A review of the last installment of the “Once Upon a Broken Heart” trilogy by Stephanie Garber
*Big, lung-filling-and-emptying deep breath*
Hello folks and welcome back! You’re in for a real treat today. This is going to be one of those book reviews where I will do my absolute best to write a rational, coherent, thought-provoking review about a new release… But then throw that out the window because, REASONS.
I’m going to do my best to not spew a bunch of spoilers, but I may go there. If you don’t want any for this book, I’ll make sure to mark where spoilers start and where they end.
“A Curse for True Love” is the third book in a YA Romantasy (romance/fantasy) trilogy by author Stephanie Garber, who also wrote the best-selling series “Caraval.” (Which I recently found out from a Booktuber I follow (and love) is set in the same world as the “Once Upon a Broken Heart” series. You don’t have to have read that series to enjoy this trilogy [I didn’t… read “Caraval” I mean], but there are some “easter eggs” that tie back to “Caraval,” so take that how you will.)
The first two books of this trilogy, “Once Upon a Broken Heart” and “The Ballad of Never After,” were devoured by Yours Truly almost a year ago, so I’ve (im)patiently waiting for this book to come out since then. The first book had good world building and setting up Evangeline’s story of heartbreak and sadness. Because that’s how this trilogy gets kicked off: Evangeline heartbroken and angry because the man she loves is marrying her stepsister. So she makes a deal with a Fate (Jacks, the Prince of Hearts) to stop the wedding. Wellll… It didn’t go the way she expected. Unfortunately, you have to be very specific when making a deal with a Fate, otherwise they get all sneaky on you. Which is exactly what Jacks does.
I don’t want to get too much into the first two books; I may post more about them later, maybe even have a more thorough discussion about the trilogy as a whole, but right now let’s stick to book three.
Okay, maybe one last thing about book two, “The Ballad of Never After”: The reason I was so stoked for “A Curse for True Love” is due to the humungous cliffhanger Stephanie left us on. Basically this: Evangeline is in love with Jacks, Jacks is in love with Evangeline, Apollo is super upset and scorned (and also loves Evangeline) so he decides to erase her memories of basically the entire series leading up to this moment and convince her she’s his wife. Annnnd scene.
So. This is where “A Curse for True Love” picks up. Evangeline now believes she’s gotten her Happily Ever After; a handsome prince is in love with her, she is now a princess, she lives in a wonderful castle and is doted on hand and foot. There’s just one teeny tiny little problem: she can’t seem to shake the feeling that she needs to tell someone something. However, there’s a problem: she doesn’t know who and she doesn’t know what. But, by gum, she’s gonna figure it out! Meanwhile, Apollo is doing everything in his power to make sure Evangeline doesn’t figure it out. He’s also using any free time he has not prince-ing it up to kill Jacks, the Prince of Hearts and the love of Evangeline’s life, once and for all.
Okay, so that’s about as far as I should go with the description. The book jacket is just as vague. And there’s a reason.
I gave this book a wobbly 3 stars out of 5. The “wobbly” implies that I’m feeling generous with that 3. It may be because I hyped this book up so much in my head because that cliffhanger was one big… *head explodes*. Alas, it didn’t live up to my expectations.
Like I said above, there’s a reason why the book jacket is vague with what goes on in the book. Because nothing really happens in this book. I am le sad. I could obviously see what was going on the more I read.
It feels very obvious that Stephanie Garber is going to expand on this universe, which I’m all for. It’s rich and has the opportunity to be expansive. But she seems to have started that before finishing up this trilogy. A lot of characters and stories have been left open-ended. Brought in as cameos in a way and then faded into the background. It’s like she didn’t have enough time for them, but she brought them in anyway. It was a way to make sure the reader still knew they were around, still knew they had stories to tell, and that we would be interested. (Which I am, but still.) But don’t do this at the expense of the current story. It felt like it was a lot of this:
Evangeline: Gosh, I sure wish I could remember stuff.
Apollo: No need, you’re my wife and I’m your husband. What else do you need to know?
Evangeline: idk, just whatever happened to me over the last year or so.
Apollo: Well, a bad bad man did that to you, and I’ve decided to kill him as retaliation.
Evangeline: Cool cool, but could you maybe figure out how that bad bad man erased my memories and maybe get them back for me?
Apollo: *sweats profusely* … Why?
Evangeline: … Because of the reasons I just said?
Apollo: *sweats even more* … But… but… Look! A distraction!
And then every once in a while Jacks pops up and does… random self-defense classes with Evangeline?
I think the biggest indiscretion is how nothing really happens… Until the final 20-30 pages. It went from zero to “woah, what is happening??” Don’t get me wrong, I’m all for fast-paced climaxes ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) but after all the nothing that happened? It was just odd and jarring. Felt a bit hollow and unfulfilling.
Okay, the ending. So here’s the thing: Apollo wasn’t a good enough antagonist to carry this book. He is a good side-plot antagonist, but not the main one. I think that’s why the ending fell flat to me. That and, well, curses.
There are so many curses in this damn universe. Did I know this coming in? Yes, I did. This book at least. I remember reading the first book in the trilogy and thinking, “Dang, I can’t keep these curses in order.” Apollo was under a curse in the first book, then gets out of that one only to find out that there’s another curse that’s bonded him to Evangeline, but then, behold! Another curse that basically goes against the previous curse to the point where if he fulfills the second curse, the first curse will kill him! There’s just so much going on.
The curses were the true antagonist in this trilogy. Fight me all you want, but to have curse after curse after curse throughout the series, then have the epilogue be in the POV of the curse(s)?? They are not tools or weapons that are controlled by Fates and whoever has the power to cast curses; they are their own beings and they create their own plots and sometimes bog down the story and gal-durn! Hell, even a curse helped save the day in the end! Everyone else just kinda stood around like, “Aight, cool” as stuff went down.
However, if done right… Having curses in this universe potentially be sentient beings of some sort? I mean, damn, if Stephanie Garber leaned into that? Hmmmm… I am suddenly intrigued. Alas, that’s not happening in this scenario.
So I seem to have a lot of thoughts on this, but I don’t want to bog down this review, (Bog seems to be the word du jour for me.) so I’ll leave it here in case all I talk about are spoilers.
SO! Have you read the “A Curse for True Love”? How about the first two books in the trilogy? Loved it? Hated it? Have thoughts, feelings, WORDS? Let me know in the comments below, I’d love to hear from you! I love talking about books, ya know.
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