Reviews with content warning for Cursing - A Curse for True Love

Not a bad conclusion to the trilogy, I think! Though I barely remember what happened in the previous book, besides the fact that it had a pretty big cliffhanger ending. Also, basically listened to this entire thing in a day while I was cleaning/organizing things from Christmas, so there's that! Squeaking one more book in at the last minute.

I still haven't read the Caraval trilogy, but I can pretty safely say you can read this trilogy without reading that. I enjoyed the romance, and the sort of overall fairytale quality of the book. If you like that Happily Ever After fairy tale feel, you'll most likely enjoy this book!

Garber definitely leaves room at the end for a potential to return to this world, and with how popular it is, I think she probably will! Most likely following a different set of characteres, though.

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bellebookcorner's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

“It had taken all the heartbreak, all the almost love and the wrong love, to know that this love was true love.”

Once Upon a Broken Heart trilogy has finally come to an end with this book!

This is one of my anticipated reads of 2023 and I’m quite satisfied with this ending.

It’s been a wonderful filled with loveable characters, enchanting world building, captivating fairytale vibes that comes with curses, magic, vampires and Fate.

I really enjoy my time following Evangeline right from the 1st book and I admire her for always believing in true love and her heart.

I also like discovering new information regarding the origin of the curses and also knowing more about the Vale family.

However, this book also comes with new questions without giving direct answers at the end which annoyed me a little bit.

But after reading the epilogue (from various different editions), I’m guessing the author has something up her sleeve for another adventure so I'll let this one slide!

As much as I like this book, I kinda wish there’s more of Jacks’s POV instead of Apollo. It feels like we’re seeing less of Jacks in this story, I would’ve loved to see more of him and Evangline together.

Overall, this book serves as a good ending and I absolutely love this trilogy as a whole. My favorite out of all 3 books would be The Ballad of Never After!

While I'm sad that I have to say goodbye to my two favorite characters, I’m glad to see Jacks and Evangeline finally got the ending they deserved.

“You are the love of my life.
You are mine, Jacks of the Hollow.
And you’re not going to be the end of me.”

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mistytm's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

Loved the book, I felt the other two in the series were significantly better and ACFTL felt very rushed, but any extra pages with jacks and Evangeline (and LaLa!!) are always welcome.
I think this series would’ve done better as a duology

with OUABH and Ballad both having a major plot as their focus, ACFTL was mostly tying off loose ends. I think Evangeline losing her memories was unnecessary, we were already familiar with Apollo being quite awful and she didn’t have any character development from losing them so I didn’t see the point. I wish we could’ve gotten more information on the history of the north, of the dates and how jacks and LaLa came to be ones, and exploration of jacks and Evangeline’s life as an immortal and a human instead of 200ish pages on the memory plot. Nonetheless I enjoyed the book and had no problem getting through it in 3 days!

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booknerderika's review against another edition

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adventurous dark hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

This started out better than it ended. The ending sort of fell flat for me and felt so rushed and a bit anti-climactic. Actually, the whole book felt rushed, if I'm being completely honest. I needed more and while I'm excited for another book in the Caraval world, I'm a little disappointed by this one.

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tays_books's review against another edition

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adventurous hopeful medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

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elowynlk3's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

5.0

>>🍎🏹🦊spoilers🦊🏹🍎<<

Jacks’s heart adventure was quickly done which I appreciated. We saw LaLa who I love and the Hollow again which I adored. All the little Easter eggs to her memories at the beginning were lovely. we did have to wait a minute to see Jacks again but it was scream-worthy when we did. Appreciated the pacing with Evangeline’s memories. Really liked the introduction of new things like vengence’s cuff and the tree of souls because little magical lore based things are some of my favorite parts of Stephanie garbers writing, it just feels so whimsical and magical and a place I would love to visit and explore. I was afraid we would be done with those little lore-based trinkets since it was the last book in the series but she did not disappoint 🙏. Suuuuch a feel good ending with minimal untied ends. THE APPLES GOT ME THOUGH ugh sneaky sneaky steph got me good with this like that was one of the main questions ive had and this girl just leaves us looking at us and smirking and holding up her hands lol. I guess we can dream and wonder abt it ourselves but the lack of finality and clarity with those freaking apples haha. He did say he won’t need them anymore tho so……..hmm. Poor sweet bby jacks though went through it. His dialogue sometimes tho hIt dIfFeReNt like they were quotable pieces of gold. And aurora being behind his prince of hearts-ness was pure evil I was upset. Good writing choice tho to give us background to that AND tie it to current people yes ma’am. LOVED Evangeline’s message abt her chasing other people’s dreams she read about in stories and how those dreams were never hers, they were just collections of dreams she’d heard abt. Poetic masterpiece. This book really took me for an absolutely wonderful, magical, and heat wrenching/warming adventure and I loved it. Great stuff 👌. This is my favorite series right next to TOG so if that doesn’t say something idk what will. Ty Stephanie for this work of art.

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bookishflower's review

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adventurous emotional mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

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chronicacademia's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character

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