Unfortunately, I did not get the chance to read this ARC prior to the book's publication, but we did end up buying it for our library collection.

Oh my goodness, from page one, this book hooked me and kept me dazzled and enthralled completely to the end. I love the interactions that the characters have, and the mystery surrounding Legend. I can’t wait for the sequel.

I finished this book feeling a bit disappointed. I was kind of entertained, but I was also left feeling like something was missing. I really enjoyed the introduction of the Fates and the Deck of Destiny. I would have loved to learn more about the history of these and to see the personalities of more of the Fates. I feel like the actual "game" part of the Caraval world was lost in this book. Instead, a large portion of the book was focused on the romance. I would have preferred a little more attention to the Fates and the game itself. As a side note, I also listened to this book and Caraval on audio. I really like the audio versions; the narrator is engaging and makes the story all the more exciting.

Overall I really enjoyed reading this book. I was a little disappointed by the switch in the main characters, but I love this magical world and can't wait to read the final book.

I chose not to write a full review for this title. I did for Caraval and Finale. It took me three months to get through this which says a lot. I don't like sharing reviews that aren't glowing so I've used my goodreads status in lieu of a full review.

Thanks for taking the time to approve my request.

June 3, 2018 – Finished Reading
June 1, 2018 – 72.0% "I just overall like Tella less than Scarlett. I also loved how magical Caraval felt and this book just feels slightly improbable. I'm going to finish because I'm still interested but so far it's just meh."
May 19, 2018 – 53.0%
May 14, 2018 – 44.0%
May 3, 2018 – 23.0% "I'm still getting used to the fact that the narrator changed. It's making it harder to remember what happened in the first book. Caraval is just beginning though so I'm excited to see what happens next!"
April 29, 2018 – Started Reading
March 15, 2018 – Shelved as: netgalley-edelweiss
March 15, 2018 – Shelved as: to-read
March 15, 2018 – Shelved

Stephanie Garber did not disappoint in our return to the magic, mischief, and deception of Caraval. Her lush, lyrical writing sweeps you away into the magic, making you question everything you think you know. This time we know how the game is played and most of the players involved, but will that make it any easier?

The stakes on this round of Caraval are higher than ever before, coming just a few days after the game that Scarlett won. But what if this isn't a game after all? Tella finds herself needing to win Caraval but what will she lose in order to do so? And what happens when Legend's identity is finally revealed to her?

Things have never been more complicated for our cast of characters. The Fates introduced in this book are things of nightmares and they're desperate to rule the human world again.

The two twists at the end were predictable for me, but I think that's because I kept a clearer head then Tella. This round of Caraval is less extravagant and fairytale-like and instead has an underlying edge of urgency. This didn't detract from the magic or mystery of the game as we knew too much to be a casual player like the first time.

*I received a complimentary copy of this book from Flatiron Books through NetGalley. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.*

Sweeping, Magical, Whimsical, Heart-wrenching... Garber is truly an amazing talent, I don’t know how it’s possible that she could write two books that would not allow me to put them down! The only thing this book lacks is a good stopping point. At times, I found myself breathless, on the verge of tears, then laughing, she really reminds you of how wonderful reading truly is. I can’t wait for Finale, I can honestly say, the Caraval series is one of the best investments our library has made! If I could give this 50 stars, I would!

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Netgalley then I bought my own copy. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: Caraval Book 2

Rating: 5/5

Publication Date: May 29, 2018

Genre: YA Fantasy

Recommended Age: 16+ (mature romance, violence, sacrifice, love, and language)

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Pages: 451

Amazon Link

Synopsis: A heart to protect. A debt to repay. A game to win.

After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister, Scarlett, from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn’t yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and what Tella owes him no one has ever been able to deliver: Caraval Master Legend’s true name.

The only chance of uncovering Legend’s identity is to win Caraval, so Tella throws herself into the legendary competition once more—and into the path of the murderous heir to the throne, a doomed love story, and a web of secrets…including her sister's. Caraval has always demanded bravery, cunning, and sacrifice, but now the game is asking for more. If Tella can’t fulfill her bargain and deliver Legend’s name, she’ll lose everything she cares about—maybe even her life. But if she wins, Legend and Caraval will be destroyed forever...

Welcome, welcome to Caraval . . . the games have only just begun.

Review: Holy moley I loved this book so much! I loved reading Tella’s POV and I do have to say that Stephanie has a knack for writing different voices. You can distinctly “hear” Tella and she sounds so different than Scarlett. The development is great for all of the characters involved and the world building is amazing and so wonderfully detailed. The world is magical and I loved reading about it in this book. The writing is stupendous and Stephanie knows how to sweep people away.

However, I do feel like this book was so different from the first book. It could be its own story. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but I expected a lot of the first book to happen, but it was so different. You can definitely tell Stephanie improved her writing from book one to two. The romance was also a bit of a slow burner, but it was amazing and I loved the pacing of it.

Verdict: Fantastical experience!

I ventured into this sequel after hearing that it is a great improvement upon Caraval, but I sadly can agree only partially. This book seems to a rehash of the first book, only in Tella's perspective, and I will admit that her characterization was better than that of Scarlett's. The author offers a more self-aware journey through Tella's eyes, and the romance was done a tad more subtly, but similar issues I had with the first book (the substanceless prose, frustrating character actions, predictable ending) plagued this one again. Sadly I don't think I will go any further in this series after this one.

I ventured into this sequel after hearing that it is a great improvement upon Caraval, but I sadly can agree only partially. This book seems to a rehash of the first book, only in Tella's perspective, and I will admit that her characterization was better than that of Scarlett's. The author offers a more self-aware journey through Tella's eyes, and the romance was done a tad more subtly, but similar issues I had with the first book (the substanceless prose, frustrating character actions, predictable ending) plagued this one again. Sadly I don't think I will go any further in this series after this one.

I was updating reviews and noticed that I didn't post for this one. I apologize!

I have ran a couple of spotlights on my blog and social media over the last year.

Most recently, I listed it as one of my Top 5 of 2018:

https://abackwardsstory.blogspot.com/2019/01/my-top-5-favorite-books-of-2018.html

The first mention was a You're Gonna Love Me Post to get readers hyped, which I chose over a full review due to spoilers.

The link is:

https://abackwardsstory.blogspot.com/2018/04/sneak-peek-youre-gonna-love-legendary-by-stephanie-garber.html

And it states:

I feel so incredibly fortunate and blessed to bring you this post today, my friends!

You may recall that last year, CARAVAL by Stephanie Garber was one of my favorite books of 2017. Here's my review--complete with a design vlog!


I've been anticipating the sequel, LEGENDARY, for a long time. I had a hint of where the book would go after the ending of CARAVAL, and I knew we were leaving the story of one sister and jumping to another. But what else? I couldn't wait to find out.

Normally, I do this sort of post a few months out and just review when we're close to release, like now. (LEGENDARY comes out on May 29th, only a month away!) This one is going to be hard to do a full review of, however, because SO MANY SPOILERS. So instead, I want to give you the essence of what makes this book so amazing. You're really going to want to TBR this series if you haven't begun it yet!

And YOU GUYS. I don't know how she did it. I don't know what magic sauce Stephanie Garber is made out of. But somehow, someway, I like LEGENDARY even MORE. It's so rare for a favorite book to top a previous favorite book. CARAVAL was such a strong debut, and LEGENDARY is even better.

I am still enamored with Garber's writing style. I love the way you can practically touch everything, the way you can visualize dripping smiles and delicate dresses. I forgot how much I love her WRITING and the way she can make even the ordinary and mundane seem magical through words alone. Here are just a couple of sentences that brought this world so fully to life for me:

"The air tasted like wonder. Like candied butterfly wings caught in sugared spiderwebs, and drunken peaches coated in luck." (Page 87, US e-ARC edition)

"Above his head the sky had changed, filling with ribbons of bruised clouds that made it look as if night had fallen backward, instead of moving forward the heavens appeared to be shifting towaard the sunset, to a time when there weren't any spying stars, leaving them unwatched and alone in the cursed garden." (Page 271, US e-ARC Edition)

I could go on and on forever.

I truly didn't think I would like LEGENDARY as much because I didn't like Donatella as much in the first book as I did her sister, Scarlett. But oh, how Tella has endeared herself to me and fallen into my heart! CARAVAL is back, but everything is different now, and it's not anyone's first roadshow anymore. We get more of the inner workings, and we interact more with the people behind the scenes. There is still a mystery around Legend, and now, there's also a mystery that involves dangerous mythology -- and we're introduced to it very early on:

"They said his kiss had been fatal to all but [his one true love]--his only weakness--and as he'd sought her, he'd left a trail of corpses." (Page 29, US e-ARC edition)

LEGENDARY was everything I wanted and more. I really can't even form words right now. LEGENDARY is already one of my favorite books of 2018, and we're not even halfway through the year. I will read anything Garber publishes and can't wait to pick up her next title!

Here's a summary to tide you over until this one releases!

Well, well, well....

If you've followed my Instagram account for any time you might have caught me talking about [book:Caraval|27883214] in the past. Honestly, it was (sadly) not my favorite book though I did love the cover and ended up purchasing a copy of it anyway (yes, I'm that person). Anyway, I obviously liked Caraval enough to want to read Legendary so that has to account for something, right?

What did I think hopping once again into the world of mystery, magic, and suspicious persons?

I thought that I liked it better than Caraval but not quite enough to say it was without fault. That may sound harsh and I mean nothing against the author - she has a beautiful, descriptive way of writing that is very lush and rich, but the story still fell a little flat for me for a few reasons. Warning: I'd say point 2 is slightly a spoiler and point 3 is DEFINITELY a spoiler so watch out for that. If you want to avoid that, scroll down to where it says "FINAL THOUGHTS".

1) Where are we? I mean....I feel like what Tella was wearing was very descriptive, the men and their tattoos were very descriptive, and even the deep POV was descriptive BUT I didn't have a clue where things were aside from them being mentioned as "here" or "there". Are there sprawling streets that take you through small shops? Darkened alleys leading a maze-like path toward a temple erected to worship a name like Legends? Or even twinkling lights strung above the squares in each quarter that are reminiscent of parties of old? None of these things were included and left me feeling rather blind to the scene of most places despite the beautiful depicted elements of that scene.

2) Was it a game? Was it really Caraval? Is that the point?


*This might be slightly SPOILER-Y maybe???*



I don't know if this is true for other readers, but both of these books rely so heavily on "Caraval" the game and yet I don't feel like we get the true experience of it. Maybe that's because no one is ever playing with or against them? I can think of one time (in this book) where Tella interacts with other game-players but we never see them again, we never know what other people think about who wins or what they thought during the game...in reality, I'd wager we never truly SEE the game in this book. Perhaps that's the point though so I can concede that.

3) This one is the one that really knocked it down a star for me at the end, I'm sad to say.

And...

*WARNING SPOILER*


*Turn away now if you don't want to see this....


*SIGH* I was pretty much feeling the ending. Like, okay, I see who Legend is, I get that it is what it is and they are who they are. Then, out of nowhere, Scarlette is like, "I'm going to flirt with some random guy I was once engaged too to make my current boyfriend jealous because I can't trust him."

Oh yeah. That makes sense.

Then she says something along the lines of "how will I know if I really love the guy I'm with now if I don't play the field a little" (a definite paraphrase).

Maybe this is just my HIGH SENSITIVITY to love triangles (there is not a word in the English language that depicts my utter disgust for them...ok, that was dramatic) but eeew.

Um, WHAT? Yes, I get that you can't trust the guy you're with and I get that that's probably a scary thing, but I don't think the way to ensure that your current BF is the "right one for you" or so that you can "trust him" is by making him jealous by going behind his back. And this is why I didn't like her in book 1.

SOOO... That really brought it back to book 1 for me and left a slightly bad taste in my mouth about the whole thing.




FINAL THOUGHTS (no more spoilers)

So, not a bad book, friends. Really not. And remember, these are ONLY my thoughts and not a representation of how the book is written. I am very much a balanced "personal reader and reviewer" so I can see the book for what I liked/disliked but I can also step back and say honestly that this book deserves 4 stars and will delight many readers even if it wasn't my absolute favorite.

And that's the beauty of opinions, friends. I can not enjoy something as much as I'd hoped but you could love it! So, if you enjoyed Caraval, you're probably going to love this one!

And YES, at the end of the day I'm most certainly going to read [book:Finale|40381392] because I want to know what happens - and THAT is the mark of a good author. She's definitely created a world and characters that draw you in and cause you to ask the question: what will happen next. Bravo Stephanie Garber!

My rating: 4*

Where do I start with this book? So, first I love Stephanie Garber world, her writing style, her characters, and this book didn't let me down. I had fun with this book. I got lost in this story and the pages swept me away. I'm not going to go much into the story, seeing as this is a second book, I don't want to spoil anything. I felt that there was less carnivals, magic circus feel to it unlike the first one. Most of the twists, I did see coming but Stephanie's writing built it up so much that I almost thought I was going to be wrong. Overall, if you liked the first book then you'll enjoy this one, I can't wait to see what happens in the next book!

Loved this book SOOO much! I loved it much more than Caraval and that ending just killed me. I can't wait for May so that I can finally find out what happens.

I received an eARC of this book via Netgalley. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of this review.

Better than the first!!! How often can you say that about a sequel?! Usually sequels suffer from second book syndrome, acting as a bridge in a trilogy, a filler really with no necessary information meaning the book winds up quite dull. Legendary however doesn’t suffer second book syndrome. Far from it! Legendary surpassed all my expectations and is better than Caraval which is a big feat. I loved Caraval, so I really did have high hopes for this book and probably unrealistic expectations, but they were met with flying colors.

Tella’s Turn
Donatella Dragna (what a mouth full!) is the focus of this sequel. Scarlett’s younger sister and whom Scarlett played Caraval for, Tella has a lot to live up to. Not only did her sister win, but they are now free. Free from their abusive father and free from an arranged marriage Scarlett didn’t want. But now it’s Tella’s turn to enter the game as a contestant and not the prize. Tella is the complete opposite of Scarlett. Where Scarlett was calculating and hesitant, Tella jumps in with both feet, fully immersing herself in this game. The only thing that she had going against her was her hardened heart. “I do not love” is her mantra, except she does, fiercely.

In Legendary, Tella finds herself in a new Caraval, a new game for a new city, complete with its own rules. Except she isn’t sure it is a game. She is tasked with finding the real name of Legend, which seems impossible. However she is up to the challenge. Thinking it just a game until things turn sour, Tella realizes she may be in over head.

The Boys and the Magic
There are two boys that enter Tella’s life during this Caraval: Dante and Jack. Dante was in the first book, and I really didn’t like him. In fact, it is hard to separate the character he became for the first Caraval from the character he is in this book. Each player has their own role and in the first book he was a class A jerk. In this one, he is helping Tella. He’s kind and seems to be falling for her as she is falling for him. Well as much as she will let herself. Jack on the other hand is creepy. I’m pretty sure he is some otherworldly being sent to kill everyone. At least that’s how he comes off. It is Jack that challenges Tella and scares her (and if I’m being honest me too!!!).

The magic of this book is just as surreal as the first. I found myself fully immersed into Tella’s world. Entranced by the words, because y’all Garber writes beautifully vivid imagery and Legendary is full of it! The book comes to life on the pages. It is fantastic!

Final Thoughts
Legendary is a must-read for any fan of Caraval, but if you haven’t read the first book you will be lost. So friends if you like lush fantasy, historical settings (think Victorian times), I highly recommend you get a copy ASAP. It does not disappoint! Like I need more of it and will most likely reread the series prior to the release of Finale. Tella and Scarlett are fantastic characters, I love their relationship, and I love the men in their lives. Now I’m ready to get to the bottom of this mystery!!

LEGENDARY was even more addicting than CARAVAL maybe. A fun follow-up to the bestselling debut, and also a great read for anyone who liked CARAVAL but didn't love it.

Tella was a great gutsy heroine, and the world got exponentially bigger. It was obvious the first book hadn't been envisioned as a trilogy, as the way things opened up didn't feel like they had been foreshadowed at all from the first book. I didn't find the romance to be as swoony as it was in the first one, but I know I'm in the minority on that here. A lot of people have praised Tella and her love interest. I did enjoy the way the Scarlet and Julian dynamic evolved, though. It's not all smooth sailing and Julian's lying and gaslighting from the first book is addressed. That was very refreshing to see.

This book does a better job at setting up the next one than CARAVAL did, which makes sense as Garber knew she was writing a sequel when plotting out LEGENDARY. It should be a satisfying conclusion to fans of the series, with twists and turns up till the very end.

It's been awhile since I read CARAVAL, the first book in this trilogy, so it took me a second to reacquaint myself with the characters. Once I got my bearings, I slipped right into the story. Just like her first book, LEGENDARY encapsulates and beautiful and dangerous world with all the magic and intrigue of NIGHT CIRCUS by Erin Morgenstern. While the ending was fairly predictable, the characters were so engaging and interesting, as was the game of Caraval itself, that it was still a delight to read through the whole book.

If you're looking for a delightful bit of magic and fantasy, then you want to pick this one up.

Legendary was a great addition to the series! It was filled with intrigue, romance, and enjoyed Tella as the MC. She felt different to me in this series and maybe even more interesting than Scarlett. Might have been a little predictable, but still a fun read!

The world of Caraval is completely fascinating and enchanting. As a reader you can feel the struggles of the characters to know what is real and what is fake and the consequences of making a choice based on those truths (real or imagined). I struggled a bit to like Tella as much as I liked Scarlett. I felt she didn't come through as strong in her convictions. I loved that she struggled between Dante and the Prince of Hearts as well as a little bit of Legend thrown in. Didn't care for the turn that Scarlett's relationship with Julien took, but we'll see how that plays out in the third installment.

I did receive this book as an ARC but I never got around to the ARC but I did buy the B&N edition of this book. But I opted to listen to the audio book. Thank you to Flat Iron Books for sending me this amazing ARC.

Stephanie Garber did it again. I love her writing. She has a way of drawing me into her books from the first page.

Legendary is book 2 of Caraval. Legendary also tells the story from Tella's perspective unlike book 1 which told the story from Scarlett's perspective.

This story is amazing. I see why there were special cards with the pre-order of this book. It was amazing. I wish I had got the pre-order but I missed out on that. Hopefully I will see someone that wishes to sell their cards...???

We follow Tella as she begins her story with the memories of her mother and how she found a deck of cards and her mother told her the secrets these cards hold. Tella was young when her mother went missing and Scarlett hates her mother because she left them. OR did she?

Now we follow Tella as she is on her way to play another game of Caraval but she has made a deal with a mysterious criminal that if she wins the game he can save her mother. But is it "just a game" this time? The deal is, if she wins the game, the first person she will see is Legend and she will save her mother.

Upon arriving to the new game of Caraval, Tella has realized that her deal with the criminal has a deadline and she needs to contact him because she needs to extend the date but upon meeting him she finds out he wants more from her than he first ask of her. She must give him the identity of master Legend if she wishes to save her mother but if she doesn't win the game she will not be able to save her mother from the fates.

The story of the cards are that there are a group of people called the "Fates" with special powers that have been captured and held captive inside a set of cards. This is the deck of cards that Tella found when she was young that soon after her mother went missing.

The games starts and this story takes so many twist and you are amazed the characters become in the book. Just when you think you know who someone is, the real identity comes out. You are not sure if they are one of the fates or not. Also, you think you know who Legend is but then you find out it is not who you think it is.

I love the love story that forms for Tella but does she actually ever except her love for him???

I definitely recommend this series. I can not wait until book 3 comes out.

I love this story.