Caraval - Stephanie Garber

Like a Dream: Why Caraval Failed to put me Under its Spell

Star rating: 1.5/5

Spoiler-Free

I wanted so badly to love Caraval. It seems to be relatively popular, with a 3.97/5 rating on Goodreads at time of typing. When a friend donated me their copy after clearing out their bookshelf (I can never bring myself to throw any of my books out, so I applauded their bravery), I was excited to dive into the game at the heart of the book.

My favourite aspect of Caraval was its beautiful descriptions: purple prose is something that I have always loved in books.  However, I did find it to be overly flowery at times, and in the spoiler-y section of this review I'll mention a few specific quotes to demonstrate how nonsensical the descriptions sometimes were. Nevertheless, I did find the descriptions very engrossing and fun to read overall.

The Goodreads synopsis of Caraval opens with 'A legendary competition. A mesmerising romance. An unbreakable bond between two sisters.' While the competition is definitely portrayed as legendary as part of the (rather flimsy) worldbuilding, the romance is far from mesmerising, falling into the 'insta-love' category of fictional romances and failing to be compelling. Also, the bond between sisters Scarlett and Donatella Dragna is never broken, but I also never found it to be a powerful exploration of sisterly love, which was what I was hoping for based on the synopsis. In short, all of the relationships in Caraval fell flat for me.

The game of Caraval itself was fun at times, but often seemed unnecessarily convoluted with constant plot twists that stopped being plot twists and just made the book somewhat tiring to read. 

I would describe Caraval as like a dream: phantasmagorical and beautiful, but often making little sense. 

Spoiler-y

One aspect of Scarlett's character I enjoyed was her desire to be prim and proper. With the 'strong independent woman' archetype widespread across the young adult genre when it comes to female protagonists, Scarlett was a refreshing change, allowed to enjoy wearing dresses and aspire to propriety. Although, I didn't appreciate how blind she is to the schemes and machinations unfolding around her. She makes ridiculous mistakes and is constantly surprised when she discovers someone is lying to her: characters should be allowed to make mistakes, but with Scarlett, it became constant and tiring. 

Another problem I had with Scarlett's character was the conflict between her desire to reunite with Donatella and the distractions of Caraval. We are explicitly told that 'Tella was the most important person in the world to Scarlett' and Caraval seems to pride itself on the power of the connection between the Dragna sisters but, while Scarlett is initially portrayed as worrying for her sister's safety, eager to be reunited with her, Donatella cooks up a scheme with Julian to have her sister drugged and kidnapped. Sisterly love indeed. 

'Scarlett should have been thinking only of Tella, looking for her next clue. But as she watched the jade kissing tent, fluttering with hushed giggles and whispers and the promise of butterflies, she wondered...' While Donatella orchestrates Scarlett's drugging and kidnapping, Scarlett is shown to become increasingly preoccupied with the distractions of the game and Julian's flirtations, caring less and less about finding her sister. 

We are frequently told that Scarlett 'should have been thinking about Tella' while she allows herself to get distracted, as if her self-awareness makes it less annoying (it doesn't). When given the opportunity to ask a question and receive an honest answer from the fortune teller, Nigel, the first question she asks is about the count she is supposed to marry, not her sister. While Scarlett immediately berates herself for not asking about Tella, her self-awareness doesn't make the moment any less irritating to me.

The descriptions in this novel are often beautiful and fun, made more intriguing by Scarlett's synaesthesia, but some of them just make no sense, especially when Garber tries to describe tastes: 'He tasted like midnight and wind', for example, or 'The air tasted like wonder. Like candied butterfly wings caught in sugared spiderwebs, and drunken peaches coated in luck.' Then there's descriptions like, 'She felt like softness and sunlight and seeds for growing dreams'. Softness is a feeling, but sunlight isn't, and seeds for growing dreams definitely isn't.

Caraval does have some fun concepts, like Nigel using his tattoos to read people, or days of your life being used as a form of payment. But things kept getting retconned, and Dante and Julian's personalities were always changing to fit whatever was needed in the moment. I found it hard to follow what was going on and who was supposed to be who, what was lies and what was the truth, and Donatella faking her death to emotionally manipulate Scarlett towards the end of the story was yet more proof that the two sisters don't truly care about each other.

I also would have like to see more worldbuilding. For example, there are 'Conquered Isles' but we are never told who they were conquered by. There is also no magic system to speak of. If Caraval had been centred around a more carefully thought out game involving fewer twists, with more detailed worldbuilding; an interesting magic system; plenty of purple prose but no nonsensical descriptions; a romance that developed naturally and organically; and two sisters who are shown to genuinely care for each other doing whatever it takes to reunite, I would have enjoyed it far more.

Caraval could have been amazing, and it is amazing for so many people, but it failed to put me under its spell.