Title: Once Upon A Broken Heart
Author: Stephanie Garber
Series: Once Upon A Broken Heart trilogy
Dates Read: 05 – 09/09/2024
Published Date: 28 September 2021
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 408
Pace: Medium
Content Warnings (May contain spoilers)
Bullying, Classism, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Fatphobia, Grief, Infidelity, Murder, Toxic relationship, Violence.
Who is this for? Teenagers, Young Adults, Adults.
This book covers:
- The journey to find true love and the hurdles along the way.
- Learning who you can trust in the world, even if it’s in the most unexpected places.
- Traveling to faraway places to start your life new.
Format/Disclosure: Library, paperback.
Rating: 3.5⭐
Review:
Evangeline is an orphan – both of her parents are dead, and she now lives with her aunt (who hates her) and her cousin, Marisol (who doesn’t seem to have much opinion). The only true good thing in her life is her love, Luc, however out of nowhere he decides that he will be wedding Marisol. Evangeline is convinced that Luc has been cursed, and rushes to the Fate of Broken Hearts to try and stop the wedding and have Luc returned to her. Instead what occurs is a journey to a faraway land, a marriage to a prince, and a tale of learning to trust those who you shouldn’t.
This story was.. fine. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it. Evangeline was an okay character, but it felt like we were in her head too much, and her thoughts just went on and on for too long. She often ignores what is right in front of her, and believes her thoughts over her feelings/gut intuition to her own detriment. She needs to learn the “When someone shows you who they are, believe them” mantra, because often people acted in ways that were suspicious, gave a flimsy excuse, and she believed them (Even when the little voice in her head was telling her not to.)
I knew from the beginning that Jacks would make another appearance, and he was a large part of the book. I’m not quite sure if I actually enjoyed Jacks or not. I imagine he’s meant to be the mysterious, but mischievous Fate we’re all rooting for, but I didn’t particularly care for him. He at least seemed to have Evangeline’s best interests at heart, but it did feel like if he just told her his true intentions, the story would’ve been a lot shorter.
Marisol was suspicious from the beginning. I’m not sure if she’s meant to be a red herring, but I just didn’t trust her. Evangeline is so convinced that Luc has been randomly cursed, and maybe it’s because I live in a world without magic or curses, but why would someone randomly curse a stranger for no reason? The impression I got is that Evangeline & Luc’s relationship was a secret, so unless you were close to either of them, how would you know & why would you care?
I thought Apollo would make a bigger feature in the book, so it was a shame what happened to him so early on. My one annoyance was the flourish-y writing. Everyone is making such specific and particular expressions, with their eyes widening or glistening or showing exact emotions, but that’s not really how people communicate in real life. I’d love to live in the world of a storybook where you can so easily see exactly what someone is thinking or feeling just from how wide their eyes are.
The story was fine. I’ve put the next 2 books on hold at my library, so I may continue the story when they become available, but I’m not rushing out to finish it.