This book was definitely better than the first. Tella's point of view is much more palatable than her sister's. The story was also more linear, which helped in understanding exactly what was going on without too many tangents. It did feel like this game was made entirely for Tella and I didn't care for that aspect. I did however, enjoy that there was more world building in this book and that the world of Caraval didn't just exist outside of an actual world.
Sadly this book still has plenty of that awful purple prose, those ridiculous metaphors that mean nothing and take me out of the story as I puzzle over what secrets taste like or some other nonsense. To me it shows a major weakness in writing and is the reason I dropped a star from this book. I'm glad that there were far fewer instances of this in the second book and hope that the third book might be rid of them entirely (but I'm doubtful). Over all, I feel a little gracious giving this book four stars, but I did like it better than the first (which I gave a generous three stars). But it was definitely better than the first.