Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber: A Review to One of Booktok's Bestsellers





    For my thirteenth birthday, I was given a $150 gift card to one of my most favorite places in the world: Barnes and Noble’s. I was so excited to pick out a new book to read, and embark on whatever adventures the pages within may contain, and I wanted to pick a book outside of my comfort zone because I suppose I’m a philanthropist now (if you guys didn’t get the joke, just smile and nod…)? A nice employee came up and noticed my struggles of picking the right novel, and asked, “So what kind of books are you into?” I hate this question; my mind goes blank anytime someone asks. Why? I haven’t the faintest idea. “Uhh…” I looked around for anything that might help me, and I spotted a sign. “YA fantasy,” I say with false confidence. I mean, I wasn’t lying, but I prefer fantasy that’s a bit more…intense. She glances at the shelves until she picks up a trilogy that will forever hold a special place in my heart: the Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy by Stephanie Garber.

Summary:    

    The Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy (Once Upon a Broken Heart, The Ballad of Never After, A Curse for True Love) follows the story of Evangeline Fox, an orphan who lives with her uncaring stepmother and her sweet stepsister Marisol. Evangeline falls in love with the ever-so-charming Luc Navarro. But on the day, they plan to announce their love to their families, something doesn’t go as expected…Luc proclaims his love for Marisol instead and announces their engagement.

    Evangeline strongly believes this was her stepmother’s doing, and in a desperate search of answers, she makes a deal with the Fated (basically meaning magical and somewhat godlike) Prince of Hearts: Lord Jacks. One of the laws of her universe is that one should never bargain with Fate, and her breaking this rule is what sets the tone for this page-turning trilogy. This series follows Evangeline on her journey through magical forests, love, and heartbreak, and I may have pulled six or seven all-nighters reading these books…

 What I enjoyed:   

    This book was so enjoyable, the plot twists were so unexpected, and they were insane. The side plots were also very well balanced with the main plot, which I’ve seen many authors struggle with, but Stephanie Garber executed the side plots phenomenally. Something I especially loved about this series was how every character had a “quirk” that made them stand out. For example, Evangeline has natural rose-gold hair (I don’t know about y’all but I love when authors give the characters natural hair colors like Stephanie did with Evangeline) and Jacks’s kiss will kill anyone except his one true love. There were so many details that just made these books incredible.

What I disliked:

    There were two main things that I didn’t necessarily enjoy about the books, and the first one is Evangeline’s Naïveté. She is very gullible and extremely susceptible to trickery throughout the series, but In my opinion that’s just a classic case of main character syndrome. And the second was the plot holes that never get resolved. An example of a plot hole would be how Jacks mentions multiple times about what life was like before he became a Fate, but he never actually reveals how he becomes one.

 

Overall, I would definitely recommend this book, it is a great combination of the YA, fantasy, and romance genres.

 

Rating: ★★★★★


-Justin Lewis


Comments

  1. LeafSeptember 15, 2025 at 10:57 AM

    You made this series sound so good..... I may have to start this immediately twin...........

    ReplyDelete

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