A love worth fighting for. A dream worth dying for. An ending worth waiting for.
It’s been two months since the Fates were freed from a deck of cards, two months since Legend claimed the throne for his own, and two months since Tella discovered the boy she fell in love with doesn’t really exist.
With lives, empires, and hearts hanging in the balance, Tella must decide if she’s going to trust Legend or a former enemy. After uncovering a secret that upends her life, Scarlett will need to do the impossible. And Legend has a choice to make that will forever change and define him.
Caraval is over, but perhaps the greatest game of all has begun. There are no spectators this time—only those who will win, and those who will lose everything.
Welcome, welcome to Finale. All games must come to an end…

Well, here goes the third book in this rather fun and interesting trilogy, but it leaves a bitter taste in my mouth for I expected just a bit more of it. I’ve been contemplating this book changing and switching directions, characters growing and learning for a time now and somewhere in the middle of the second book, I realized I really loved where Garber decided to take her books. She upgraded her world from a game to a fantasy world of monsters and heroes, with impossible choices and two heroines who are left to fix all of it and save the ones they care about the most.

I don’t have much to say about this book, really, mostly because it wrapped the story nicely and brought a journey that is Caraval to an emotional and turbulent ending. Tella and Scarlett have come a long way from two frightened sisters on a small island and their story is about so many things but on the top of them all – sisterly love. I can’t ever get enough of siblings doing everything for each and being supportive despite their differences and disagreements, and Tella and Scarlett’s relationship presented exactly those qualities and love every family bond should have.

The reason I am going to give this book such a low rating despite its solid plot and the well-composed ending is romance. Eh, romance again, you say. Well, usually I wouldn't mind so much if the love story was written poorly, and, compared to all other aspects, has not a significant role in a book, but precisely because Tella and Dante’s relationship took a majority of the plot, I can’t get over how much I hated it.

It’s kind of the same thing as in the ending of Caraval when Scarlett found out Julian wasn’t who she thought he was and realized the boy she fell in love with doesn’t really exist. That, but Dante also happens to be power-hungry immortal with no emotions. So Tella stays in love with him and keeps chasing him around for about half of the book, then gives up and it’s pretty much will they won’t they pulling around forever. I was so exasperated from all of it that in one moment I started shipping Tella and Jacks (who is practically an immortal monster who blackmailed her and killed her lol)

All in all, I am glad I’ve read these books, but I think I need to take a break from YA fantasy, except some really awesome books, because the genre has kind of started to bore me. Slump please go away xd