originally 4 stars (2017) -> 3.5 stars (2019)

Obviously I liked this book; I finished it in a single day.

The setting was incredible, beautifully balanced between whimsy and nightmare, and the characters really fit the narrative roles they were written into. I won't say the plot twists were wholly original, but I thought they were pretty well-played and I didn't see most of them coming (some great red herrings; my triumphant status update turned out to be completely mistaken!) but they made sense in context.

I do want to note that there are some passages where the prose gets to be a bit much, a little too flowery for my taste — particularly counterintuitive color-based metaphors (a motif repeated throughout the book, to my bemusement) and a lot of frankly weird figurative language. Overall though, it sets the tone and descriptively sets the scenes pretty well; I could get swept away (but not too much, as Caraval players are warned!) in the game alongside Scarlett.

ADDENDUM 2019: I am sad to report that this did not hold up very well to a reread, though I finally noticed the passages where Scarlett explains that she sees emotions as colors and a lot of the descriptions make more sense. But even having a general idea of the big twists somehow ruined my enjoyment of a setting that doesn’t seem quite as magical or enthralling the second time around ... or maybe I’ve just become a cynic.