Once Upon a Broken Heart: book review

Title: Once Upon a Broken Heart

Author: Stephanie Garber

Release date: September 28th 2021

Pages: 408

My rating: 3/5 stars

Synopsis:

How far would you go for happily ever after?

For as long as she can remember, Evangeline Fox has believed in true love and happy endings . . . until she learns that the love of her life will marry another.

Desperate to stop the wedding and to heal her wounded heart, Evangeline strikes a deal with the charismatic but wicked Prince of Hearts. In exchange for his help, he asks for three kisses, to be given at the time and place of his choosing.

But after Evangeline’s first promised kiss, she learns that bargaining with an immortal is a dangerous game—and that the Prince of Hearts wants far more from her than she’d pledged. He has plans for Evangeline, plans that will either end in the greatest happily ever after or the most exquisite tragedy. . . .

*Spoiler alert*

Once Upon a Broken Heart brought me back to those moments of peace when I discovered the Caraval trilogy. It has all my heart because I read it during a very difficult period of my life and returning to that world awakened my love for reading.

I had very high expectations. What made me love Caraval wasn’t the characters nor the romance in it, but the world-building, the descriptions that made everything sound like a fairytale. Stephanie Garber has always depicted the magical world of Caraval in the best way possible, making the places, the magic system, and the peculiarities of the world-building more “fairy” than I could have expected. But in this book the descriptions that made me fall in love with the previous trilogy were non-existent. I expected of being transported to this new kingdom while feeling the magic staining the air and marking every page. Unfortunately, this great and so-called majestic ball that should have lasted even for months, went on for barely a night. Plus, I didn’t feel there, the writing was too detached. The kingdom wasn’t characterized as I hoped and I didn’t feel the magic I felt while reading the trilogy.

This should be a book that would have deepened Jacks’ characterization, showing us what happened after Finale’s end, but Jacks isn’t as present as I expected him to be. I really wanted to learn more about him, his personality, and his motives, but we merely meet him during the second half of the book. Once Upon a Broken Heart is entirely focused on Evangeline, a character I appreciated a lot, and yet my mind wanted to know more about Jacks. I had the impression that I didn’t learn anything more about him and it just disappointed me so much.

“Heroes don't get happy endings. They give them to other people.”

Evangeline is a great character as I said before. She believes in real love and she would do anything to be loved again. After her parents’ death, her object of desire isn’t a real partner and a real love story, but someone that would love her unconditionally just like her parents did. Even though she doesn’t love Prince Apollo, she accepts his request for marriage not for the stupid reason of “I’ll eventually fall in love with him”, but because she desires to be loved even more than to love. She’s feeling utterly alone and when her stepsister betrays her, we see Evangeline finally starting to grow. After Apollo’s death her dreams start to change, to evolve and so she changes with them. Evangeline and the meaning behind her were probably what made me really enjoy this book.

“I believe there are far more possibilities than happily ever after or tragedy. Every story has the potential for infinite endings.”

The plot wasn’t developed as I hoped. The mystery isn’t even solved, it really seems that there was a lack of plot since for the great part of the book nothing happens. And I really don’t want to talk about vampires, but I really have to. Why? Was it necessary to ruin the magic system with VAMPIRES?

I was almost afraid for Evangeline or Jacks to become vampires, otherwise, I don’t know what my reaction would have been. There was no need to introduce vampires in a world that doesn’t need them. That really left me speechless.

In the end, I can say that I expect a lot more from the second book, so let’s see.