Once Upon A Broken Heart Book Review

• Immersive world that is described with all 5 senses
• I loved all the cute little unique eccentricities and details
• Such rich characters I had a hard time letting go of them
• The plot intrigued me and kept building mystery
• Character motivations were strong

Caraval, Stephanie Garber’s debut trilogy that shares the same world as this book, is one of my top 3 favorite series to recommend because it’s AMAZING. Needless to say, I had high hopes for the start of this new series, and it was so so good. Better than I anticipated. This was one of those books where I text my book friends saying “I can’t wait until you read this so I can talk to you about how great it is!” Once Upon a Broken Heart is set in the magical world of the Caraval series, but follows Evangeline, a girl trying to move on from a broken heart and being a statue for weeks and weeks, and the mysterious, heart-breakingly beautiful Fate, Jacks. They both get tangled in a web of mysteries in the kingdom to the north when Evangeline earns the favor of the prince and tries to figure out once and for all if Jacks is on her side, or only using her to get what he wants.

My biggest compliment of Garber’s books are her immersive, atmospheric world building abilities. Her writing style almost feels like watching a movie. It’s always fun to see a new part of a fantasy world, and I loved the northern kingdom most of the book is set it. With this one, Garber wove in more of a myths and legends aura to the world building in the culture of the north and what they attribute meaning and importance too.  This book felt like being plopped right into the middle of a fairytale world.

Confession: I didn’t like Jacks before the book. I didn’t care about him much in the Caraval series, but after reading this book, I was 100% in love with him. I got to know Jacks so much better. A lot of depth was added to him and we get a better peak at the emotional side of him. Evangeline was an ideal heroine, one every girl who has ever had her heart broken can relate to and she was a very active protagonist. She chose to do things, and those things had consequences she then had to deal with. She was brave in her choices and brave in the aftermath. And it was very relatable to watch her journey of figuring out what it truly means to be in love and how addictive that feeling can be-how we can cling to it too tightly.

Romantic subplot is one of Garber’s strong suits. The romantic tension between Evangeline and Jacks was there throughout. And there is so much back and forth between hating each other then protecting each, which is exactly what I want in an enemies to lovers type trope. And I think Garber used this romantic tension well in maintaining uncertainty about Jacks motives, which is what made him such a compelling character for me.

My one very small complaint about this book is that, and I never thought I’d say this, almost too much happened in the beginning. The first third of the book was very interested and jam packed with action, but so many big things happened that I still haven’t nailed down what the main inciting incident was, which made it hard for me in the first half to know what the main thing was I should be most concerned about. But besides that, the pacing was spot on and from page one to the end, Once Upon A Broken Heart held my rapt attention.

Do yourself a favor and READ THIS BOOK! It will be added to my list of top recs, right there with Caraval. (One quick disclaimer, while I don’t believe you need to have read the Caraval series first in order to thoroughly enjoy Once Upon A Broken Heart, my personal opinion is you’ll love it more if you have read the Caraval trilogy first).