Carnival Of Souls [Hardcover]

I have a funny relationship with Melissa Marr books. It's not love/hate per se, more like the enjoyment of greasy fried rice from the local, that despite knowing it's no good still enjoying from time to time.

Anyway, I was very interested to see Marr's first real break away from the Wicked Lovely universe, and at first I really enjoyed this book.

Marr introduces a pair of worlds, one ruled by daimons, the other our human world. Witches exists as a third species that span the two. Our main protag, Mallory is an adopted daimon, living in the human world under the delusion that she a human being raised by a witch (I think I got that right.)

Aya is a hybrid witch-daimon hoping to successfully gain political power (by competing in the Carnival of Souls) in the demon world - which is ruled by Mallory's birth father. Standing in her way is her lover, who she must either kill or confide her hybrid status and risk her own death.

Rather than come across as convoluted - Marr successfully creates an intriguing world with well rounded characters with 'real' motivations and tension filled relationships.

So why am I crying poor execution?

firstly this book has way too much 'tell.' Now I'm not trying to be authorly and snarky. It's just so much of the world building and some scenes (including what must have been the oddest sex act, described in the most blaise of prose ever.) Was simply stated by the narration rather than being included in the action.

For example two of the characters were curs, or lower caste daimons. Yet very little happened to really make this believable, just we were told this in the narrative.

My other qualm, is that this book was somewhat un-epic in plot. Despite setting up a high tension setting, I felt that was no overarching storyline, which also made the ending feel abrupt and driven more by the need for future books in the series, than an resolution.

I also felt that Carnival of Souls was two novella's combined into one novel. Despite Marr's best 'twist' attempts Aya's and Mallory's stories are only linked by the most contrived circumstance, and could have stood alone as short stories from the same universe.

Overall assessment - I will continue reading this series, but with mixed feelings.

Carnival of Souls was one of my most anticipated reads of the year. I think when I read the blurb I just saw "deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite," and made assumptions. I assumed this was going to be an intense action-packed book about this deadly competition that was also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. I expected blood, guts, love, loss, heartbreak, crazy heart-wrenching/tear-jerking scenes.. Instead, the book kind of felt flat.

This was one of those stories where the book just felt like words on a page. I didn't get pulled into the story. I didn't feel like I was in the middle of the action. I just didn't care about the characters. And on top of that, I felt like the world building barely existed. For me, the world building is good when I have a perfectly clear picture of everything and feel like I could just slip away and exist in the fantasy world. But in Carnival of Souls there were so many unanswered questions or unexplained parts of the world. What exactly are daimons? They're shapeshifters, but that's basically the only knowledge I came away with.

Even the "deadly competition" just felt... lame. Melissa Marr could have really hyped it up to be scary, intense, and dangerous. But it didn't feel that way at all. At the very beginning of the book, two characters have to face what could have been a really intense fight, but there was no intensity. It was like two people going to work or something.

To make things worse, Carnival of Souls suffers from insta-love. When the story starts, Mallory and Kaleb had apparently already known each other for a while, but it's not clear how long. But they clearly aren't that close because Kaleb had never been to her house before. Then, he comes to her house for the first time, they have one kiss, and suddenly Kaleb is saying stuff like this:

"I don't have a cell phone, but I can get one if you want me to." He took her back into his arms. "I'm yours to command, Mallory."
--Carnival of Souls, Page 109

Yours to command? That's not even romantic. I don't want to command my boyfriend. They only kiss once and he's confessing his undying love, risking his life for her, saying "you're mine"?? Sorry, but this doesn't fly with me.

Furthermore, Mallory's whole situation was annoying. At first I thought she was an awesome strong character because she was running around with guns and training to kill daimons. But then there's all this annoying stuff that I won't go into detail about to avoid spoilers, but it basically makes her look like a weak character. And it felt like every other page she was saying:

Good daughters don't question their fathers.

There was a reason for that, but it just annoyed me. It made her look lame, pathetic, and naive. And the constant repetition of that line had me clawing my eyes out.

Let's be honest, there are a lot of people who love this book, so I don't want to say don't read it. Looking at the reviews, there's a good chance that you might like it. But this book just wasn't for me. It couldn't hold my attention, I was doing a lot of skimming, and was eager to just hurry up and move onto the next book. I haven't read any of Melissa Marr's other works, but it seems like if you enjoy her other books, you might enjoy Carnival of Souls. I'm really bummed that I didn't enjoy this book, but I guess sometimes it just happens. Maybe you'll have better luck!

Carnival of Souls is the story of two magical races -- witches and daimons -- that aren't exactly at war with each other, but are definitely not on good terms. Mallory is the daughter of the daimon ruler, but her daimon nature is hidden from her when her mother hides her with Adam, a witch. (None of this is spoilery -- it's revealed in the prologue). Adam raises her human, since she can't pass for a witch (in this story, being a witch is not something you can become; it's an actual separate species), and teaches her to fight, and to hate daimons.

Then, of course, everything gets thrown into chaos when Kaleb -- and other daimons hired by Mallory's true father -- find her.

Carnival of Souls switches between many points-of-view: Mallory, Kaleb, Aya, and also snippets of Adam, Belias (Aya's former betrothed), and Zevi (Kaleb's packmate). It's all third-person, so it's not confusing, but I'm not sure the single chapters from the secondary characters' POVs were really necessary. Mallory, Kaleb, and Aya would have been plenty. The others are interesting but superfluous. Maybe they were included because those characters will play bigger roles in the sequel(s), but I think in that case, we could still have waited until the sequels to hear from them.

Mallory is the axle around which the entire story revolves, and the problem with this is that she is the weakest character. Her back story is fascinating: a daimon child, heir to the ruler, raised by a witch who loves her as his own, ignorant of her own nature and taught to hate her kind. Unfortunately, every time we visit Mallory's POV, her thoughts revolve around one of three things:

1) Kaleb, the fluttery feelings he causes, and the fact that she can't date him

2) Wondering what her father stole from the daimon ruler that's causing them to be pursued (spoiler: it's her)

3) "I hate daimons. They're so terrible. I hope I never meet one."

And these are all valid things for her to be thinking about, but it starts getting old after a while when she keeps not growing as a character. She learns new things, sure, but nothing that really changes her or helps her evolve. I can only find her constant incorrect observations ironic for so long. Then I need her to have some sort of revelation that changes how she views the world. Which she does, eventually, but by then it feels like too little, too late.

Fortunately, Kaleb and Aya are much more interesting and well developed. Kaleb was my favorite, because his character had the most depth. He was a fierce and merciless fighter in the Carnival (which is nothing like a real carnival, FYI), but a gentle and protective packmate to Zevi (which, to clear up the whole "packmate" thing -- daimons are basically werewolves). He, like most daimons, hates witches, but finds he can make exceptions in certain cases. He has no qualms with engaging in morally questionable (or abhorrent) activities to support himself and Zevi, but he tries to be an upstanding guy with Mallory. And it all works.

Aya, I can't really get into here without spoiling some big reveals, but suffice it to say that she had her own interesting developments that made me eager to learn more about her character. She wasn't quite as multi-faceted as Kaleb, but she was close.

The world-building and the action in this book was spot-on. The world of The City was gritty and dark and violent, and it was a great contrast to Mallory's life in the familiar human world. And the fights in the Competition were disturbingly vivid. Yes, there were some points when certain aspects of their violent lifestyle didn't quite ring true -- at one point, Kaleb has a rib sticking out through his skin, but after having it literally hammered back into place (someone's been going to The Dark Knight Rises school of chiropractic care), he's cool to stroll around with just a bit of soreness. Maybe this is in part due to his daimon nature, but it made me want to call shenanigans. But overall, I thought it was a fascinating and creative world, and I liked how it was portrayed.

This story was a quick, easy read. Melissa Marr's prose flows comfortably, and I was kept engaged throughout the entire book.

Then there was the ending, which left me kind of disappointed. The whole book felt like it was building up to a central revelation, and then it happens, and it's rather anticlimactic. The reactions I expected were simply not there. Plus, a late-stage development is thrown in a few chapters before the end, which is obviously supposed to set up a sequel, but seemed to prevent this book from achieving any satisfying closure. There are several big plot arcs set up in this story, and most of them were left dangling by the end. I'm fine with having a central conflict span multiple books, but I need for the first book in a series to resolve most of its secondary arcs while still leaving the overarching one open. And this one just left almost all of them open. It leaves me feeling like I just read a really long prologue instead of a novel, and I don't like to finish a book with that feeling.

Overall, I thought the story was promising, full of excitement and action and dark creativity. It just didn't fully live up to its potential. However, the storytelling was engaging enough, and the world and characters interesting enough, that I will come back for the sequel.