Once upon a broken heart by Stephanie Garber
Dear Books Lovers,
and I thought that Caraval was crazy. Stephanie Garber’s inventiveness never ceases to amaze me. I can never find a negative side in her stories. There are some strange things, things that might be absurd, but nothing could really be defined as such in a book by Garber why? Because of the way she creates a world, anything is possible.
If you know Caraval you know what I’m talking about. These worlds are built on the absurd, the magic, the strange and the unexpected, betrayal and nothing is really what it seems. I devoured Once upon a broken heart as I devoured the Caraval trilogy. One page leads to another. The writing is so immersive and chapters always end this way that it doesn’t allow you to stop but force you to continue one more and then another.
This book was a bit of a definition of a drug because I finished it in a very short time and still managed to enjoy every single page. Evangeline is our new protagonist. A few days before the events that happened in Finale, Evangeline had looked for Jacks because the love of her life was about to marry her sister, but he couldn’t marry her because Luc loved her. Jacks stops the marriage but some things happen and Evangeline ends up turned to stone for a full six weeks.
Weeks in which many many things happen. When she is awakened, Jacks has disappeared, the world has changed following the events of Finale and her sister has not married Luc because on their second attempt at marriage Luc was attacked by a wolf and disfigured. But bad things are not always everything, sometimes good things can also happen. In fact, Evangeline is called by the Empress Scarlett and her sister Donatella and is sent, as ambassador, to a party in the North, the place where she was born and where her mother also grew up.
In this order, Evangeline goes North with her sister, meets Jacks again, meets the prince who has to find a wife, gets married and much more that I can’t tell you because spoilers. But I assure you absurd things happen in the book, and also beautiful things, interesting situations and scenes that anticipate a breathtaking enemies to lovers.
I had fallen in love with Jacks since he appeared in the main trilogy, but here I am loving him even more because he is not the Jacks we already know but he is a prince of hearts whose heart has been broken by the only person who he has ever loved. Being close to Evangeline can only lead to two things, either her death, or their falling in love with each other.
As soon as I finished reading Once upon a broken heart, I immediately wanted to read the second one, the story was interrupted with some twists and doubts that I hope will be resolved as soon as possible, but I am torn because, if from on the one hand I would like to read the second one, on the other I don’t want to because I have heard a lot about its ending which, apparently, is even more shocking than that of the first, and since the third will be released next year, I am torn.
But tell me, have you read the Caraval trilogy? Did you like it or not? It is one of my favorite trilogies and yet many claim not to have liked it. Let me know your opinion.
