[Review] Carnival of Souls
Thursday, December 27, 2012
Title: Carnival of Souls
Series: Carnival of Souls #1
Author: Melissa Marr
Format: Harcover, 306 pages
Genre: YA, Fantasy
Publication Date: September 4, 2012
Published by: HarperTeen, HarperCollins Canada
Source: ARC received from Publisher for honest review
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Description
In a city of daimons, rigid class lines separate the powerful from the power-hungry. And at the heart of The City is the Carnival of Souls, where both murder and pleasure are offered up for sale. Once in a generation, the carnival hosts a deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite. Without the competition, Aya and Kaleb would both face bleak futures--if for different reasons. For each of them, fighting to the death is the only way to try to live.All Mallory knows of The City is that her father--and every other witch there--fled it for a life in exile in the human world. Instead of a typical teenage life full of friends and maybe even a little romance, Mallory scans quiet streets for threats, hides herself away, and trains to be lethal. She knows it's only a matter of time until a daimon finds her and her father, so she readies herself for the inevitable. While Mallory possesses little knowledge of The City, every inhabitant of The City knows of her. There are plans for Mallory, and soon she, too, will be drawn into the decadence and danger that is the Carnival of Souls.
From Melissa Marr, bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely series and "Graveminder," comes a brand-new tale of lush secrets, dark love, and the struggle to forge one's own destiny.
My Thoughts
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Melissa Marr’s newest novel Carnival of Souls delves deep into the fantastical
world of The City, where daimons and witches coexists, and where power is
determined by strength and resilience. Like many countries around the world,
The City has its elite, and it is through The Carnival of Souls that the
underprivileged are allowed to get the chance to join this group of royals. The
Carnival of Souls allows for residence at the bottom of the food chain a beacon
of hope in order to escape the dirty “black mask” work, which involves fighting
and killing, in order to survive.
Throughout
the novel we follow multiple characters told in the first person perspective.
We meet Aya, who is desperately trying to escape the female conventions that
are thrown upon her, such as marriage and breeding. Then we meet Kaleb, a lower
class daimon who can shift forms at will and has a need to create a pack with
anyone he trusts. And then we meet Mallory, a teenage girl who lives in the
human world and is trained to fight daimons by a witch. All of these characters
are unique and memorable, they are surrounded by secondary characters that make
this story stand out among the masses.
Of
all of Melissa Marr’s novels, this one is by far my favorite. In Carnival
of Souls, Marr has
the ability to interweave storylines and create a very complex, dark fantasy.
She has the ability to communicate the politics between daimons and witches
extremely well, and is able to directly compare the human world with The City,
which was very nice to see. One might think that having multiple characters’
point of view might get confusing and taxing the longer you read, but that is
not the case here. I thought that the multiple viewpoints added a lot of
character and dimension to an already complex storyline. It also blew me away
how some of these characters intersected at certain points in the novel, and I
thought that was done exceptionally well.
I
especially loved the subtle romances that emerged throughout the book, I love a
good love story, and this book did not disappoint. I am not saying that it was
the best romance I have ever read, but it was satisfying to read. It will be
very interesting to see where these relationships go in the books to come,
especially concerning Aya’s character. Aya’s point of view was my favorite to
read, not just because she was an amazing fighter, and the scenes were very
well written, but also because of the way her character presented herself. She
was strong and independent young woman that wanted to stop at nothing to gain
the freedom she thought was rightfully hers.
Carnival
of Souls’ fight
scenes were very gruesome and disturbing at times and I thought they added a
very good contrast to the human world. Marr’s descriptive details draw you in
and make you feel every punch and see the blood spilled on the floor. Melissa
Marr had created a world like no other and it will draw you in from the first
page to the last! It was a great read!
1 comments
This sounds like a really exciting and creepy reads. I've never read a Melissa Marr YA novel before but I think I would like to start with this one.
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