Before I start the actual review, I'd like to place a warning that this isn't going to be a professional review, nor is it going to be without spoilers. Proceed at your own risk.

With that out of the way: this was fucking horrendous.

I didn't go into this expecting it to be spectacular (this pun is the only levity that shall exist in this review; cherish it), but Stephanie Garber's books mean a lot to me (Caraval is the book I credit with getting me back into reading) and I was looking forward to a fun, campy, cash-grab, Christmassy time.

What I got was a TellaLegend low-calorie dark romance kidnapping spectacle, complete with her mentally repeating phrases such as "the possessive touch that shouldn't feel good, but does" as he slips her hand up her skirt whilst she is blindfolded, gagged, and bound and you (the reader) don't know she's aware who her captor is. You aren't even supposed to know who her captor is. For all intents and purposes, you're meant to read it as though she's being assaulted. All for it to wrap up with the happy realization that she'd actually asked to be kidnapped by Legend and that she was "pretty sure" it was him for most of it.

What the actual fuck?

It's at this point of the review that I'd like to clarify: I'm not kink-shaming nor am I insinuating that roleplay is inherently harmful. But there's a very big difference between fiction depicting consenting adults' sexual exploration and a book being sold as a YA Christmas novella romanticizing SA/completely ignoring consent (Tella actually tells Legend ((referred to as 'her captor' in this scene because the reader isn't supposed to know it's been Legend all along)) to stop and he keeps going.)

This isn't about whether or not sex belongs in YA. This is about a novella with a really harmful message being poorly marketed and published for 12-18 year olds.

My indignation aside: this also just really sucked. We get barely any Scarlett (or Julian), most of the book (pre-kidnapping) revolves around the same Tella/Legend crap that ruined the original trilogy, and the plot is just... abhorrently dumb.

Honestly, the only good thing I have to say about it is that the art was very pretty and Christmassy.

Though it may not sound like it, I really was incredibly excited for this. Caraval is a book that meant so much to me when I first read it and I also really enjoyed the Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy. When this was announced, I was really looking forward to returning to the world with a holiday twist - a sad mistake on my part.

I'd like to think that Stephanie Garber didn't think about the implications of this book, but I find it hard to believe that no one brought up these concerns before it made it to publication.

Overall, I'm just really sad/disappointed that this was the direction they decided to go in. This could have been such a fun, cheery (while still maintaining Stephanie Garber's love of the dark/twisted) time if we'd thought for literally 2.5 seconds about the implications of the story and how it could come off the wrong way.

Also, if Tella and Legend just fell off the face of the earth but that's another point entirely :)

I don't recommend this, unless you really want 0.2 seconds of Scarlett and Julian and some festive Caraval art.