More than once, events happen behind the scenes that magically move the story along. Garber lives by this rule and will shamelessly allow characters who know more than both the main character and the reader, to find and use secret loopholes to save the day.
“Every curse has a way to be broken, and a loophole,” explains Dante. If Garber had narrowed this list down, she may have been able to successfully streamline the focus more onto the main intrigue of the series: the multi-night game of Caraval. There are eight Greater Fates, eight Lesser Fates, and a slew of Fated Objects and Fated Places that all require explanations.
But the Fates are hardly mentioned in the first novel and all the questions about the game of Caraval that were left unanswered remain so in “Legendary” because Garber is too focused on explaining the history and powers of the many different Fates. Some of these Fates, such as the Prince of Hearts, have escaped from the deck of cards they have been trapped in for years. This sequel revolves around the Fates, a group of powerful god-like beings who ruled the world many years ago. Instead of focusing on the truly unique and interesting setting she has created, Garber continuously repeats details about boys or dresses that hardly even make sense. What exactly do secrets and wicked magic smell like? Garber has created this magical world, yet she fails to give it the attention it truly deserves. There are only so many times a reader can handle being told of the way Dante smells “of ink and secrets and wicked magic.” In fact, upon closer investigation, many of these descriptions are pure fluff. But the descriptions rarely stray from the handsome men that Donatella comes across or the magnificent dresses she and her sister wear. “Genuine amusement lit a pair of silver-blue eyes, as dazzling as crashing waves, shadowed by untamed hair so gold it could have been turned into coins,” she writes. Garber takes advantage of the fact that her readers don’t have a complete grasp of the rules of her magical world and, frustratingly, makes the rules up as she sees fit.Īt first, Garber’s prose shines. Garber has a knack for describing the unique world she has created, but upon closer look her descriptions border on the nonsensical. Whereas the first book focused on Scarlett, the elder sister, “Legendary” follows Donatella as she tries to win the magical game of Caraval and save her mother. Stephanie Garber’s latest novel “Legendary,” the sequel to her well-received debut “Caraval,” continues the story of the two Dragna sisters.
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