Review: Legendary by Stephanie Garber

Legendary is the sequel to Caraval (here is a link to my super short review of it), a novel about a traveling magic show/game/mystery whose winner is granted one coveted prize. Book two has a Caraval that promises the game to be real this time.

I think Legendary had similar pros and cons for me that Caraval did. I still loved the over the top nature of the world and the characters, it’s fun to be in a reality that is heightened this much. I did like the imagery a bit more in Caraval, but I enjoyed the more plot-heavy nature of Legendary. I wish Legendary had felt like it was bursting with magic and possibility in the same was Caraval did, but I understood that turn into a darker book and a new location required a different sort of magic.

My main critique of Caraval was that it basically had no stakes and the things that it could have had stakes for caused no consequences for, this book didn’t have the first half of this at all and the second half was not as intense. I enjoyed that Scarlett was holding Julien accountable in book two, though we barely got any Scarlett, so this wasn’t a big part of the story. But I was still disappointed that despite the much higher stakes for this book, that the ending didn’t feel as cataclysmic as I would have hoped it would. Bad things happened, but these bad things don’t feel insurmountable.

I was pretty bothered by how similar the romantic conflicts are in the two books. Why does everyone have fake fiancés all the time? I also think the “I don’t need a man” vibe Tella gives off would be much more believable if she didn’t want to much approval from men? I did like the backstory we got about the flippant way she interacts with boys. But I still didn’t like the romance in this book nearly as much as I wanted too. I am still so much more invested in Scarlett’s love problems though I sense more contrived love triangles for book three.

I also sort of don’t care that much about Legend. Going into this book, I was so curious about Legend, but once we got the revel (that was treated as a clue by the characters), I thought it made sense but wasn’t that interesting. I don’t understand enough about what makes him tick, about what is performance and what is real, to care that much about him. I didn’t want Tella to be sad, but I also don’t want Tella to end up with a pretentious asshole.

On to Tella. I think I enjoyed Tella more from Scarlett’s loving point of view than I did in the first third of this book. I also very much missed naïve, honest, hardworking Scarlett. But I did grow to like Tella, she is rash and does not consider others feelings, but she grows a lot through this story. She felt a bit incongruous to the Tella we met in Caraval, less silly mostly, but she was an interesting point of view character.

I said this book had more plot than Caraval, and it totally did. I really enjoyed the plot, I do not think a single twist was executed well, I guessed literally every single one upon the first “clue,” but I still enjoyed the story. I am hoping for more surprise from Finale.

I gave this book three stars on Goodreads, but I am sort of on the fence about this. It could have been four maybe. If I change my mind, I will update! My copy of Finale should be at my house in no more than two hours, so I will be busy as soon as I get that.