Once Upon a Broken Heart Book Review

From Goodreads: 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….

Hey everyone,

First up, I just wanted to apologise for the very long break in posts. I’ve been having a bit of a rough time with some personal stuff lately, and my grandfather passed away a few weeks ago, which has been difficult. I’m also getting back into teaching this semester, and I’ve been struggling a bit to balance work, blogging, and streaming on twitch. But I’m hoping that a lot of upcoming train journey time means plenty of opportunities to write reviews!

Anyhow, just wanted to say thanks to Netgalley for an early copy of Once Upon a Broken Heart. Annoyingly, I didn’t get to it in time for the publication, but I still wanted to give my thoughts on the novel.

The premise of the story is very intriguing and I really enjoyed the early set up of the narrative. Evangeline is in a pretty thorny situation as her love is due to marry her step-sister, which causes all sorts of moral dilemmas and questions about what she should and shouldn’t feel about the situation. I thought this was cool, and immediately made me sympathise with her. The initial meeting with Jacks is also very well done and atmospheric and I found myself keen to dive in more.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t a big fan of the rest of the book. I probably should have known that I wouldn’t be, given that I fell out of love with the Caraval series pretty early on. Still, Garber has this very fairy tale writing style that I always crave more of, and so I was willing to give it another go. I think people who liked Jacks and want to see more of him will really eat up this story, and it was fun to see more of him. The worldbuilding too was very unique and I liked how Garber incorporated so many little details in it, but ultimately I think that’s where my issues with the novel really lie- as much as I enjoyed the concepts of the world in the book, it still somehow manages to feel a bit… empty almost? I found myself struggling to figure out where characters were supposed to be, or what was happening, I think in part because there was a lot of White Room Syndrome going on. While details of the world are incredibly thought out and intricate, there’s a real lack of descriptions that would help a reader figure out the settings where the scenes are taking place. While I enjoyed the whimsical style of writing, I wasn’t keen on how often the story relies on telling the reader things, rather than showing them, either. This was one of my main gripes with Caraval, too. When you’re writing in that kind of style, it’s hard to get that balance right. Some of my favourite books, such as The Raven Cycle series and Strange the Dreamer have similar styles, but I feel like they manage to walk that line between whimsical and telling. Again, I think it’s very similar in language and style to Caraval so if you enjoyed the series, you’ll likely enjoy this one too. I just personally found it felt a bit too young for me.

The characters were reasonably interesting, and I quite enjoyed Evangeline and Jacks, although I wasn’t too fond of most of the rest of the cast. Again, I have a few issues with the characters, mostly because a lot of them will behave in ways that at times doesn’t make sense or contradicts what we know about the character. There’s a lot of back and forthing about certain plot elements and decisions, particularly from Evangeline. I didn’t really understand some of the developments because of this, and again it was a pretty significant reason why the book fell a bit flat for me. Evangeline is, at times, very clever and shrewd, and then all of a sudden she’s super naïve when the plot calls for it, and I just felt like it was a bit of an easy fix. She was great at the start of the story, when she came across as capable and somewhat confident in herself, but it didn’t hold up for the whole novel.

Overall, I’m giving Once Upon a Broken Heart: 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There were aspects of the novel that I enjoyed. It was cool to see a bit more of Jack’s character, especially outside of the annoying love triangle stuff that I struggled with so much in the Caraval series. The worldbuilding ideas were very creative and inspiring and I loved all the little magical details woven through it. But ultimately, there was too much telling going on, not enough worldbuilding of key elements that were essential to the plot. Again, I love that kind of writing style, but there’s definitely other books that I would encourage people to try first, ahead of this one. Maybe Garber’s writing just isn’t for me?

What do you think about spin-off books? Do you love them or loathe them? Let me know in the comment section down below!