Caraval

Caraval by Stephanie Garber was reviewed as similar to The Night Circus hence it enticed me to buy it. With that kind of anticipation I was greatly disappointed as it was no where near that book at all, no where near a circus theme as well. In the end this book was more focused on games that are played on human emotions and decision making. The setting could be similar to a circus but to me it wasn't enough to fit the description. With a beautiful cover, you can easily be fooled to purchase the book but here I am advising you that this book is nothing to be missed.

What I can praise about this book is the mysterious characters involved. The side characters were quite intriguing as not much are revealed about them. These characters adds on to the suspense of the book. As for the main heroine, I find that she is too uptight and she hardly grows in the book, it certainly took some time but the progress is not ideal. Her interactions with other characters are often brief and her reactions were just acceptable. I would have love to see more reactions from other parties that interact with her. The most mysterious person unfortunately did not get much revealed towards the end of the book and I'm thinking the author has plans for the next book.

A roller coaster ride is not what you'll find for the plot line, albeit some plot twists this book is not able to capture my attention well. I felt that many incidents happen without proper build up to it. Often at times, I'm wondering what would compelled the plot to turn out this way. One things for sure is that the plot twists are unpredictable which is the motivation for me to complete the book. With the mysteriousness shrouding the book, it was worth reading to the end just to find closure to certain questionable people.

Do not go in with high expectations and I'm pretty sure that you'll enjoy the book. But since I have gotten reviews about comparing it with The Night Circus, it totally ruined how I viewed the book. It wasn't awesome but the author did go a good job on the plot twists seeing that this is a debut. I do recommend this book for fantasy readers as it's somewhat fresh in terms of the type of setting.