’m not taking comic book canon into account here because I’m not caught up). In particular, I think Faith’s line about “nothing you do means anything” is something Silver would agree with. I think if he had believed that Flint’s war could succeed and that they wouldn’t all end up dead, he would have followed Flint to the ends of the earth. But he thought that none of it would mean anything and that they didn’t have the power to effect that kind of change. It also might explain why he views his own past as story-less. Nothing you do means anything. I think he, like Faith, has experienced a complete loss of control over his circumstances and himself, and thus his story at some point in the past. It is their defined roles (quartermaster and slayer) which begin to give their life some shape and meaning, only to have it fall apart because of the burdens/limits of the role they are forced to take.

But my absolute favorite comparison comes from something Faith says to Buffy in season 3. (3.17 Enemies):

Faith: “What are you gonna do, B? Kill me? You become me. You’re not ready for that. Yet.”

Oh, the parallels. For context, if you haven’t seen the show, (and you should, it’s really good), Faith says this while she and Buffy are holding knives to each other’s throats. She then kisses Buffy on the forehead (like Judas did to Jesus) and runs away. The drama! The betrayal! The romantic subtext! The vague implications that Faith is a future version of Buffy who has lost her idealism and illusions about the world and that Buffy will one day sink to the same level of (perceived) villainy!

In this case I would flip it and say Faith is playing the role of Flint while Buffy is playing the role of Silver. Because in the end of Black Sails, isn’t this what happens? Silver kills Flint (literally/metaphorically depending on your interpretation), and in doing so assumes the role Flint had played. This is a man who has lost the two people who he loved most in the world to their dangerous idealism and who now shoulders the weight of being THE pirate in Nassau who society will brand as a monster. In killing Flint and releasing him from the torment of the ten years without Thomas (like a man waking from a long and terrible nightmare), Silver becomes Flint. He had already made so much of Flint’s mind his own and he kind of sacrifices himself so that Flint can live out his happy ending, knowing all the while that he won’t get his own (I know this is a generous reading of Silver, but I love him so I’m biased).

Faith and Buffy don’t get a story that is so neatly tied up because they’re not the two main characters. But Buffy develops a lot of Faith’s ideas about the inherent power of being a slayer (“There’s only me. I am the law”) and makes a lot of morally grey decisions that she probably would have condemned Faith for in her youth. (“Are you the bad slayer now? Am I the good slayer now?).

I need someone who’s talented at video editing to combine these two relationships because I’ve barely touched all the potential parallels (and the visual ones are so good as well!).

I feel like there’s also something to be said for “freedom in the dark” parallels in the two shows, especially with Spike and Buffy in season 6 but I haven’t thought it through and I would need to give a lot more thought to the implications of comparing society’s vilification of queer people and Buffy and Spike’s toxic straight relationship, which is nonetheless taboo for being a Slayer/vampire one.

#black sails #buffy the vampire slayer #james flint #john silver #buffy summers #faith lehane #friends to enemies

[olympicreads]

king of scars by Leigh Bardugo  rating: ★★★ 1/2 warning: this review contains spoilers. the paragraphs containing them will be marked accordingly.

I’ll find a way. All his life, Nikolai had believed that. His will had been enough to shape not only his fate but his own identity.

I was on the fence about giving this book 3 or 4 stars... Because this is a 4-stars novel, but I know that Leigh Bardugo can do much better, so I thought I’d be more strict in this case. I wish I was giving it the 5 stars it should’ve had, though. However, I can't do that in good conscience, because in more than one way this book was a regression to the bad aspects of The Grisha Trilogy.

I’m not going to say that this book was terrible, because it wasn’t. Leigh Bardugo is an incredibly talented author. The prose was great. The book as a whole was great... If you consider it a stand-alone. 

King of Scars, as we know, presents us three main perspectives: Nina’s, Zoya’s, and Nikolai’s, with a fourth in the second part of the book: that of a new character called Isaak. I will be dividing this review into sections for each character, highlighting my likes and dislikes for each of them.

Nina Zenik

She is the only one that’s had a POV before this book. Incidentally, she’s the one who’s characterization jumped out the most at me, especially in the first half of the book. 

[spoilers] When we first see her, she’s in Fjerda as a spy, working along with a familiar face, Adrik, and a new one, Leoni Hillis. She’s been on a mission for over two months, and for over two months she’s been dragging Matthias’ body along, refusing to bury him, hallucinating his voice in her head. That was my first indication that there was something “funny” going on: Nina had already let him go in Crooked Kingdom: 

“In the next life then,” she whispered. “Go.” She watched his eyes close once more. “Farvell,” she said in Fjerdan. “May Djel watch over you until I can once more.” - Crooked Kingdom, Chapter 39.

And yet, despite having already accepted Matthias’ death, she drags his corpse along with her. I’m not going to lie: when she finally does bury him, I teared up. Her eulogy was beautiful. That doesn’t mean that it should’ve happened when it did. The importance he is given to Nina is far greater than that he had in Six of Crows. She loved him, but she loved Ravka too. She also loved her friends, and she missed her life at the Little Palace. 

But for the first half of King of Scars, all she thinks about, all she cares about, is Matthias. I thought, “ok, maybe she’s rationalizing all the things that happened during her time at Ketterdam, her obsession with him is just a way to cope with PTSD”... but this all goes to hell when, despite her feelings, she willingly moves in with Brum at the end of her arc. She deserts Ravka and infiltrates Brum’s home instead of, oh, shooting his ugly face? When she’s got him defenseless, she chooses to keep him alive and not take him to Ravka for trial, despite the fact that she’s learned from him that they are planning something that relates to a Lantsov that’s not Nikolai, and that her country is at the brink of a war. She neglects to tell this to her allies as soon as she finds out and deserts the Second Army. [end of spoilers] 

All of this plus the fact that almost nothing that happens during her arc is connected to the other POVs makes for an overall confusing portion, the poorest of the novel, that’d have been so much better if Nina hadn’t had a perspective in Six of Crows. She was wildly OOC, in my opinion. But again, that doesn’t mean that everything about her parts were bad. I loved Hanne, one of the newly introduced characters, and I love her chemistry with Nina. I really hope they get together in the second book. 

Nikolai Lantsov 

I love him. His inner dialogue is one of the wittiest I’ve read, and we can finally see that he’s as sharp on the inside as he is on the outside, despite his insecurities (or maybe because of them). The first half of his story was the easiest, most interesting to read. Learning about his trauma, his struggles, his (literal) inner demon, and how he puts on a smart-ass brave face in spite of everything he has on his plate, plus seeing his wit first-hand, was great. One of my favorite parts of the book, along with Zoya’s, but that’s for later.

[vague spoilers]

The second part, though... I don’t know how much the Grisha Saints are based on Orthodox ones, but I’m not a fan of their storyline. While I’m not entirely familiar with Orthodox tradition, I am (or, well, I was brought up as) Catholic, and unless I’m severely mistaken, there are many similarities in the way Saints are depicted by both. However, the way that they were showed in King of Scars left a lot to be desired, in my honest opinion. Saints are not “edgy” and “inhuman”. Alina was a more accurate representation of the “older” or more primitive versions of Saints than Lizabeta and Grigori were in King of Scars. While the idea of powerful Grisha who helped people in a way that made them be seen as miracle-workers or holy people is alright, them being “beasts” or animals doesn’t follow any traditional lore that I am aware of. 

The idea of them being “wickedly evil”, or of someone like the Darkling being considered for Sainthood is not feasible I think, if not for anything else than the facts that he wasn’t a man of faith, he didn’t perform any miracles, he wasn’t a martyr, and he wasn’t particularly heroic or loved by the people, so I don’t see how he could be proclaimed a Saint or get such a large cult following that is not, let’s say, “Satanist” or heretic (to be fair, neither do most of the characters who have at least a pair of working braincells, but I digress). Hell, one of the Darkling’s own nicknames was “the Black Heretic”, so why the U-turn? 

I suppose, though, that we could be given an explanation for this last part in the following book, so I’m going to be open about it.

[end spoilers]

Zoya Nazyalensky 

I. Love. This. Woman... So much. She’s amazing. She’s one of the strongest, as of now most fleshed-out characters Leigh Bardugo has written, on par with Inej Ghafa, my overall favorite. Her POV was the one I enjoyed the most, her inner dialogue as sharp as her tongue, her story heartbreaking, and her personality as unapologetic but lovable (for those of us not under her glare, at least) as ever. I loved reading about her thoughts, her opinions, her likes and dislikes (though mostly her dislikes), and she’s 100% the type of female character we need more: women who don’t take no shit, but who are still human. Those who are strong but have feelings other than “murder”, that are not defined by what other expect of them, but still bask in the benefits their reputations as heartless give them. 

[slight spoilers]

The only problem I had with her POV, one that is extremely easy to fix, is related to her backstory. It’s established that her father was a Suli man, meaning that Zoya is now canonically a biracial woman. This is amazing! The most beautiful, powerful Grisha in all of Ravka (or, dare I say, the Grishaverse) is a woman of color. However, the way that this was established left something to be desired: there was absolutely no indication other than that of her mentioning it that she’s in any way Suli. Compared to Inej, whose culture is shown in absolutely every part of her character, the difference left me a little bit disappointed.

I’d be completely fine with it if she hadn’t known her father, or if she had been taken to the Little Palace when she was too little to remember anything about her family, but she lived 9 years with her parents, and she never makes absolutely any mention of any cultural aspect that she likes or misses about her heritage. This could be done in different ways: a throwaway comment about liking a particular type of Suli food, an art piece that reminds her of Suli art she liked/hated as a kid, a cultural tradition that she still participates in privately, a type of cloth, anything. None of that is there, though, so I was left with the impression that Zoya was whitewashed. Not in the “common” way, of for example a white person playing a black character, but in the characterization sense. 

A little bit more on that: when you’re writing characters of color, you have to be careful of many things. To name a few: not falling into stereotypes, making sure colorism has no bearing in the story, not oversimplifying issues faced by people of color, especially if you’re not part of that group, and that you’re not putting a “poc” label on a character that is otherwise white. The last one is in my opinion what has happened with Zoya. This can be avoided (and resolved) easily by including nods towards her culture. An acknowledgment that she’s not a monoracial white Ravkan through anything other than just one comment about how her father was Suli would resolve this issue and give us the most badass WoC in the Grishaverse. 

[end slight spoilers] 

Isaak

[major spoilers]

As for Isaak, I don’t have a lot to say about him, because overall I think he didn’t need to have a PoV in the story. He wasn’t a character we knew from before, so we didn’t care about him. He dies at the end of the story, his only purpose is to look like Nikolai and have the shortest almost-romance ever. All of this could have been shown through the eyes of either Tolya or Tamar, who always followed him around, so they could’ve shown the same story with no problem. All in all, his part wasn’t bad, but I didn’t care about it, which could maybe be a problem on itself. 

Lastly, my biggest problem, left for last: it doesn’t make any sense to me that Nikolai and Zoya would willingly align themselves with the Darkling. Zero. They were extremely and personally affected during the Civil War, the book does an amazing job of showing their trauma as a result of it, but by the end they willingly accept to work with him? No. I don’t want to believe that. It’s a disservice to the sacrifices the characters made in The Grisha Trilogy. Are you telling me Alina lost her power, her friends, faked her death and married Mal for that? For the Darkling to be back? This ending is a disservice to her sacrifice. I didn’t like that plot-twist at all, and I really look forward to the next  book, to know how this is all going to play out, because I’m extremely unsure about how good this development will be, story-wise, for the duology.

[end spoilers]

However, and to wrap my longest review yet, I want to say that this isn’t a bad book. The writing is fantastic. The characters, whether I agree with their characterization or not, are fleshed-out and sympathetic. The pacing is great, I read the whole novel in less than two days. While the world was already established in previous books, we got a lot more of depth and information about Ravkan and, mostly, Fjerdan and Shu culture. Bardugo remains one of my favorite writers in the YA and Fantasy genres, but because she is capable of so much, I wanted to give her work a review that reflects what I think of her talent, and of how much more I think she can do as a writer. 

"Yet now that the time had come to speak, Nikolai did not want to tell this story. He did not want it to be his story. He’d thought the war was in the past, but it refused to remain there.”

#lbardugo #review #book review #kos spoilers #my review #king of scars spoilers #leigh bardugo #my diverse recs #3 stars #king of scars

[tsainami]

wip prep tag #2

tagged by: @isherwrites​ tysm!! sorry it took this long to get to.

rules: answer the questions and then tag as many writers as there are questions answered (or as many as you can) to spread the positivity! even if these questions are not explicitly brought up in the novel, they are still good to keep in mind when writing.

last time i did this it was for cheat (which you can find here), this time i’ll do grave mercy.

FIRST LOOK

1. describe your novel in 1-2 sentences (elevator pitch).

a girl against a theocracy (but for its religion) and a boy against its religion (but for the theocracy) who have very ? confusing ? backgrounds ? (and are vampires) somehow end up meeting while investigating a cannibalistic angel. they end up doing something ridiculous together: unraveling ‘god.’

2. How long do you plan for your novel to be? (Is it a novella, single book, book series, etc.)

as far as i can see where the plot’s going, probably a trilogy.

3. What is your novel’s aesthetic?

vampires. religious ones! in priestly/nun-ly (not a word) clothing! which comes in mostly white or bright colors because they’re not fans of black vestments. black armor yes, black clothes no. and since there’s vampires, there’s blood. but also gore. and also cults. and devils, angels, monsters, conspiracy! plus a lot of french gothic architecture.

4. What other stories inspire your novel?

book of the ancestor trilogy by mark lawrence. if you’ve read it, it’s probably obvious.

5. Share 3+ images that give a feel for your novel.

i haven’t done any edits for this a whole either rip. it’s not much right now, but here’s its pinterest board.

MAIN CHARACTER

6. Who is your protagonist?

my main protagonist is a girl called ines nenci. she’s a novice at a convent known (or, unknown) to reform young girls whose faith are tainted.

7. Who is their closest ally?

her closest friend is this younger novice named dafne who she constantly worries about and is very protective of. she views dafne as her closest ally, and throughout the story she retains that sentiment. objectively speaking though, it’s probably reuven. after they meet and her fight or flight response when it comes to him calms down lol.

8. Who is their enemy?

the theocracy. namely the ava santi who sits at its head. and also herself.

9. What do they want more than anything?

this is going to sound anticlimactic maybe, but emotional comfort and security. ines really just wants to stop having to be scared all the time. stop having to hold on to anger and allow herself to finally express her hurt and pain after all the years she’s spent oppressing it. she wants to depend on someone and be able to trust them instead of just being the one depended on while in truth she’s just being manipulated. she honestly just. wants. inner peace (lol).

10. Why can’t they have it?

there are many reasons. let’s start with a few minor obstacles in the shape of people who keep her alive solely for the purpose of using her to further their ambitions: 1. the abbess of the convent. this chick keeps ines in her house only to serve as a tool in her plot of overthrowing the theocracy. the convent’s pretty much a facade for this group of heretics to eventually hold some sort of rebellion. but they’re being really dirty about it. 2. the ava santi (aka ye olde pope). he killed her dad. he was also supposed to kill her, but this amazing idea popped up in his brain and he decided “nay, send her to the convent dear men o’mine.” reasons for this is because a) he hates that fucking place and has wanted it dead for years and b) he can’t touch that fucking place because politics and also One Deep and Dark Secret that would cost his position and probs life should it be exposed. 3. the so-called cannibalistic angel she meets, whose reasons for using her are too spoilery to share at the moment. but it’s got something to do with the one ‘god’ of their faith.

11. What do they wrongly believe about themselves?

that she’s cursed. it’s repeated a lot in the first chapter, actually. her dad’s death and some of his last words really drilled it in her. and it makes sense, because her existence is scorned by the faith and she learns more and more about this (with the misfortune of having to witness her papa burn ffs as lesson 1 of all things) as she grows up.

12. Draw your protagonist! (Or share a description)

she’s got thick, wavy black hair. pretty long (goes up to mid-back i think) and it’s always braided and then tied up into a low bun. she’s always wearing her habit (which is white) and even if she isn’t she tries to wear something close (usually white too) because it makes her feel secure. she has a black cloak she wears when she goes walking around the capital or the woods (that she really and i mean really knows how to work, especially when she’s killing something so not too much of nasty stuff stains her clothes). usually armed to the teeth. hidden blades everywhere. though you can’t really see that i guess. 

sometimes, she carries a sword.

PLOT POINTS

13. What is the internal conflict?

ines is moroi, which is a race that is treated little better than rabid dogs are in montevena. there aren’t many moroi in existence any more because of wars that involved genocide long ago + the fact that as moroi all you have to do to get sentenced to death sometimes is to accidentally bump into someone. anyway, her internal conflict mostly revolves around her struggle between hating what she is and yet having to depend so heavily on it. she wants to separate herself from being moroi, but that’s impossible since she has to face it everyday. even if people weren’t there to remind her, her body can’t lie. she really, really hates it but there’s no other choice but to live with it.

14. What is the external conflict?

everyone is against the theocracy for their own reasons and the theocracy is against everyone. the teams switch up sometimes though and things get wild when a cannibalistic angel appears and the OG residents of the world, the devil-gods, get weaved into the mayhem (did i mention this takes place in an au hell? because it does).

15. What is the worst thing that could happen to your protagonist?  

if ines is put through what she went through as a child, having her world break like that (it wasn’t only her dad’s death, it was all the things about the world she was totally clueless about because up until then her dad had limited her knowledge of it, so her whole life was a big fat lie), it would be B A D. the people currently capable of hurting her that way is an older nun from the abbey named sister aura and dafne.

16. What secret will be revealed that changes the course of the story?

huge spoilers so i’ll be vague. something monumentally of relevance to not just ines or reuven, but the whole world is a total sham. also if you can believe it or not, aliens are involved (but it totally isn’t what it sounds like lmao).

17. Do you know how it ends?

a little, but not too well right now.

BITS AND BOBS

18. What is the theme?  

there’s an absolute truth to everything. but a lot of the times it gets corrupted by people with ill-bred intentions. that doesn’t mean the truth itself is horrible, though. so it’s always good to discriminate and keep in mind that, just like that guy who yells about global warming but clearly doesn’t know what he’s talking about while he goes ‘round the world in private jets that secrete shit tons of shit, sometimes we don’t know everything either.

19. What is a recurring symbol?  

i have no idea. (yet)

20. Where is the story set? (Share a description!)

a city-state called montevena which is loosely based off of vatican city but much more french gothic and kinda creepy. later the story moves through parts of canza, one of the three sanctified states that reuven is from.

21. Do you have any images or scenes in your mind already?

yes. predominantly one that occurs in a cave.

22. What excited you about this story?  

the development of the characters. particularly ines, reuven, gabriele, dafne, hazael, mirta and other supporting characters (including the abbess and the ava). it’s just... so interesting. i low-key had a mindfuck about it.

23. Tell us about your usual writing method!  

a copy paste from my previous post on this:

my method is freak out! write a sentence. think about useless things (why would a pigeon be at the city square at night? that doesn't make sense? is it a normal pigeon? what is the purpose of its life?). try not to get distracted (i always do though) and write another sentence. 

the day i’m 92 is the day i finally have two fully written novels with my name plastered all over them in my arms.

TAGGING: @brekkerings @pilipalea @apollchiles (if you guys haven’t done this yet) and anyone else who wants to.

#wip prep tag #wip: grave mercy #my back hurts. from writing in this cursed position. send help

[its-btrz-blog]

Caraval (by Stephanie Garber) Book Review

Caraval is the first novel of author Stephanie Garber, published in 2017 by Flatiron Books.

What made me want to read it:

It's a new book on a genre I like and it received a lot of promotion. I've been seeing it everywhere and it seems like everyone has been reading it and enjoying it.

What is it about (no spoilers):

Scarllet Dragna lives with her sister Donatella under the tyrannical roof of their father, who has arranged a marriage with a mysterious count for her, with whom she corresponds.

She has dreamed, ever since she was a girl, of visiting the magical Caraval, a performance that happens once a year. This year, Scarlett receives an invitation, and along with her sister and a mysterious sailor, goes to Caraval. Once she gets there, her sister has been taken by the master and finding her is the way to win this year's game. At the same time, her wedding day approaches and so she has to find her sister and return home as soon as she can.

What I thought about it (no spoilers):

If you read the book's summary, you think you're going to be swept away to a magical world where you can get lost in. That's hardly true. I'm going to start with the world besides Caraval.

The protagonist lives on a colonized island and her father is the governor. The world seems basically some version of 1800's Britain, in terms of technology, fashion (more or less, basically the girls just wear pretty dresses anytime), morality (I guess? Since propriety and virginity seem so important). For some reason the colonized island and the island where Caraval takes place are Spanish-inspired. We get some vague mentions of continents and other colonized territories but it's barely there. There's a religion that is basically some modified Catholicism: angels, God, saints, heaven, novices, priests and a version of  a confession. You can see there wasn't much effort put into this. I guess what really mattered was the magical Caraval so the rest of world was just some slight modification of a vaguely inspired historical setting.

As for Caraval itself, it seems a weird mix of Oz and Wonderland, with colorful and odd-shaped architecture and a touch of Venice, with travel by boat in the channels. It is exhaustively described with so many metaphors and pretty words and adjectives that it gets overwhelming. However, you don't really get a grip of what Caraval is. There are magical shops, selling magical objects for unconventional paying (secrets, fears) and it's said that many people go there just for that. But the magic itself is left unexplained. Supposedly magic doesn't exist and it's simply a myth of Caraval, but you get there and that's actually not true. But we never get a hint or an explanation of how this magic works, or how it is acquired, who possesses it or not. In this way, it feels lacking because it's just used as it is convenient.

Moving on to our protagonist, Scarlett. To put it simply, she is stupid, selfish, shallow, and a hypocrite. That's not how she describes herself, or how other characters see her, but it's what you get from reading the text. Let's start with stupid. She jumps into the cold sea fully clothed and with shoes. She is told specifically not to do that, but she is oh so modest that she does it all the same (one of her more irritating traits is her obsession with being a proper young woman – points for being shallow). Guess preserving your modesty is more important than preserving your life, oh, and others' lives too, since she ends up having to be saved by someone, putting their life also at risk (selfish, no?). Then, at some points in the game, she is given clues to find her sister. One of these mentions a very specific trait that one of the 3 people she's met has. Instead of figuring it out, like someone with a normal intellect, she spends a chapter or three after the wrong person. I find it very hard to relate to dumbed down protagonists and seeing them chase after clues that we know are obviously wrong is not entertaining. She is so obsessed with an informed trait of the master of Caraval (people say he wears top-hats) that she thinks that, of course, he is in a top-hat shaped store and everyone else didn't figure it out because she is so much smarter than them (oh, it's so obvious they ignore it). What's worse is that she think she's smart:

“She knew when she was being deceived”.

Since she is deceived by everyone and their brother, over and over again, I think it's safe to see this as a blatant lie. She accepts sleeping in a stranger's room because he's handsome, too. Life-saving skills here. Then, we are constantly, and I mean constantly, being told how much she loves her sister and how it's the only thing she can think about. Except… it's not? There is more than once instance in which she has a choice to take an action that will help her find her sister. You know what? She wastes the effort for a guy she barely knows, the first time, because he's handsome and maybe he's her true love! She can feel something special in him. The second time:

“She felt as if it shouldn’t even have been a choice. But it was a choice, which made her feel like less of a sister. Or maybe (...) mattered even more than she realized.”

At one point she says her biggest desire is to find her sister and a truth-telling device doesn't accept it. So, honestly, trying to make her this altruistic character who loves her sister so much was a very poor choice, being obviously contradicted by the actions but enforced by the narration.

We are also told she never really cared much about how she looks, but we get a detailed description of everything she wears (and others, for good measure). When meeting someone she doesn't like, her immediate reaction is:

“She imagined her to be sullen and unattractive.”

As for her hypocrisy, there are two glaring instances of it. The first is when she tells a guy that they should both turn around so they can't see the other changing clothes. After securing her modesty and her proper lady status, she then proceeds to turn around to admire his back with its hard muscles or something. He didn't ask for privacy, but she insisted on it and then does this. The second one is more hilarious, since, she is absolutely in love (and thinking of a possibility of marriage) with a person she has known for 5 days, more or less. When her sister tells her she is engaged to a man she has known for the same amount of time:

“Tella, this is wrong (...)You can’t be in love with someone you just met.”

OK, I'm going to stop talking about her. The other characters are: her sister, who cares as much for her as she is cared for, since she makes plans for both their sakes and thinks keeping her in the dark is a good idea; their abusive father, whom at last she recognizes for what he is and stops blaming herself for the abuse; her mysterious suitor, whom she never met but who sends her loving letters; the dark, handsome, mysterious stranger who is love interest number 1; the dark, handsome, mysterious stranger number two, who is the decoy and serves to complete a pseudo love triangle, or at least to create jealousy; the more mysterious Legend, whose face is unknown and who is the mastermind behind Caraval and Donatella's abduction. There are some more characters who are mostly part of the background.

About plot and narration. The plot is more concerned about Scarlett's love life than about her sister, although it tries to disguise it by repeating five times a chapter how much Scarlett loves Tella. It also keeps telling us (and everyone else) about her fiancée and how she can only stay 2 days because of her marriage. It's supposed to be some sort of obstacle for the romance but it only occupies space. Authors need to understand that their readers can retain a piece of information, even it is only mentioned once.

Also, this protagonist has a very interesting trait in that she sees her own emotions as colors. However, colors are used to such an extent, along with some nonsensical metaphors, in descriptions that sometimes I didn't even know what I was reading anymore. I get it that it's trying to be different and deep and beautiful and magical, but there are limits and this crosses over to the ridicule.

“She felt five different shades of berry-colored foolish.”

“ (…) yet she felt… disappointed. It came in cool shades of forget-me-not blue, which wrapped around her like evening fog”

It's a bit silly, but could be excused if not used to exhaustion with some very elaborate and idiotic prose. Her sister's smell is “Sharp molasses and wild dreams”. Other things are “smelling of flowers and flutes and long-lost love.” And then:

“Death was the color purple. Purple wallpaper and purple temperatures.”

“Cerulean blue. Apricot orange. Saffron yellow. Primrose pink.”

We also fall on the ridicule and end up with redundancies like this one. Cerulean is a shade of blue already, isn't it? It's not evocative of a specific shade from an object, like the other elements, so it destroys the effect. This is trying too much.

To finish, the handsome men have “a look made of lies and sinful things”, “smile turned seductive, all shameless curves and immoral promises”, and are  “made of polished boots and neatly tied-back hair.”  and “all kinds of tragic and lovely”, with eyes “two hungry pools of liquid amber fringed by dark lashes” and “Light brown, the color of caramel and liquid amber lust.”

Enough of these, then. I'm only going to add (without spoiling) that the story itself ended with little impact and that the recourse to some events for shock effect and angst and dramatic declarations followed by making them inconsequential the next chapter is a cheap recourse that I personally hate seeing used.

Conclusion:

As a fantasy it is a lame attempt and as a romance or as a compelling story it is equally mediocre. If you like easy reads and simplistic stories that make you not think and are a fan of elaborate senseless prose that is good for pretty quotes, and some splash of instant romance (I wouldn't call it that) with handsome strangers, maybe this is for you. It wasn't for me though, and I rated it one star.

[My review of this book is also here.]

#caraval #stephanie garber #breviews #book reviews #ya #reviews