Carnival of Secrets (Untamed City, #1)

by Melissa Marr

An extraordinary new world, from the New York Times bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely series.

Warriors Kaleb and Aya will stop at nothing to destroy their competition. But when Kaleb finds his fate entwined with that of Mallory, a seventeen-year-old human girl, he can't seem to separate the vicious Carnival contest he's entered from his sudden devotion to her. He and Aya may be prize fighters from the otherworldly Untamed City, but his strange, obsessive connection makes staying away from the witch-ruled human world, and Mallory, harder every day.

All Mallory knows of the Untamed City is what her elders have told her – that it's full of debauchery and daimons looking to destroy her. But she knows she's being pulled toward Kaleb with an emotion so fierce that it's utterly foreign. The two are forced apart by Mallory's overprotective witch father, stranded by necessity between warring populations that can't coexist. But when The City's ruler raises the stakes of the Carnival's prize, there's nothing Mallory, Kaleb, or Aya can do to stop the two worlds colliding. Mallory's about to discover her true identity – and stumble into a fate she'd die to avoid.

Fans of The Hunger Games will devour this tale of lush secrets, dark love, and the struggle to forge one's own destiny from the bestselling author of Wicked Lovely, Melissa Marr.

• ISBN13: 9780007476329
• Publish Date: 4 September 2012
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Imprint: Harper Fire
• Format: eBook (EPUB)
• Pages: 336
• Language: English
• URL: http://harpercollins.co.uk

Reviews

[layawaydragon]

-Trigger Warning
-Loved the Damien werewolves, gives a different twist to typical witches and werewolves hatred
-The proto wedding was gross and so wrong. Ugh. The breeding part is going to cause problems and I actively loathe it as much as the proxies forced role as rape victim.
-Anya is a constant surprise, like Zeke, I feel for V but damn do I hate creepy pushing and his terrible options, I like Mal but she's not had much time to shine, Adam is an awful overprotective ass but I -don't hate him yet, and I'm surprised how much I don't hate Mad.
-Love the 5 Finger Death Punch inspiration, must listen to it. My roommate is a huge fan of them so it should work out. :D
-Very curious where it's going and must continue series

[Briana @ Pages Unbound]

This review is also posted at Pages Unbound Book Reviews.

In Carnival of Souls, Melissa Marr invites readers to The City, a world of violence and pleasure, where anything can be bought and sold.  Except power.  That is earned by birthright, or through fights to the death.  Aya and Kaleb have entered the fight ring to win themselves a better life.  Belias has entered to watch over Aya.  And in a different world, the human world, teenage Mallory knows of none of this, or that everyone is The City is looking for her.  Mallory wants only to be safe, to continue living in comfort with her adoptive witch father.

Marr drops readers straight into this intricate mess, where everyone is vying for power.  Weapons may include fists, magic, or smarts, but everyone is playing the game to come out on top.  Readers get to watch a whirlwind of alliances build and fall, and they may be several chapters into the book before they can get a firm grip on whom they may want to win.  Marr guarantees that nothing is clear in her book, that no one is purely good or purely evil, so everyone must be given a chance.

In the end, “curs” Kaleb and Zevi came out as my favorite characters.  They are the underdogs in City society, and Kaleb is striving hard to ensure he and Zevi will one day be able to live in comfort and safety.  Their relationship as “pack” is also endearing.  Though the two have completely diferent personalities and strengths, they are zealously loyal and protective of each other.  It is refreshing to see two people so certain of each other, in a world where alliances seem more common than friendships, and just about everyone is out for themselves.  If Kaleb does win the fights, one hopes he will able to teach some of the cur “pack” mentality to the masses.

Aya and Belias are also interesting characters, primarily because their relationship is so complex.  They are less explicitly “nice” than Kaleb and Zevi, but Marr makes sure to give all her characters both positives and negative characteristics.  No one in Carnival of Souls is one dimensional.  That being said, Mallory, the ostensible protagonist, is the blandest character readers are presented with.  She was raised in the human world, so that certainly makes her less “flashy” than some of the other characters, but she is also generally close-minded and fixated on her personal safety.  (Ok, ok, that is a direct result of her upbringing, so it is logical in the context of the story and not at all her fault.)  The point is, if she does not experience some serious character development in the rest of the series, she will remain my least favorite character, no matter how much everyone else in the book is obsessed with her.

The outlook for Mallory’s personal growth seems good, however.  In Carnival of Souls, at least, Marr was focused more on building atmosphere and characters than on plot.  The book was essentially a 300 page introduction to the world of The City and the major players.  And, if not for the fairly original setting in the Carnival of Souls itself, the book would have read a lot more like an average paranormal romance: Girl does not know she is special.  Girl meets mysterious dangerous boy.  Instalove happens.  Girl rebels against instalove but is still interested.  Girl learns she is an important person and romance is threatened.  End of book one.  The sequel to Carnival of Souls has more plot potential, as the novel ends with an explicit goal for the characters to pursue, but I can imagine it sill meandering about, looking into the personal troubles of the characters—which may end up as the more interesting part.

In the end, however, I thought Carnival of Souls had a lot of potential it did not quite live up to.  The setting is a huge draw, but the alluring/dangerous carnival idea has been more fully developed in other novels.  I would have liked a little more description to draw me into the world.  Also, Marr goes to great lengths to portray the complexity of The City society, but she “tells” a lot more than she “shows,” having her characters deliver direct statements about how no one is good or bad because of their species, their class, etc.  Readers could draw such conclusions on their own, based on the actions of Marr’s characters.

I enjoyed Carnival of Souls, but I was not wowed by it, which was a reaction I anticipated after seeing tons of gushing reviews.  I would like to continue the series because I want to see what happens to some of the great characters Marr has created, and I do believe the romance has the potential to be very sweet.  I am less invested in the overarching plot.  This is a good book, but not a great one.

Ehhhhh....I think this one is going to be a DNF. I was soooo excited, but it just kinda fell flat.
Full Review to come.

[Ashley]

booknook — Young Adult book reviews

Sigh. Carnival of Souls was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. I think when I read the blurb I just saw "deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite," and made assumptions. I assumed this was going to be an intense action-packed book about this deadly competition that was also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I expected blood, guts, love, loss, heartbreak, crazy heart-wrenching/tear-jerking scenes.. Instead, the book kind of felt flat.

This was one of those stories where the book just felt like words on a page. I didn't get pulled into the story. I didn't feel like I was in the middle of the action. I just didn't give a shit about the characters. And on top of that, I felt like the world building barely existed. For me, the world building is good when I have a perfectly clear picture of everything and feel like I could just slip away and exist in the fantasy world. But in Carnival of Souls there were so many unanswered questions or unexplained parts of the world. What exactly are daimons? They're shapeshifters, but that's basically the only knowledge I came away with.

Even the "deadly competition" just felt... lame. Melissa Marr could have really hyped it up to be scary, intense, and dangerous. But it didn't feel that way at all. At the very beginning of the book, two characters have to face what could have been a really intense fight, but there was no intensity. It was like two people going to work or something.

To make things worse, Carnival of Souls suffers from insta-love. When the story starts, Mallory and Kaleb had apparently already known each other for a while, but it's not clear how long. But they clearly aren't that close because Kaleb had never been to her house before. Then, he comes to her house for the first time, they have one kiss, and suddenly Kaleb is saying stuff like this:

"I don't have a cell phone, but I can get one if you want me to." He took her back into his arms. "I'm yours to command, Mallory."
—Carnival of Souls, Page 109

Yours to command? That's not even romantic. I don't want to command my boyfriend. They only kiss once and he's confessing his undying love, risking his life for her, saying "you're mine"?? Sorry, but this doesn't fly with me.

Furthermore, Mallory's whole situation was annoying. At first I thought she was kickass because she was running around with guns and training to kill daimons. But then there's all this annoying stuff that I won't go into detail about to avoid spoilers, but it basically makes her look like a weak character. And it felt like every other page she was saying:

Good daughters don't question their fathers.

There was a reason for that, but it just annoyed me. It made her look like a weak character. And the constant repetition of that line had me clawing my eyes out.

Let's be honest, there are a lot of people who love this book, so I don't want to say don't read it. Looking at the reviews, there's a good chance that you might like it. But this book just wasn't for me. It couldn't hold my attention, I was doing a lot of skimming, and was eager to just hurry up and move onto the next book. I haven't read any of Melissa Marr's other works, but it seems like if you enjoy her other books, you might enjoy Carnival of Souls. I'm really bummed that I didn't enjoy this book, but I guess sometimes it just happens. Maybe you'll have better luck!