Hello everyone!
I am back with another book review, Tarot by Marissa Kennerson. Thanks so much to Penguin Random House for sending me an ARC of this book for an honest review, as always, all opinions are my own.
This story follows Anna, a girl who was never meant to exist. Born of her mother, the late Queen, and the King's friend-turned-enemy, Marco, a great magician, she has been locked up in a tower her whole life, under the rule of the man she believed to be her father. When the King realizes just how powerful she has become, he orders her execution. But Anna's three advisors, the Magician, the Fool, and the Hermit, help her escape and Anna finds herself in a world unlike her own. She knows that soon the King will find her and she must protect the people of this small, magical world she seems to have created straight out of her imagination.
Overall, I think this story has some good bones, but it needs a bit more fleshing out. I felt fairly indifferent from Anna's character, due to her spending her whole life in a tower, she came off as very naïve. I didn't really feel the connections she had with the other characters, everyone seemed a little one-dimensional. The story itself felt like it needed to be explained a bit better, I would have enjoyed seeing more of how the King and Marco interacted and what their relationship was like, especially because the outcome of that played such a large role in this book. I almost felt like I was thrown into the middle of a story, not the beginning.
There was a bit of romance but it seemed a little rushed to me. Basically, the first guy Anna saw, she fell in love with. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but I just thought we maybe had a bit more time to develop it a little more. Then, there was like a maybe-love triangle thrown in (but not really because there wasn't time to process feelings!)
I think my biggest issue - and this might just be me being petty - but this book has NOTHING to do with tarot or tarot cards. Sure, Anna can weave some magic tapestries that kinda come to life and create whole worlds inside of them BUT THIS ISN'T TAROT. I don't need tarot in a book, but you cannot call a book "Tarot" and have the closest thing be, like, world building!!
Overall, I found this to be a quick but, ultimately, bizarre read.