Book Review: Finale by Stephanie Garber

Synopsis:

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.

Review:

My time with the Caraval series has finally come to an end after five years. I fell completely in love with the first book, enjoyed the second book and then put off the third book for multiple years.

I think I would have enjoyed Finale a lot more if I’d actually read it when it came out. For the first quarter of the book, I spent a lot of time being confused about who was who and what was going on. I probably should have read a recap of the previous books, but I thought I remembered them. Weirdly, I remember the first book more than the second.

The ebook was a little hard to read sometimes. If there was something like a handwritten note, which I usually really love in books, it was practically unreadable. I thought at first this was because I have my kindle in dark mode so it had a white background and faint black font, but no I changed it to the original settings and it was still unreadable. Such a shame because little details like this are what I really love about this series, it did fix itself after a while and didn’t deduct from my rating of the story, but I thought I’d bring it up in case it happens for other people.

I’m not going to give spoilers, but the only meh thing about this book was its ending. Everything felt a little too easy in the end and the threat wasn’t quite convincing. The Fates were nowhere near as terrifying as I thought they would be and honestly, it was a bit disappointing.

I’m doing that thing where I don’t have any particularly strong feelings about a book so I don’t know what to talk about. Finale was entertaining and the world of Caraval is still very impressive. I’m a big fan of Stephanie Garber’s writing style.

Finale was definitely the weakest book in the trilogy for me, but that could be because of how long it took me to get to it. I do still really love this world though and I am considering rereading the first book. I’m wondering if it’s as magical as I remember.