Book Review: A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber

A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber

Book title: A Curse for True Love
Author: Stephanie Garber
Genre: YA fantasy
Published: October 24, 2023
386 pages
My rating: 3.5/5

She tried to pull away, but Jacks held tight, knotting her hair in his fist and keeping his forehead pressed to hers. “Please, Little Fox, remember.”

Evangeline Fox seems to have found her happily ever after. She is married to a handsome, devoted prince. But there is one huge problem: Evangeline doesn’t remember how she ended up married to the prince or who stole her memories. And worse, it seems her husband is determined to make sure she never finds out. But before they can have their happy ending, he must kill Jacks, the Prince of Hearts.

A Cruse for True Love is the third and final book in Stephanie Garber’s young adult fantasy trilogy Once upon a Broken Heart. This is an action-packed and fast-paced finale to the series, but I found myself wanting something more.

After finishing The Ballad of Never After, I was hesitant to start this book for two reasons: I’m not a huge fan of the memory loss trope, and I most definitely do not like the “my love can save him” trope. As it turned out, the memory loss trope was almost unnecessary given how easily Evangeline gets her memories back. And even though the idea that Evangeline’s love would be enough to save Jacks wasn’t subverted to the extent I would have preferred, at least Evangeline realized that in order to be saved, Jacks needed to love and be willing to give their relationship a chance as well.

My biggest problem throughout this entire series was that there were too many plotlines. Many of the side plots were abandoned, and a lot of the characters simply disappeared. What happened to Evangeline’s first love Luc, or her stepsister, or Apollo’s brother? There were so many plots and side plots that I wasn’t sure what the main storyline was supposed to be. Is it the Valory Arch and the question of what happened to Valors, the founders of the kingdom? If so, the plot often takes a backseat in order to focus on romance, and I wasn’t sure what the message of the Valory plot was supposed to be. Or is the main plot Evangeline’s and Jacks’s love story? If so, I would expect the main couple to learn and change more.

Jacks seems to have the most to learn and is the character who should experience the biggest change, but we never experience his character development, not even when some of the chapters in the last book are written from his point of view. I would have wanted even a tiny glimpse of him realizing that he can have love and doesn’t have to drive Evangeline away. Evangeline herself doesn’t change at all. In the beginning of the trilogy, she believes in fairy tales, happily ever after, and that every story can have multiple endings. When the last book ends, she still believes those things. She is fundamentally the same trusting and optimistic person throughout the trilogy.

If you loved the first two books of the trilogy, you’ll probably enjoy A Curse for True Love as well. It offers a satisfactory ending to Evangeline’s story, but because of the lack of character development and clear focus on what the story was about I’m giving this book three and a half stars.