Book Review: Legendary by Stephanie Garber

Legendary by Stephanie Garber

Book title: Legendary
Author: Stephanie Garber
Genre: Young Adult fantasy
Published: May 29, 2018
451 pages
My rating: 4/5

"Your future can be whatever you wish. We all have the power to choose our own destiny."

Donatella Dragna has saved her sister Scarlett from an arranged marriage and escaped her father. But now she must pay her debt to a mysterious criminal and find out Legend’s true name. Her only chance of uncovering the secret is to join Caraval again and win the game – or else she might lose everything, including her life.

Legendary is the second book in Stephanie Garber’s young adult fantasy trilogy Caraval. I enjoyed Caraval, but I must admit it didn’t quite live up to my expectations. The same can be said about Legendary. My feelings are conflicted: on the one hand, Legendary was better than Caraval, but simultaneously and paradoxically I also found it more boring. I liked the plot and the expanded worldbuilding, but I just couldn’t bring myself to care about what was happening. I think that was because I didn’t connect with Tella even to the little extent that I did with Scarlett.

In Caraval, I didn’t like how self-centered Tella was. This book redeemed her somewhat. She is feisty and determined, and not as naïve as Scarlett. She knows what is at stake in the games, but that doesn’t stop her from making bad decisions. She is still reckless and thoughtless, although she has reasons for acting the way she does. We also learn now what her goal has been all along: to save her and Scarlett’s mother.

We see very little of Scarlett in this book, so I’m still not convinced that they are the models of sisterly love the series maintains they are. For how hard the book claims that they have a strong bond, they barely interact in this book either. Instead, Tella spends the book ogling and smooching two boys. The relationship between Tella and Dante makes even less sense than the insta-love between Scarlett and Julian – they have no emotional connection, and the supposed love between them seems only physical. Jacks, on the other hand, was creepy and honestly I’m a little hesitant to read Once Upon a Broken Hearts after I learned that the series is about him.

The plot twists were predictable. I could see who Legend and the Lost Heir were from miles away. In fact, the revelation who Legend is was so lackluster that I didn’t even notice the revelation as a twist. I had already come to the same conclusion, so I just turned the page and kept reading. I think the worst part of the book was that after it’s revealed who Legend is, Tella still spends the rest of the book being like “I wonder who Legend is. It can’t be that person,” even though she heard that Legend was that person!

As Tella needs to save the entire world from evil Fates, the stakes are higher in this book, but it didn’t feel like that. Tessa plays a different game than the other Caraval players that she is basically designed to win, so there’s never any doubt whether she will win Caraval or not. That adds to the predictability of the plot.

I’m not sure if the four-star rating I’m giving this book is accurate, but if you loved Caraval, you’ll like this book as well. If you didn’t like Caraval, I don’t think this book redeems the series enough to continue with it. I enjoyed both enough to continue with the series, so I hope Finale picks up the loose ends left by this book and wraps them up in a satisfying way.