Book Review- Carnival of Souls

I finished reading Carnival of Souls by Melissa Marr earlier this evening for an Around the World ARC Tour.

From Goodreads:

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.

This book was interesting enough.  But it was very dark.  A little too dark for me.  The acts that went on in the City with the fighting and how some curs had to earn money to survive disturbed me.  I'm not sure why since I've definitely read other dark books, but it did.

That being said, I found that I really liked Mallory.  And Aya.  Both of their stories intrigued me and I liked how they were connected.  Kaleb was okay.  I enjoyed his scenes with Mallory but not so much the ones in The City.

The story ended kind of abruptly.  I get where it could be a good cliffhanger but I feel like it sort of just stopped.  But I liked the book enough to look forward to picking up the sequel when it comes out.

I gave this book a rating of 3/5.

This book fulfills items in the following challenges:
2012 Reading Challenge 150+: 67
2012 ARC Reading Challenge: 55
2012 Young Adult Reading Challenge: 58

*FTC Disclosure: I was given this book for free for an honest review as part of the Around the World Tours.