Finale (Caraval, #3)

by Stephanie Garber

[pamela]

While I enjoyed Finale it was without a doubt the weakest book in the series, let down by an utterly lacklustre ending, and some really poor worldbuilding.

Where Legendary was a high point, with fun games, a mystery to follow, a clear direction, and some satisfyingly angsty love scenes, Finale instead opted to do away with the fun of Caraval and introduce a brand new villain and plotline for the final installation and not really bother to do any character development for them. Where I'd grown to love the side characters in the form of Caraval's players in the first two books, they're remarkably missing from Finale, instead, replaced by a cast of Fates who I didn't know, or particularly care about. There's also a deep mythos surrounding the fates that was never really explored, and a huge chunk of Legend's backstory that basically didn't exist in this story that I was hoping to get more of. (Come on Stephanie Garber! I want to know about the tattoos, what they mean, and more about Legend and Julian's childhood!).

But for me, the biggest flaw in Finale was the fact that the entire end of the book was based on a HUGE gaping pothole! When Scarlett travels back in time to steal a dress from her mother and try to imitate her to make the Fallen Star weak, she takes a dress newly collected from the dressmaker. The Fallen Star NEVER SAW PARADISE IN THAT DRESS! Garber tries to get around this by saying that he purchased it for her, but he wasn't there, and never saw it. Giving a dressmaker a design idea is not the same as recognising a garment that he'd literally never seen.  Add to that the fact that the villain was overcome by what amounted to Scarlett just asking really nicely and I was just spectacularly underwhelmed by how this series ended.

I still enjoyed reading Finale, and indeed the entire Caraval series, but I'm not going to lie; the end did leave me a bit disappointed.