Finale By Stephanie Garber

Author: Stephanie Garber
Published: 2019
Genre: YA Fantasy

Finale is Book three of The Caraval Series

Synopsis From Goodreads:

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.

My Take:

The reviews for this third and final installment of The Caraval series are mixed. Most people either love it or hate it and I can understand why. This book has many wonderful aspects. The prose is beautifully written and hooked me from the opening line. It starts with a sweet scene between Paloma (the mom) and Scarlett and Tella. It gave so much insight into who Paloma was as a mom and as a person. The labeling of the sections (“Before the Beginning”, “The Beginning”, “The Middle”, “The Almost-ending”, and “The True Ending”) drew me in and gave it a touch of the fairy tale feel of the other books in the series. Garber’s signature lines such as “He smelled of magic and heartbreak” and “Filling the tiny apartment with sugar and dreams” abound, but are not as prevalent as in Caraval, and I missed them. 

Rather than being told from a single viewpoint, the chapters alternate between Scarlett and Donatella but heavily favor Tella. This is a good thing because Scarlett drove me nuts. So did Tella to be honest. Scarlett acted out of character and her love triangle was not remotely believable. Her storyline could have been eliminated and the story wouldn’t lose much. After liking Tella so much in Legendary, she comes off as viciously selfish and whiny in this one. The romances are juvenile and cringe-worthy. Most of the book focused on the high school drama of the love triangles (there were 3 overall) and sexual innuendos were tossed around like candy. By the end, I wasn’t truly rooting for anyone.

The story takes place outside the Caraval game setting which zaps the fairy tale feel of the previous novels and gives it a different flavor. This is what I missed the most. It held the same characters but felt like a different world…a more normal world. Garber would have done better wrapping up the love stories of the sisters in a couple of chapters at the end of Legendary and making this a spin-off novel. The expectations of a similar magical fairy tale were not met.

I did like the book, despite all the negative comments. Learning about the history of the fates and more about Paloma left me wanting more. It made it clear that nothing in life is cut and dry. The plot was bogged down by the overdone romance, but I loved the challenges presented to the characters and the way everything came together in the end. The end especially was fast-paced and enjoyable.

Finale would be so much better if a lot of the whining, puerile romance, and innuendos were removed. It was a long book and shortening it wouldn’t have hurt! I would still recommend it if you liked the first two books…just don’t go in expecting a similar flavored story (and be ready to skim through a lot of nonsense).