Roll up roll up to the wondrous, magical world of Caraval where you’ll question your very sanity. One sister races against time to search for her sister whose been captured by the mysterious Legend. On the run from their abusive father, Scarlett is thrown into the high stakes and high illusion game of Caraval with one goal: Find her sister before it’s too late oh and of course return back to her hometown to marry a man she has never met.
Garber has created such an intricate, magical (in overusing the word magical) world where there are endless possibilities and illusions. I found myself falling in love with this world and wanting to know more about the mysterious man behind the game. Legend is such a profoundly strange character, he sucks you in leaving you with nothing but questions and fascination. The strongest point of this book by far is the world building and the what-the-fuckness. You think you know a character and then you are deceived before your very eyes.
My new crush is Julian. Oh how I loved the character of Julian. I found Scarlet rather head strong and naive at times. It seemed that she constantly was drawn in by the illusions.
All in all, this was a 5 star experience and I’ve now brought myself Legendary. I’m ready to be sucked into this world and I hope I never leave
Don’t be fooled by the colourful, exotic beach-y cover because this book is entirely more in-depth and darker than that. You may look at this and think you’re in for some kind of fun, sweep-you-off your feet romance whilst you sip pina coladas in Cancun but it’s more like cuddling up in a blanket whilst it rains. We follow our once fairy princess, January, a published author who relocates to her fathers beach house, a year after his death to write a book. In true romantic comedy style who could be her next door neighbour other than her rival – crush from college? Gus and January decide to swap genres, Gus has to write romance and January literary fiction in a contest of who will be published first.
ALL THINGS… SPOILERS AHEAD
I saw myself in January, I had that same light and flair for life and was dimmed by the soul crushing affects of reality. My ex partners spoke about me the way Gus spoke about January in the beginning, a fairy princess living in a illusion bubble. However, Gus of course was our misunderstood male who had been In love with January for years whom couldn’t express it because he was under the impression she hated him. This is played out a ton in Contemporary and Romance books, but much like Christina Lauren, Emily Henry was able to stop me rolling my eyes. January is described as soft, someone who can’t find her feelings, and think you will find that I am the inspiration for this character ;).
◦ My heart just broke for January having to create a version of herself who is always bubbly and light in the wake of her mother’s diagnoses and of course her perfect picture of love and family being destroyed by her fathers affair. Emily really showed just how complex and non-linear grief is in Beach Read with January missing her father and loving him deeply but simultaneously hating him for the pain he caused. She really described that feeling of being so close to someone but never truly knowing them, only seeing those parts of a person that they will let you see and in the end, do you ever really know someone?
At first, I saw Gus as just another Scorpio man who pretends that emotions are an illusion but as the book progressed and along with January we got to witness the abandoned child within, I felt so much compassion for Gus. He never had anyone to be there for him, his marriage was in shambles and he found it hard to be open to January, despite desiring her. At times, January was quite entitled and didn’t understand the way Gus worked. She wears her heart on her sleeve, you know what January is feeling because she’s open emotionally and she was never taught otherwise, whereas Gus never had someone to tell him that his feelings are valid. So, I wasn’t at all surprised that when January found out that Gus was married and going through a divorce, information he never shared with her, she took it personally. In that moment, I believe January was projecting her feelings from her fathers affair onto Gus. Despite all this. January and Gus grew as people through the course of this book. January was able to come to terms with her fathers affair and notice that in life there are good and bad moments but the moments don’t amount to a bad life or take away the love. Gus was able to finally open himself up and let himself be loved and of course he learned to dance in the rain.
One of my favourite parts was Gus explaining to January how he sees her and the admiration he has for how she sees the world. As a spiritual person, I love the conversation of how different people see and experience the world.
The letters, one for every year January lived, handwritten by her father filled me with such intense emotions. He truly loved his daughter unconditionally and saw her as his greatest achievement. Although, after reading the letters I had to put the book down and reflect on the fact that I never had a relationship with my Dad and all I ever wanted was for him to love me and choose me. I suppose I relate to both January and Gus.
I would love for Emily to write January’s book about the family-circus, I would so read that.
Genres: Young Adult Contemporary, Teen Fiction, Mental Health YA
Themes: Abuse, Mental Health, Injury, friendship
★★★★
I was sixteen, and I honestly believed I was due a love story
Sara Bernard, Beautiful Broken Things
Beautiful Broken Things is a YA contemporary centred around the beautiful intensity, hardships and jealously of teenage friendships. Friendship is at the very core of this very real story and I want to emphasise that if you aren’t someone who can handle books about extremely real flawed characters, I’d stay away from this.
Caddy and Rosie have an inseparable bond and have been best friends for a lifetime, but when the new girl Suzanne moves to Brighton and develops a friendship with Rosie, Caddy becomes extremely jealous and believes that Suzanne is threatening their lifelong friendship. Suzanne has a dark past and mysterious secrets that Caddy is determined to uncover, what happens when the seemingly worst thing that happens to you turns out to be the thing you needed all along?
I want to begin by talking about our insufferable protagonist, Caddy Oliver, the noticeably flawed private school girl with a plan to experience something significant to override her self acclaimed uninteresting self. Caddy has the destructive ideology that significant life events – more specifically tragedies, are at the core of being an interesting individual, and if we’re being honest with ourselves that is an ancestral wound passed down through lifetimes and I am certain many people have felt this way before. People wear their trauma as a badge of honour, as though the life events that affected them most give them some kind of credibility and opening to defend themselves. Whilst this makes Caddy unlikable, I love how Sara chose to use this with the aim of showing how flawed the teenage brain can be.
The companion novel, Fierce Fragile Hearts further emphasises my theory that Suzanne was always supposed to be at the heart centre of this story. The first book shows us Suzanne from the very flawed perspective of Caddy who idolises her and takes on the role of caretaker, whilst in the second instalment, we are seeing Suzanne’s story through her own eyes. Whilst I can see the critiques and flaws other readers have about this book, I appreciate the reality it’s drawn from. I’m not a person who enjoys reading about unrealistically perfect characters. I much prefer a growth arc with flawed humans learning important life lessons. Although, I feel like this book fails to give Caddy that much needed growth.
Suzanne is so beautifully flawed and she carries her trauma with her. She is someone who needs another person to take care of her and validate her. I saw my teenage self in Suzanne. Caddy needs to be needed because she sees herself to be extremely uninteresting with no significance in herself or her life events. You’ll find yourself hoping that these two break through the barriers of their self depreciation. Once you get past irritation that is Caddy, you’ll see that this is a beautiful story about friendship and mental health and how destructive that can be.
This will be controversial as I’ve only read but a snippet of Taylor Jenkins Reid’s highly acclaimed Daisy Jones & The Six, but Imagine Stevie Nicks reading as Daisy. I now can’t imagine anyone else reading it as an audiobook. Would you like to hear this or rather who would you pay to read DJ&TS to you?
Bookish Rising 