⋆⭒˚｡⋆ 3/5 stars.

this was alright. super easy to read, difficult to put down but once it’s put down, it was equally as difficult to pick back up again 😪

───── ⑅ my pros ⑅ ─────
☾ liked the world most of the time. seemed beautiful and equally f*cked up in my head
☾ actually ate that romance the up even though at times it seemed so random
☾ julian. hey julian. wink.

───── ⑅ my cons ⑅ ─────
☾ father doesn’t get what he deserves.
☾ character deaths happen but there is no real shock. i didn’t care for anyone except one lol
☾ “Every touch created colors she had never seen. Colors as soft as velvet and as sharp as sparks that turned into stars.” huh. “He tasted like midnight and wind, and shades of rich brown and light blue. Colors that made her feel safe and guarded.” why are we referencing colors as metaphors every 5 seconds please we’re kissing not drawing
☾ scarlett was so dumb sorry
☾ the magic system is never properly explained at all. lazy. everything is explained away with the word "magic" but we don't know where this magic comes from or what price it has. how is magic this accessible when at the start, scarlett believes that it's all just a story? you get what i mean.

───── ⑅ the protagonists ⑅ ─────
Scarlett Dragna is our elsa. she wants to marry some random man because she wants safety. boom, she ends up in caraval because of her sister. the entire time she was so stupidly stubborn that i just didn’t know what to think because wtf? people would literally SPOON-FEED her good advice and she would completely ignore it because…because…my sister!!! where is my sister??? she's a hypocrite too because b*tch what do you mean "how could you fall in love with somebody after 5 days of knowing them???" after you just did the same exact thing AND you were about to marry a man you'd never seen before? ohhh but he seems nice in his letters! HAHA

Donatella Dragna is basically our anna. she wants adventure! to have fun! she wants to be free! she’s smarter than she lets on, though we don’t really see much of that because all we ever see is her acting all cool and ooo silly and ooo i'm having so much fun with men!!! i think i’ll like her point of view a lot more though. maybe. emphasis on maybe. tella was crazy for putting them through all of that and there were other ways to go about it lol

Julian Santos is our husband. what are his flaws? couldn’t tell you. i meannnn, look at him. look. my only gripe with is that we just don't know anything about him at all. i understand we're not really supposed to, but i feel like there's just not much going on with the character. i'd say that's why i just don't have anything bad to say about him.

all in all, caraval was a fun read. the world could have honestly been explored a little better, it's high fantasy with a magical carnival game. that is a difficult thing to write well, and it wasn't done very well here. we have a world, it has a map, but the entire world is never really described. everything we think is real is actually fake? i don't know, i just didn't really like that. i think this has the potential to get better assuming the author improves her writing and stops with those damn metaphors, but honestly i very nearly lost my damn mind. interesting premise, interesting enough world, bad execution.