Review: Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr

In a city of daimons, rigid class lines separate the powerful from the power-hungry. And at the heart of The City is the Carnival of Souls, where both murder and pleasure are offered up for sale. Once in a generation, the carnival hosts a deadly competition that allows every daimon a chance to join the ruling elite. Without the competition, Aya and Kaleb would both face bleak futures--if for different reasons. For each of them, fighting to the death is the only way to try to live.

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.

I really liked Melissa Marr’s Wicked Lovely series (or at least the first two books I read) so I was going into Carnival of Souls with high hopes and I think that if I had gone into it with lower expectations, I would’ve enjoyed it more. I felt like I was waiting for lots of amazing things to happen and I was quite disappointed with the story because nothing amazing happened until the end. Also, insta-love happened in this book (which I hate).

The fighting matches were exciting and were one of the things I liked about this book. There was a lot of action, killing, and suspense. Aya would have to be my favorite character because she was so strong and knew what she wanted. The story is told in third person omniscient so I got to read about Aya, Mallory, Kaleb, etc. The names of the daimons were mostly American names which kind of bothered me because when I think of daimons I think old/latin/not American names.

The Carnival of Souls was a good start to a new series and although I wasn’t amazed by it, I absolutely want to read more of Mallory and other’s stories. Melissa Marr’s writing was fabulous as ever which made the book more likeable for me. 3.5 Stars!