Finale – Stephanie Garber

Finale by Stephanie Garber

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finale by Stephanie Garber is the third and finale book in her Caraval series. Caraval began the series and was Garber’s debut novel. I was immediately entranced by the world that she crafted, but was certainly left wanting more. (More detail, more worldbuilding, etc). She did not disappoint with her second novel, Legendary, and gave me the greater world depth that I was craving. So, of course, I was excited to dive into Finale and see how this epic story came to an end. I was not disappointed. Her series and writing have gotten progressively better as she goes along, although Legendary and Finale are both amazing and I don’t know if I could rate one higher than the other.

Finale picks up after the events of Legendary, once Scarlet and Tella find out the identity of Legend. If you haven’t read Legendary, then please do not continue as you will be spoiled. Although the reveal wasn’t unexpected, it does cause a lot of chaos in both girls’ lives and they must figure out how to move forward. Although it went in a very different direction than the previous two books, I was engaged the entire time.

This book was a nice blend of character development, backstory building, the looming horror of the Fates, and some intersecting plotlines. I loved the development of Tella and Legend over the course of this novel, even the deeper glimpses we got into Jack’s motivations, but I wished that we had gotten more from Scarlet and Julian. Even though they were present, they felt more like side characters (as they were in the second book) and I missed their story and interactions from the first book.

Overall, I felt that Finale was an incredibly well-done conclusion to the series. I felt that the character’s stories were well wrapped up and there weren’t any plot points that jumped out to me as not having been explained. It wasn’t full of action and plot twists, but it was satisfying and beautiful. The book also cemented this series as one of my favourite fantasies and I know that I will want to dive back into the world again to re-read and re-explore this magical world.

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