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A review by justinekorson
Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber
adventurous
emotional
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.25
If you read my reviews and/or saw how I rated the Caraval series this will come as a surprise to see this book so high but, as with the Caraval series, I have some issues I want to address.
1. Is Evangeline really just that naive? I mean this in the nicest way possible.... Evangeline is stupid. Her constant back and forth with herself OVER EVERYTHING was tiresome. "Apollo isn't cursed. He actually loves me I swear!" "Jacks cursed Apollo to love me. This isn't real" "But it could be real! I believe it could be real!" WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!! If she hadn't been so trusting of Jacks literally none of this would've happened. You can't ask the Fates for things without consequences and she couldn't sus out literally any of the lies that Jack was telling her DESPITE EVERYONE, EVEN JACKS HIMSELF, saying she shouldn't trust him.
2. I still can't get over what Jacks did to Tella in Finale... he was wonderful in Legendary but in Finale he was written so badly that I fell out of love with him. I almost didn't want to read this series because of it. How could I root for a character who had FORCED SOMEONE with magic to love them by MANIPULATING AND REMOVING THEIR FREE WILL. He didn't do anything nearly as bad as that in this novel (he felt like the same character I fell in love with in Legendary) but I kept thinking back to those horrible disgusting feelings I had as I read what he did in Finale.
3. Again... Stephanie doesn't seem to want to kill off characters. (or in the case of Finale, killing of people at random for no reason). This is like the third (fourth? it's hard to keep track) time that someone's "died" only for her to say "SIKE!" and suddenly they're not dead. It's honestly annoying at this point.
4. .... Vampires.... seriously? This was a problem I also had in the Caraval series where lore was sometimes introduced so carelessly, like an afterthought and I'm somehow meant to believe it's been true this whole time? Evangeline was CONSTANTLY going on about stories from the North at the beginning, dragons and mermaids, etc. But she'd NEVER heard of vampires being real in this story she never even mentioned hearing a story about them from her mother! But Jacks made it sound like EVERY HUMAN has a fascination with vampires and knows about them. If that was true why did it surprise Evangeline so much??
1. Is Evangeline really just that naive? I mean this in the nicest way possible.... Evangeline is stupid. Her constant back and forth with herself OVER EVERYTHING was tiresome. "Apollo isn't cursed. He actually loves me I swear!" "Jacks cursed Apollo to love me. This isn't real" "But it could be real! I believe it could be real!" WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT!!! If she hadn't been so trusting of Jacks literally none of this would've happened. You can't ask the Fates for things without consequences and she couldn't sus out literally any of the lies that Jack was telling her DESPITE EVERYONE, EVEN JACKS HIMSELF, saying she shouldn't trust him.
2. I still can't get over what Jacks did to Tella in Finale... he was wonderful in Legendary but in Finale he was written so badly that I fell out of love with him. I almost didn't want to read this series because of it. How could I root for a character who had FORCED SOMEONE with magic to love them by MANIPULATING AND REMOVING THEIR FREE WILL. He didn't do anything nearly as bad as that in this novel (he felt like the same character I fell in love with in Legendary) but I kept thinking back to those horrible disgusting feelings I had as I read what he did in Finale.
3. Again... Stephanie doesn't seem to want to kill off characters. (or in the case of Finale, killing of people at random for no reason). This is like the third (fourth? it's hard to keep track) time that someone's "died" only for her to say "SIKE!" and suddenly they're not dead. It's honestly annoying at this point.
4. .... Vampires.... seriously? This was a problem I also had in the Caraval series where lore was sometimes introduced so carelessly, like an afterthought and I'm somehow meant to believe it's been true this whole time? Evangeline was CONSTANTLY going on about stories from the North at the beginning, dragons and mermaids, etc. But she'd NEVER heard of vampires being real in this story she never even mentioned hearing a story about them from her mother! But Jacks made it sound like EVERY HUMAN has a fascination with vampires and knows about them. If that was true why did it surprise Evangeline so much??
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Death, Blood, Body shaming, Death of parent, Gaslighting, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail