Legendary ~ Stephanie Garber (Caraval #2)

★★★☆☆

This book is simultaneously better and significantly worse than the first book.

The Good

~ Caraval seemed to have forgotten that it was a fantasy and needed even the bare minimum of worldbuilding, and so all of the worldbuilding was shoved into this one. Granted, the lore of the Fates and the Stars was kinda awesome, and the specific Fates had a great atmosphere. I really liked that part.

~ The world, besides the magical aspects, was finally expanded and I thought it was okay. Not great but, like I said, bare minimum

~ Jacks in general

The Bad

~ Tella in general

~ How was Tella supposed to be 15 freaking years old for the majority of the book? I seriously doubt a 15 year old would do all the stuff she did. The only believable part of it was how much of a naivë fool she was, and that's not necessarily a trait of youth

~ Dante in general

~ Scarlett and Julian (RIP their personalities)

~ The atmosphere of the first book was completely gone

~ The plot

~ And the fact that the "fantasy" language is literally just Spanish

The Ugly

~ How old is Dante supposed to be, at least physically? Because he reads like 23 at least but Tella is 15, 16 in the epilogue, and that would mean that 1) there is a ~7 year age difference, and 2) he's committing statutory rape or at least sexual misconduct with a minor

~ Same goes for Jacks

I might read the finale (see what I did there?) but its description sounds like one of those free-to-read self-published ebooks on Amazon (you know the ones, by Morgan Rice) that become fan-fictions of themselves by the end. Particularly regarding Scarlett's weird Bachelorette in Paradise section.

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