This definitely wrapped the series up but I don't think I loved it nearly as much as the other books. To me, I felt like the ending was the ending that we deserved but I almost didn't want it.

Great series! Absolutely loved it! Can’t wait for more from this author! I have recommended this series for all my fantasy readers!

This wasn't my favorite book in the series but overall I was satisfied with the ending. In this book we get both Tella's and Scarlet's Point of views. I am much more partial to Tella because I find her a more interesting and developed character, but I felt like her character development slipped a bit in this book. Even Scarlett felt one dimensional most of the time. The strong female leads I loved in the previous books faltered to boy crazy girls in this one. I also felt like some of the major plots were wasted in the end. I especially didn't like the ending for a certain character. The Fates plot also felt underdeveloped. We didn't get a whole lot of backstory and they would randomly pop up throughout the story and then disappear. I think it could have been a more intriguing story if they took a different route with them. I also missed the Caraval aspect in this book. The magic of the story was just lacking to me. Overall, it was entertaining enough to keep my attention and I enjoyed it overall.

I received an ARC of this book via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

Thanks to the publisher for an e-ARC of this title for an honest review.

Finale picks up right where Legendary ends, Tella and Scarlett dealing with the Fates being released from The Deck of Destiny and dealing with magic and seriously duplicitous characters all around them. I have to be honest, after Caraval and Legendary this book seemed a little flat to me. I enjoyed it but I was able to walk away from it much easier than I was the other two titles. Parts of this book seemed really rushed but all in all I would say it pretty enjoyable.

<em>Finale</em> by Stephanie Garber is the latest book in Fantasy that showcases cartomancy and tarot prominently in not only the plot, but of the lore of the series. Cartomancy and tarot are both forms of divination that use playing cards, which fits perfectly into most fantasy worlds that feature any kind of magic.

There is a difference between cartomancy and tarot, one being that cartomancy simply uses what we would call a normal playing deck of 52 cards, whereas tarot is comprised of its own unique deck of usually 78 cards. Both cartomancy and tarot have four suits in their respective decks of cards, with cartomancy usually augmenting their deck by adding both jokers and the blank cards that come with the decks.

In tarot each of the four suits (swords, wants, coins, and cups, but there are multiple names for each suit and these are what I personally use) have 14 cards, numbered one through ten, along with the queen, king, knight, and page as opposed to cartomancy’s king, queen, jack, and ace.

Along with the four suits in tarot that make up the Minor Arcana there are the 22 cards that make up the Major Arcana that have allegorical and exoteric meanings when the deck is used for divination and occult purposes.

In Fantasy authors either use the Major Arcana that already exists, or they are ambitious enough to make their own. Stephanie Garber is one of the ambitious writers who made their own. Her deck is called the Deck of Destiny that is similar to tarot.

The Deck of Destiny is comprised of 32 cards with a court of 16 Immortals, eight Fated Places, and eight Fated Objects. Broken down further there are Greater and Lesser Immortals, similar to tarot’s Major and Minor Arcana.

While the Deck of Destiny didn’t play a major part of <em>Caraval</em>, it really came into play in <em>Legendary</em> when The Prince of Hearts makes an appearance when the Fates start escaping from the deck itself. <em>Finale</em> revolves heavily around the deck when The Fallen Star appears as the Big Bad in the final book in the Caraval series, along with most of the places, objects, and other Immortal Fates.

The Caraval series also features a character whose sole purpose during Caraval (a dangerous game that plays with ones mind, blurring the lines between what is real and what is fake) is to tell people’s fortune via tarot readings.

Kerri Maniscalco’s Stalking Jack the Ripper series’ third book, <em>Escaping from Houdini</em> features both cartomancy and tarot, but not in a divination sense. A slew of murders are stylized after certain cards in the Major Arcana throughout the book, along with certain playing cards and tarot cards being left at the scene of each crime as a calling card. Not only are cards used in the book, which features the Midnight Carnival aboard a ship called the RMS Etruria, but also features another popular type of fortune-telling, divination via crystal ball.

Kerri Maniscalco uses the imagery created in the more popular illustrations of the tarot deck, along with the allegorical meanings behind each as Audrey Rose Wadsworth and Thomas Cresswell figure out who the killer amongst the passengers of the RMS Etruria is before it’s too late. A lot of the chapter titles are named after both playing deck cards as well as cards from both the Major and Minor Arcana.

<em>Ace of Shades</em> by Amanda Foody, while not strictly about cartomancy, features it by the creation of The Shadow Game within this fantasy world. The Shadow Game just so happens to also be the name of the series, which I wrote about recently. The Shadow Game uses playing cards to invite the people of New Reynes to play a deadly game, where no one gets out alive.

Well, no one but one had survived playing The Shadow Game except one prior to both Enne and Levi receiving their own invitations in <em>Ace of Shades</em>. Who knew that receiving a playing card could be so ominous and chilling? The titles of The Shadow Game also reference playing cards, with the titles <em>Ace of Shades</em> and <em>King of Fools</em> that have a play on words that mixes both cartomancy and tarot.

I, for one, can’t wait to see what the third book will be called. I’m hoping for something along the lines of Queen of Coins, considering the usage of Ace and King, along with the magical abilities in the world that Amanda Foody created. Only time will tell if my prediction is true!

<em>The Bone Season</em> by Samantha Shannon features seven types of clairvoyants that use different methods of connection to the aether, or the Source, which gives them their powers. The seven orders are Soothsayers, Augurs, Mediums, Sensors, Jumpers, Furies, and Guardians.

<em>The Bone Season</em>’s world building is unique and its magicks, while based in common divination techniques, takes it a step further by connecting magic users to their power and giving each order a hierarchy by how powerful they are thought to be. Soothsayers are cartomancers, since they use tarot cards to connect to the aether in order to predict the future. The character Liss is a cartomancer, but almost loses her powers when her deck of cards is burned.

If you haven’t checked out <em>The Bone Season</em> now is the perfect time to as Samantha works on the fourth book in the series, giving anyone plenty of time to catch up in this amazing series full of rebellion and clairvoyance that, while magical, is based in our own world in the future.

Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle highlights tarot readings more so than the other books mentioned because not one, not two, but three of the characters use tarot throughout the series. The main character, Blue Sargent, grew up in a house of psychics, though she isn’t a psychic herself but an amplifier. Her mother, along with aunts and friends who are as good as family, have a fortune-telling business that operates out of their house.

When Blue comes across a group of Raven Boys who show up at her house to get their cards read early on in the series, along with Blue herself that always pulls the same card.

Blue’s card is the Page of Cups (which represents innocence, but in a youthful dreaminess and emotional openness sense) , and when Richard Gansey asks her to pull a card for him, she of course pulls that one, and her mother immediately tells him that the card wasn’t meant for him, but she could have been lying. When Gansey pulls his own card, he pulls Death, which is one of the Major Arcana.

Usually the Death card doesn’t mean that someone is fated to die, but about transformation and change. It’s eerie because Gansey is fated to die within a year at the beginning of <em>The Raven Boys</em>. His friend, Adam Parrish, pulls the card The Magician, which is the first card of the Major Arcana and usually means that they are versatile and resilient, which Adam most certainly is.

Throughout the series the psychics pull multiple cards for different people, such as The Gray Man and Barrington Whelk, while some flat out refuse to have a card pulled for them (Ronan Lynch).

No matter if you believe in cartomancy and tarot, or find it interesting in regards to fantasy, it’s fun to think about the different meanings of the cards and spreads, in both books and in real life.

The Caraval Series is in the young adult genre, and is very much written as such. Which I have no problems with. If a novel is marketed as young adult, it should be written towards a young adult audience, which gives it a little bit different feel. It has all the elements a young adult novel should have, the battle between good and evil, the journey of the heroes, the transistion of the someone becoming more than they were. Finale has all of these wrapped up in an exciting and unexpected story. 

We loved that the book was written from both Tella and Scarlet's point of view. Stephanie Garber balanced the two perspectives very well, each sister's voice was consistent and strong through their chapters. 

Stephanie has a beautiful way of showing and not just telling, she paints striking pictures with her words. The one element I had a hard time with was how much she used blood in this last novel. There has been glimpses of it in the other two, but it seemed a little overwhelmingly used in this one. Instead of an interesting twist in the story it became something that pulled me out and made me go, "weird".

Both love stories were developed really well and left the readers delightfully satisfied at the end.

Y’all I expect to LOVE this book. I adored the first two books of this series so I just knew this would be a five star read. However, the characters and the length was a bit too much for me to enjoy this fully.

Let me get what I did enjoy out of the way. Garber’s writing is lyrical and always entrances me in a spell. The way she paints a picture of the world in her books is always so beautiful.

My main gripe is that this could have been so much shorter! My goodness, this dragged in so many spots. We got quite a bit of repeated information and that was a bit annoying to keep going over.

Character wise, I have to say my favorite was Jacks. Is that an unpopular opinion? Oh well! I feel like he was the only one who either wasn’t on a high horse or making terrible decisions. Also, He was nothing but honest about his intent from the beginning.

Scarlett annoyed me back in Legendary, but she straight up made me want to smack her in this book. Between her wanting two men to compete for her down to her “I’m better than you” attitude, I was fed up with her. However, I still loved Julian.

Tella. I still love her and think she’s strong when she needs to be. However, some of her choices really made me scratch my head.

Legend was where I was so conflicted. I wanted to root for him but so many times I felt myself pulling back. I could get his way of thinking most of the time but his actions didn’t always match. Let me be real honest here, I almost didn’t really see a difference between him and Jacks most of the time.

The ending felt WAY too easily wrapped up. After everything that we went through with the fates and Caraval, I thought that we would have a more explosive ending. I mean, there twists that I didn’t see coming, but that couldn’t make for me feeling disappointed. Basically, this was rushed and not the ending I thought we would get.

All in all, I’m disappointed and hope that I enjoy her next book much better than this one.

When I finished Legendary, the second book in this trilogy, I assumed the story was over. I kind of feel like maybe it should have been over, leaving some of the story unfinished but still with a satisfactory "ending." Instead, we get this third, somewhat bloated installment in the trilogy, which did nothing except raise more questions and let the entire story just kind of fizzle out. The book itself is enjoyable enough and fun, but it does nothing to add depth to any of its characters, and instead leans on a love triangle to carry much of the plot forward. I would encourage readers to pick up the first two books in the series, but give this one a pass, as the story still feels complete without it.

⭐️Book Review⭐️
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Thank you so much @flatiron_books for the free copy via @netgalley for review.
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I can’t believe it’s over! I feel like I’m way more emotionally involved when I read a trilogy or series as they’re being written. Maybe it’s because I have to wait a year between books. I fell in love with Caraval and the world that @stephanie_garber created.
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I liked that the fates played a larger role in this book and I enjoyed the alternating perspectives of Scarlett and Tella. I liked how Garber wrapped up her trilogy, but I think I have to say that Caraval is still my favorite of the three. There’s just something so magical about the first book!
4⭐️ for the series!
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1.5 Stars


This book was a hot mess.

To be fair, I did not really enjoy the first book of the series. I gave it a solid two stars. It was okay, but had major flaws. The second book was three stars for me. It was a good reading experience and greatly improved from the first book. This final installment... a complete and total mess.
Here are my main issues.

#1 There was great potential for the fates. The second book set up for an amazing plot. But that's largely ignored in this book in favor of running around after TWO love triangles.

#2 Granted, Scarlet's is pointless and never should have been included. Thankfully it wrapped up quickly, but it was still a distraction and served only as page filler. There was no tension there. We all saw through it.

#3 Now Tella's love triangle? That was pretty much the entire story. The book focused far too much on who Tella was kissing or sharing blood with instead of saving Scarlet and the entire city from the fates.

#4 Legend didn't shine in this book, either. No one did. Even Tella (a much stronger character than Scarlet) was largely useless.

#5 Rescuing Paloma turned out to be 100% pointless. Not satisfying at all.

#6 Too many new characters were introduced with no true development. Even Nicholas and Paloma and "essential" characters felt like an extra in this book.

#7 That ending. W. T. F. (SPOILERS FOR THE REST OF THIS PARAGRAPH) .............. Scarlet on the throne? Scarlet as empress? That undoes everything that Legend worked for as Dante. Plus, Dante was still alive, so the throne would have gone back to him. I get the whole "what if Elentine was Paloma's mother" shtick, but it doesn't mean Scarlet would be accepted on the throne. She even says the people didn't like her after the discovery that she was half fate. This doesn't seem like something that fits her character or Julian's as her fiance by the end of the book.

Yeah. This had potential, but it missed that potential on nearly every mark. I wouldn't recommend this series to anyone above junior high now. It wasn't terrible as a series, but it was a huge disappointment over all.

I guess it's weird that I'm both smiling and have tears forming in my eyes. Happy tears of course and yet sad at the same time.

Caraval opened up a new world filled with intrigue, adventure, deception, and hope. I was smitten before I got my invitation. The idea of Legend and his performers was like opening up a present as a child. So much potential, so many possibilities, and all just for me! Legendary brought a while new set of emotions. Love, longing, and betrayal as well as the mystery and adventure. I found myself addicted to the illusions and the wonder in every page. Stephanie Garber has a wonderful imagination and an enchanted way with words. But Finale....

Oh Finale is a breath stealing, heart clenching ride of ache and more illusions than ever before. Nothing is as it seems and yet I couldn't be more in love with these characters and this world. Maybe being older gives me a better appreciation for the wondrous things, the dating adventures, and the epic emotions... or maybe I'm just a big kid at heart. Regardless, Stephanie Garber has given me an adventure I will cherish and share. Finale is the end of this adventure but I'm hoping it's just the beginning of many more!

Finishing Finale has made me far more nostalgic for Scarlett, Tella, Julian, and Legend than I'd like to admit. I can't wait to snag the audiobooks to share them with my kids.

After Legend freed the Fates to save Donatella’s life, he installed himself as emperor. However when one of the Fates wants to take the throne, Donatella must take action to save the kingdom. Secrets are revealed as Donatella and Scarlett risk all to save the kingdom from the Fates. Finale has two parallel story threads, one focusing on Donatella and the other focusing on Scarlett. While there is a split focus Donatella gets more page time, especially earlier in the book. That’s too bad because Scarlett is the more interesting of the two sisters. Part of the problem is that Donatella spends most of her time pining over two guys who spend most of their time manipulating her and/or holding her at arm’s length. Plus Scarlett comes off as more of an active character than her sister even though both characters make questionable decisions and rely on convenient deus ex machinas to get them out of the situations they find themselves in. If either displayed more problem solving skills this book would have been more enjoyable. This book is probably not for me but I didn’t find much to enjoy about this series.

Thank you Netgalley for providing the ARC for this book.

*ARC received from NetGalley in return for an honest review*

This book was an excellent end to an interesting series. While I loved the first book Tella's voice was a little too annoying for me to fully get into the second book. Though, that could have been because I was listening to it instead of reading. I loved the balance of this book between the two sisters and getting to see both their stories play out together. Tella grew on me more until I came to enjoy what she had to say even if some of her actions were a little too impulsive for my tastes. There were moments I felt like some important scenes felt too rushed for my tastes. Information was brought up that could have a whole book dedicated to just that plot line. In the end, this was a pretty enjoyable read that surpassed the second book but could not beat the creative beauty of the first.

Thank you Netgalley for the ARC.

Caraval will always be my favorite in this trilogy. I’ve recommended it to so many people.

Finale was a good ending to this magical and mystery world. I enjoyed it. I liked the characters. It took me awhile to get into it, and it dragged at times. But overall good book. The covers of all three books are so gorgeous.

This book was amazing!!! I’m so in love with these characters... the writing is great and keeps you hanging onto every word. This is my absolute favorite series!

Finale wraps up a series that has romantically mysterious while demonstrating the unbreakable bond between two sisters. Magic and fantasy collide in this world that demonstrates the same issues we face in today’s world.

"Finale" is the much anticipated third installment of the Caraval series penned by author Stephanie Garber. With main characters Scarlett and Tella leading the story, the novel offers a fresh combination of perspectives. This multiple point of view approach was a welcome change as I wanted to hear more of Scarlett's story. I felt more connected to her character and was excited to see her path unfold. However, although the book featured both sister's points of view, I felt that Scarlett had less air time and I was left a little disappointed by this. Tella's characterization was well done, but I didn't feel a strong camaraderie with her.

Like the previous books, Stephanie Garber does an excellent job of scene building and uses imagery to transport the reader into the setting. The genius of this book was really the world building and the author's ability to immerse the reader in a magical immersive tale. I also loved the fact that this novel revisited Scarlett and Julian which I had been waiting for! Overall, I felt that this book was well worth the wait! I will definitely be heading out to the store and buying a hard copy to keep for years to come!

Finale is a story about the meaning of love and how that meaning changes for each of the characters in this story. Tella’s love for Legend is tested by her confusing feelings for Jacks and Scarlett’s love for Julian is never wavering but her definition of love changes when she uncovers some truths about her past. Both of their journeys are tested but eventually love conquers all, and in this novel you can’t take that statement literally.

Stephanie Garber continues with the beautiful prose from the first two novels. Each word is imbued with ribbons of color which seems appropriate to the theme of love that runs through this story. At times though her lyrical style seems to distract rather than draw attention to, and I’ll admit my mind wandered a bit. I found myself scanning back through the pages wondering what had happened since I last tuned in. I still enjoyed the story, but it took a really long time for it to reach a conclusion.

Tella and Legend continued their tale of unrequited love. If an immortal feels the emotions of love it turns them human and Legend fights his fears through most of their storyline. I found Jacks’ emotions the more interesting of the two men, since he gave into his obsession and seemed to turn Tella’s head with his feelings, even though those feelings were rather unhealthy.

Scarlett’s story with Julian remained unchanged, however her character grew a lot more than Tella’s did in this conclusion. She learned a lot about why she could see the color of other people’s emotions and how she dealt with that knowledge uncovered strengths that she previously hadn’t really shown. I cared a lot more for the resolution of her story than I did for her sister’s which seemed a lot more shallow a tale.

Finale was my least favorite book in the series, but part of that was that the newness had dulled slightly. Some new characters (the Fates) were introduced and time was spent allowing us to get to know a few of these characters so that it helped build more of an impact to the conclusion of the story. The end felt a little too pat for all of that prior build up, but I did feel like I got the conclusion that I wanted for these characters and I was left feeling pretty satisfied. ❤️❤️❤️❤️

What a great ending to this magical series. I'm often skeptical when the sequels don't follow a similar theme as the first book, and while this book was vastly different and more complicated in some ways than Caraval and even Legendary were, I feel like Stephanie did a good job of keeping me as the reader hooked and pulling for the characters I had grown to love. The magic had a very different feel to it than in the first book, but it wasn't disappointing. The stakes escalated in this 3rd book to an exciting place and I loved how she wrapped up everything, and her concept of the almost-ending and the true-ending.

Garber, Stephanie. (2019). Finale. New York: Flatiron Books. ISBN: 9781250157669

One sentence description: Sisters Scarlet and Donatella return for their finale adventure in the Caraval series where winning might mean losing everything that matters most.

Why I chose this book: I had read and enjoyed the first two and was happy when I was able to access the electronic galley.

What I liked: The ending is very satisfying for any fans who have stuck it out till the end. I also enjoyed the glimpses we are shown of the different Fates. Perhaps best of all, for me who has a sister I love very much, the sisters’ relationship is never second to anything else.

Pro tip: I suspect that only true fans (of which there are more than a few) will enjoy this entry in the series. While I enjoyed it, it dragged quite a bit and some of the writing was over the top.

Reviewed from publisher provided electronic galley. Amazon affliate: if you click through and buy something, I receive a portion of the purchase price.