Finale by Stephanie Garber
(Format used for this read: Audiobook)
This is the third and last book in the Carnaval series….hence the uber creative title of “Finale” 😆
I had a good time making my way thru the first two books.
They were YA fantasy at it’s finest….I always get roped on in when there is strange magic and unlikely romances. (doesn’t take much to pleasingly entertain me sometimes yall 😆)
This one though…was quite a bit different than the others.
I still liked it…but it went somewhere with the story that the two before did not.
Here is the official summary:
“A love worth fighting for. A dream worth dying for. An ending worth waiting for.
It’s been two months since the Fates were freed from a deck of cards, two months since Legend claimed the throne for his own, and two months since Tella discovered the boy she fell in love with doesn’t really exist.
With lives, empires, and hearts hanging in the balance, Tella must decide if she’s going to trust Legend or a former enemy. After uncovering a secret that upends her life, Scarlett will need to do the impossible. And Legend has a choice to make that will forever change and define him.
Caraval is over, but perhaps the greatest game of all has begun. There are no spectators this time: only those who will win, and those who will lose everything.
Welcome, welcome to Finale. All games must come to an end…”
Okay I have to tell yall something before I get into this review….
So one of the main characters in this series is named “Legend”.
Can I tell you that for some reason I kept repeatedly thinking of the dang 80’s movie with Tom Cruise titled “Legend” the ENTIRE TIME I was reading these three books?!?
If yall never seen this movie…go Google it. It is MESSED UP in a FULL UP 80’s sorta way….there is this super scary ass demon trying to kidnap and marry this princess…which will then steal all light and goodness from the world FOREVER.
I place this movie I grew up watching under the title of “REALLY WEIRD AND INAPPROPRIATE SHIT RATED PG THAT PARENTS LET US WATCH”
But hey…it was the 80s….there are SO many more in that category I do not have time to list here ….if you grew up then too…then you GET ME ON THIS.
Alright…so that has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with this book…but I seriously could NOT get the movie out of my head so I HAD to tell yall. 😆
This book focuses WAY more on romantic relationships….and I will honestly say that it takes things kinda next level in descriptions of intimate moments and sexual desires…even though this book is for YA readers, I don’t think this one is for teens on the younger side, just saying.
I mean…I didn’t mind it at all….but I don’t think I’d hand this book to a 12 or 13 year old. 😬
But hey…we all parent different (see my 80s comment above)…so you do you…just check it out beforehand is my suggestion to see if you’re cool with all of it.
In this book, there is no game of Carnaval being played like before…this one is a whole different kind of scene.
I feel like the underlying theme in all the various plotlines has to do with love and all the different ways we feel it, express it and experience it….or don’t feel it, don’t express it and don’t experience it.
Love for a partner , love for a parent, love for a sibling, love for a friend, love for community and just love for the universe..
But where there is love, there is also hate…and ambivalence…and complacency…and confusion…and frustration…and denial.
ALL of those things are wrapped into the characters in different ways.
Something about this series I have appreciated is the strong female characters…Scarlet, Tella and even their mother Paradise.
I feel like the ending wraps up in a way I would expect in this series…a tad unusual but satisfying.
I don’t have much else to say about this book so this review is shorter than usual.
I enjoyed it, I enjoyed the series….
And now I think it’s time to take a break from YA and ingest more grown up books.
(at least for just a read or two 🤣…yall know I can’t stay away from them for TOO long)
If you want to read my thoughts on the other two books in the series you can find those reviews here: