A review by keysmashhh
Once Upon a Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber

adventurous mysterious medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

2.75

Plot: 3/5
Character: 2.5/5
Relationships: 3/5
World-Building: 2/5
Genre: 2/5

  • im so confused why ive seen everyone RAVING about this book online recently, like it's mediocre at best 
  • the word id used to describe the plot is tentative. like every discission made by the MC seemed to be a bit of a stretch and unjustified other than the need to drive the plot forward. defiantly thriving with the main character syndrome where lots of coincidences just happened to align to allow the plot to move forward 
  • like with Caraval, the world-building just felt lazy and underexplored like the opportunities for political intrigue were there but any time the plot seemed to drift towards something interesting/meaningful it felt cut off abruptly 
  • the romance was...questionable, don't get me wrong there were some moments where i was kind of here for it but this was overwhelmed with the sheer amount of just...no moments i had with the male MC. 
  • i got so sick of hearing about his appearance which seemed to be described in every scene with very little change overall 
  • the construction of the magic system/world-building left me so confused and by the end of the book i just had more questions and no answers?
    why were the fates trapped in cards? what made chaos so special? VAMPIRES???? BUT NOT LIKE NORMAL ONES???? 
     
  • the end "reveal" felt stale and a bit unimaginative, and at no point did I genuinely feel SHOCKED by any sort of plot twists (
    with the exception of Luc in the vampire den 
    )
  • i would like to sue for damages for having to read the phrase "with a come-hither look" - no thank you
  • such a tiny thing but the amount of bad foreshadowing in this book really irked me - like our MC would be like "there's no way so-and-so could be at this ball" and then two lines later "Oh look it's them, what a surprise" - like come on, that's a cheap writing trick 
  • the female MC was "I'm not like other girls" with her rose gold which she INSISTED on reminding us at all times always (i guess this can be justified as foreshadowing for the prophecy but at some point you've got to reign it in) 
  • in summary, as good as caraval, which in this case, not great - i honestly feel kind of tricked into reading this one, so many people swore it was better than caraval but i guess not