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 Goodreads)
I wanted to love this book so badly - I was so excited for it - but unfortunately there were a lot of things that just felt wrong or hit me in the wrong spot. However, I have a pretty strong feeling that the reasons I don't like this book are because of my own personal inability to look past certain things. I will say that Melissa Marr is a master at creating a fantasy world and she is a wonderful story teller.
The first half of this book was great. I couldn't put it down. The introduction to the world of daimons was perfect. If you've read Sarah Rees Brennan's The Demon's Lexicon, then I think you'll find somethings in here to enjoy. I was imagining Melissa Marr's world as the flip side to Sarah Rees Brennan's. I guess a lot of books mention the world where demons - or daimons - come from, but this book actually goes there. In fact, most of the book takes place there. It's such a rich place that has different rules, different customs, but is full of corruption.
Unfortunately, somewhere along the way my little skepticisms piled up and then exploded. I began to lose the point of the killing contest or the point of bringing Mallory back to her real father. I couldn't figure out why witches and daimons hated each other so much. Suddenly, I found myself asking more questions than I was getting answers and I got a little frustrated. Here's the strange thing though - when Kaleb and Mallory were together in the human world, I wanted to grind my teeth. But when Kaleb or Aya were in the daimon world, I quite enjoyed the book.
Kaleb is my worst nightmare. He's clingy, overprotective, presumptuous, impuslive, and incredibly selfish. Pretty much every time he was on the page I struggled to keep going. It was worse when he and Mallory were together, because their romance was so melodramatic. This said, I'm practically allergic to declarations of "I will follow you anywhere" and "I need you" so my view of Kaleb is slightly tainted. He's just not the kind of boy for me. I also understand that he's from a different world and operates under a different set of rules. I get why he is the way he is, but I still had a hard time stomaching him.
What kept me going thorugh this book was Aya's story. She is so fascinating to me. I kind of wish the book had been more devoted to her. But I think I'm totally biased here. Aya is willing to sacrifice love in order to become something. I understand that impulse more than I understand the kind of relationship that Aya and Kaleb have.
So there are a few of my thoughts on Carnival of Souls. You can take what I say with a grain of salt, because a lot of my issues were probably unique to me. If you're a Melissa Marr fan, I would give it a shot, because she does have a talent for bringing you to new worlds.
