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

adventurous emotional hopeful inspiring mysterious sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? N/A
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

It reminds me of Furyborn, but not as well executed. The plot is pretty decent, the prose is good and the premise is intriguing, but the characters and their development could’ve been better. 
The main problem with this book is that it doesn't really know what it wants to be. At the start it seems like a fairytale-esque magical Disney princess type story but with a more sinister twist, but by the end it's more of a mystery plotline. 
The world building could’ve been better, my main issue with it is that the book kind of assumes you’ve read Caraval (which is set in the same world) and so doesn’t give us more than the most necessary amount of information, which for me was not enough. Hopefully when I do read Caraval that’ll fill in some of the gaps. 
Our main character is a bit snarky and pretty brave, so she was decently written. Either way, it was fun and the writing was good. 
The book overall just needed more polishing. Not a favorite and far from perfect, but still pretty good. I will be reading the sequel.