Legendary Book Review

Legendary by Stephanie Garber

From Goodreads: A heart to protect. A debt to repay. A game to win.

After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister Scarlett from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn’t yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and what Tella owes him no one has ever been able to deliver: Caraval Master Legend’s true name.

The only chance of uncovering Legend’s identity is to win Caraval, so Tella throws herself into the legendary competition once more—and into the path of the murderous heir to the throne, a doomed love story, and a web of secrets…including her sister’s. Caraval has always demanded bravery, cunning, and sacrifice. But now the game is asking for more. If Tella can’t fulfill her bargain and deliver Legend’s name, she’ll lose everything she cares about—maybe even her life. But if she wins, Legend and Caraval will be destroyed forever.

Welcome, welcome to Caraval…the games have only just begun.

Last year, Caraval was one of the most hyped books of the year. I quite enjoyed it, even if I sometimes found it a bit hard to follow, so I was keen to get my hands on a copy of the second book, Legendary when it was released in May this year. It was a pre-order book since Waterstones were doing signed copies, but between the giant TBR pile and my suddenly waning enthusiasm, I only just got around to reading it.

Fortunately, it was one of those books in a series that is actually easy to get into. This has been something of a rarity for me lately, since so many books require you to go ahead and re-read the whole series to remind you of what has happened. Sure, I think if you want to be completely ready for Legendary, a re-read of Caraval is never a bad shout, but it also isn’t compulsory, thank goodness. I got along just fine with this book, despite not remembering more than about 3 characters.

Legendary switches it up a bit– this time the story is told from the POV of Tella, who we didn’t spend much time with in the last book since she was ‘kidnapped’ by Legendary for the Caraval game. It’s nice to read from Tella’s POV, she’s strikingly different from Scarlett, and she’s got a lot of secrets and motivations which set her apart even further. I thought she was a pretty awesome character, although I’d maybe hesitate to put her in the same category as other YA heroines like Aelin, Tessa Grey or Inej. She’s a good character, but although she’s reasonably fleshed out, I also somehow didn’t get a total sense of character from her.

I did love Dante, and the new inclusion of characters like Jacks. There’s a lot of grey area characters in this series that I’m really enjoying trying to understand. The plot is pretty tricky to follow along with, and at times that bugged me because I didn’t understand why a character was behaving in a certain way, or taking certain risks based on their goals. I think maybe more time and care could have been taken with establishing motives, particularly for Tella herself. I don’t want to go into spoiler territory here, but there were some moments when I wasn’t sure what Tella wanted, and she seemed to fluctuate between choices a lot, which is understandable since she’s faced with lots of difficult decisions, but I couldn’t always keep up with her. I  think it would make more sense if I understood exactly what she stands to gain and lose with each choice, but the plot switches things up so much that it often left me feeling a little like I was having the rug pulled out from under me.

Definitely, the strongest component of Legendary was the gorgeous descriptions. I really felt like I was right there in the world, and the amount of imagination that has gone into crafting all the magic and settings and the beautiful clothes and just the whole world, is simply staggering. I was a big fan of the inclusion of the Deck of Destiny in this book too. It sounded a little cheesy to begin with, but I thought it was a clever bit of world building and it added a lot of intrigue and mystery into this book. It’s incredibly well thought out, and I think any author looking to craft a truly magical fantasy book could do with checking out both Caraval and Legendary for examples of how to do it right.

Overall, I’m giving Legendary by Stephanie Garber an 8/10 stars. For the most part, I enjoyed the intrigue and mystery of the plot, even if I sometimes found it hard to keep up with all the twists and turns and betrayals. There’s lots of excellent characters added into the mix in this book that we didn’t meet in Caraval, and the driving thrust of the plot definitely kept me eagerly turning pages. I also liked the refreshing switch to Tella’s POV. Most of all, the descriptions and world building are some of the best I’ve seen in YA fantasy, and that’s why I’m keen to pick up book three when it is released next year.