The glazed and iced fairy tale: 'Once Upon a Broken Heart' by Stephanie Garber: volume 1 and 2
As a twelve-year-old girl, during the aforementioned in the previous posts wave of compulsive reading of everything that fell into my hands without clear selection, during the Christmas holidays I started reading Garber's 'Caraval'. I was captivated by this book, it was full of sweet magic, it was perfect for the twelve-year-old me. For some reason, I never finished the entire 'Caraval' series; I stopped reading at the first part, but I warmly remember this book and the Garber universe.
During the holidays, I bought the English version of 'Once Upon a Broken Heart' at the airport, having learned that it takes place in the same world as 'Caraval'. If 'Caraval' was an utterly delightful, powder-pink book for me, 'Once Upon a Broken Heart' surpasses it many times over in this regard.
Evangeline Fox is a girl believing in true love and she has always known that she will find her someday. But when a boy she considered to be her love of the whole life, he is planning to marry her step sister. Evangeline is so desperate to stop the wedding from happening that she impulsively makes a deal with Jacks. He's a Fate, known as Prince of Heart. And no matter how much his nick suggests him to be a sensitive romantic, he's in fact - ironically - heartless.
Jacks propose to Evangeline that he keeps the wedding from happening as long as Evangeline will promise him three kisses. And the first kiss reveals the wicked plan of Jacks that will lead to a catastrophy in Evangeline's life...
• My review •
Reading ‘Once Upon a Broken Heart’ and ‘The Ballad of Never After’, I felt like I had returned to the world of my sweet, childish fantasies: castles with beautiful gardens, princess dresses, magical curses, sugary, invincible love. That's how I see this universe - as the embodiment of my childhood's imagination about the land of magic. 'Once Upon a Broken Heart' seems so sentimental, although it is a relatively new book - it reminds me of my favourite series and the universe, the 'The School for Good and Evil' one, which has been mentioned many times here. It's the same charming world that, despite the dangers that lurk in it, retains its innocence.
I won't pretend that it's a book that stands out in terms of plot, construction or characters. In these aspects, it isn't anything new at all. However, I am captivated by its sweetness, which pours out of it in every word. I am particularly drawn to the love story which, no matter how you look at it, is one of the main motifs. During my last waffling about the romantasy genre, I forgot to add that to name a book with this subgenre, romance alone is not enough - the degree of eroticization is also important. To be honest, I've just gotten it after reading 'Once Upon a Broken Heart'. I hadn't realised how much the innocence of the romantic plot affects whether a given book belongs to romantasy.
'Once Upon a Broken Heart' doesn't have a single gram of sexualization, the entire love plot is based on a teenage feeling. This would not happen in any romantasy, this is simply the specificity of this type of books. That's why the title of fantasy with a romantic plot fits 'Once Upon a Broken Heart' perfectly - I came up with this term for such stories. Although the atmosphere of 'Once Upon a Broken Heart' reminds me of the atmosphere of 'The School for Good and Evil', I still insist that my favourite series cannot be called fantasy with a romantic plot because of too little content of love plots in the plot compared to other issues and the expansion of the world.
From the very beginning of the first volume of 'Once Upon a Broken Heart' I knew that the relationship between Evangelina and Jacks would evolve into a romantic one and in 'The Ballad of Never After', my suspicions were confirmed. This romance is SO adorable, it affects me more than the hypersexualised relationships in romantasy. I liked Evangelina and Jack's shy, sweet bond much more than, for example, the animal-like desire relationship between Violet and Xaden, which I discussed recently.
My utter Love For Jacks
And how is Jacks such a great love interest?! I really have a crush on him - I immediately add him to my list of book boyfriends. As for toxic bad boys, they are not my favourite type of character, they really discourage me. But classic 'bad' characters, such as Rafal or Rhian from 'School for Good and Evil', every time completely steal my heart. I really appreciate that Garber continues the trend from fifteen years ago for original 'bad boys' from the era before unhealthily controlling and overly masculine characters. This is another element of 'Once Upon a Broken Heart' that makes it so nostalgic, as if I had been transported back to when I was twelve-years-old girl, to the carefree land of balls under the starry sky, spinning on marble floors in wonderful dresses in magic trails and next to handsome princes.
Cover image © Hodder & Stoughton Publishing
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