Review: A Carnival of Dreams
First of all, what I’m about to review is not a book in the traditional sense, as in, it’s not published because it’s a fanfiction. It’s based on a time period after the events of the movie Labyrinth (1986). Can I just say that the only time I’ve ever watched this movie was when I was seven while at school and it scared the crap out of me and I’ve never watched it again (I might reconsider that though). As you can imagine, seven year old me was all: “no! the baby, not the baby! etc etc.”
Thank you to Nina for the recommendation – A Carnival of Dreams by PaintedGlass is actually a very well written piece and pretty much the length of a small novel.
First of all, you needn’t watch the movie first in order to understand the context of this book, small things are revealed throughout it and it helps you to piece together what happened beforehand. The world-building is pretty good actually – the story is more focused on Sarah and Jareth as individuals and therefore the location and Labyrinth etc are not mentioned as much, but what is mentioned, is described so well it forms a picture in my head. Actually, I could pretty much picture the whole novel in my head as a movie – which I always love to do. Also the character building was pretty spot on. The actions and words of the characters matched the situations they were put in and I thought that their relationship moved at the perfect pace.
So I was really into Jareth, haha. But I thought that as a character, he was strong, and he was sexy, and sarcastic as hell. I absolutely love bad-boy, sexy, sarcastic, and powerful characters exactly as Jareth is. I think my favourite chapter in this story was the one where we focused just on Jareth and his watching of Sarah and such, ugh. I loved how he was when he was with Sarah, but also without too. I don’t really know how to describe him, I just have no words. I also loved the fact that he was a king and was all “you brought a king to his knees” etc.
And Sarah, she’s strong and determined. She enters the Labyrinth for a second time to win her freedom from the Goblin King. She’s an independent woman who scolds Jareth for helping her when she believes herself capable enough of rescuing herself. Throughout her journey, she makes a number of discoveries that shape the way she views things. She is physically strong and mentally capable and all her qualities make her irresistible to the Goblin King.
Overall, I actually did enjoy the story very much, and if it was a published book, I would buy it. I absolutely loved their sex scenes and especially the dialogue coming from Jareth. Sarah’s journey and her decision making, and also Jareth’s journey really made for an interesting read. I kind of want to go and watch the movie again now, but then I don’t want to ruin my imagination’s image of Jareth and I’m also not 100% sure that the movie won’t scare me again (haha).
