Review: Carnival of Souls (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.
From Melissa Marr, bestselling author of the Wicked Lovely series and Graveminder, comes a brand-new tale of lush secrets, dark love, and the struggle to forge one's own destiny.

Author: Melissa Marr
Publisher: Harper Collins
Release Date: Sept 4th, 2012

First, I listened to this book on Audio and greatly enjoyed the voice of the speaker. He describes each character in detail using the correct tone of voice. I truly did enjoy his reading. 

As for the book, I am not quite sure about this one. It had moments that I loved and moments where I was bored. There are four seperate point of views..which I am not particurally thrilled about. It is hard to feel for one character when they change so much. I did find myself liking Aya and Belias alot more than Mallory and Kaleb. Aya is such a strong, confident character and I liked that about her. She overcomes odds and stands for what she believes. Belias just loves Aya...and basically she is all he cares about. I truly loved their connection and everything that happens between and to them. Mallory and Kaleb are a different story. I found Mallory to be weak and on the verge of annoying at some times. She also seemed to be pretty clueless about the world around her even though she was trained up to know about damions the enter time. Kaleb was an ok character but I also had a hard time believing their "immediiate" love. 

The book begins and you think it is going to be all about the "fights" that these characters are signed up for. The fights are a deadly competition between daimons where you fight to win your standing in the community. Yet about halfway thru the book I realized that this is only a small part of the actual plot. 

Therefore I will have to give this book a 3 1/2 star. It was an ok read and I dont regret reading it but for some reason I just could not connect?