Monday, November 2, 2020

Legendary by Stephanie Garber: A Review

2.5 Stars rounded up to 3 on the 1 to 5 scale because I liked this one more than Caraval and I figure the extra star should show that.

To start off with, the story held my interest better than book 1. I wanted to see the conclusion to the search and understand the different threads that circled around Tella. It didn't feel as if there were scenes or characters meandering around and forcing the story to move along to where it needed to go. Instead, it felt more natural, as in of course this is happening, it's the next logical point for the story. I didn't get that sense in the first book but it was there in this one.

Concerning the characters, I definitely like Tella considerably more than I ever liked Scarlett in either book. Scarlett still bothered me in this story but she's barely around so my interest grew in Tella and the people that worked with her. Tella was stronger overall, more focused and aware, which allowed for a clearer sense of the book.However, the faults of book 1 are still around for book 2. There was a tiresome repetition in the writing that I sometimes glossed over while reading the book. Tella has a choice to make in this book, it could go either one way or the other, and that was repeated time and time again. If Tella makes this choice, then this will happen, but if Tella makes that choice then this will happen, and so on and so on. I got tired of it, all joking aside. I don't know the reason for it, and maybe I'm being cruel, but it felt like either the repetition was because maybe readers won't remember this apparent fact, and that's why it needs to keep being repeated OR maybe it was just for the sake of filling in the writing, trying to reach a certain word count. Either way, completely unnecessary because it kept taking me out of the book, which I was liking for the most part until the repeating started.

Another point is the telling instead of showing. Book 1 had Scarlett going on and on about her love for Tella, their devotion as sisters, but they were separated for the most part and whenever they were together, it didn't look like love. In this book, again Tella talks about the love she has for her sister, the certainty that she has in knowing that her sister loves her back, and AGAIN they are separated for the most part, this time by choice. The only good side to this is that this plot didn't depend on that to get to the ending, it didn't depend on a non-existent relationship. The point of the clues was a different search, focused on points that were shown over the course of the book, which made this story so much stronger than the first one. It's not necessarily a fault to the story but I feel like it needs to be pointed out that a series that has focused on the stories of two sisters still hasn't managed to create a realistic devotion between them. Perhaps the next book will put Scarlett and Tella truly together, and then everything already in place will make complete sense.

In the end, I do feel like Garber has grown as a writer. I wasn't eager to read this book after my experience with the first one but after reading Legendary, I will be reading the next book in the series. My interest in the world created here is enough to have me looking forward to the next release. Part of me even hopes that additional stories will be added to flesh out the background of this world because I feel like there is so much material to still be explored. I don't know of any future plans for the series but I hope the next book gives more than enough of everything if it is indeed the last book set in the world of Caraval. I would love it if the last book threw my world into complete chaos because of its sheer awesomeness. After this book, I think Garber is more than capable of it. 
 
Rating on my Blog Scale: 7 Stars.
 
I really enjoyed this book and I even bought this one and the final book in the trilogy, pointedly titled Finale, in hardcover. They look really nice on my bookshelf next to the ARC I got of Caraval.

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