Once Upon A Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber: A Book Review
Genre: Fantasy
With all the hype on Bookstagram, I was thinking that Garber’s Once Upon A Broken Heart would be a great read – don’t get me wrong now, it was a good read, but not really something extraordinary. My main issue with the story was how slow the writing was; I just keeping waiting and waiting with nothing to show for it. I would end up skipping whole sections to read further before doing back and starting to read where my bookmark was just to see how point A got to point B.
All-in-all, though, Garber does has a story with a lot of potential. It is whimsical and enchanting. It reminds me a bit of the Grimms Brothers actually. While nothing serious unfolds for our MC, Evangaline, it is hinted at that the stories/histories are not actually what they appear. (This might not be canon, but I seriously think that Jacks story is wrong. I think every girl he kisses, he falls in love with only for them to not love him in return, thus creating a never-ending cycle of unrequited love aka what the Prince of Broken Hearts is supposed to represent. Garber, if you are reading this and haven’t thought about that – the idea is all yours to do with it what you want.)
Ultimately, looking at the whole book in general, I would say that the downfall of this book is the writing. The ideas are there. The potential is there. There didn’t seem to be any plot holes or misspellings. What was wrong was just the pace and overall writing. To fully explain, when I talk about writing, I am including every inch of the term: I am thinking about the diction, the connotation, the syntax, the focus, the world-building, the characterization, the scenes and setting, the unity of the whole picture, the tone presented, the style of text, and the narrator’s voice through it all. In layman’s terms, when I mean writing, I mean WRITING writing.
I wanted to reiterate that Garber’s work was not bad. It just could use some more tweaking and fining out. Of course, I typically think most first books in a series are. When you have an idea that needs a series, sometimes that first book doesn’t speak to you in a way the following books do. I think the case here comes from most of the idea being latched to more of the middle of the whole story and Garber had to go back and build around it to make sense.
Who would most enjoy the work and who should stay clear (if necessary):
If you like fariytales, Aesop’s Fables, the ACOTAR series, and the FBAA series, this story would be right up your alley.
| Plot: | 10 / 10 |
| Characters: | 10 / 10 |
| Writing: | 5 / 10 |
| Editor: | 10 / 10 |
| Total | 35 / 40 |
Title: Once Upon A Broken Heart
Author: Stephanie Garber
Edition: First Edition; Hardcover
Published: 2021
Publisher: Flatiron Books
ISBN: 9781250268396
If you want to get it: Amazon; Barnes&Noble
Rosey Reviews 