𝖑𝖊𝖊𝖑𝖔𝖚

Un autre fois.

(Pics not Mine)

Early autumn crawls across abandoned sunflower fields, as they bow in deference: to dying wildflowers, to setting sun, to the shine of early stars.

VnC is so very much about their relationship and about watching them grow closer over the course of the story, and if Mochijun wanted to, it would be really easy to turn into a power of friendship type story. All she’d have to do is draw more emphasis to the fact that Noé doesn’t have many friends and Vanitas has never had a best friend before, and with just a couple of very small tweaks, she could put a lot more emphasis on the platonic. And it could be really good that way too! It could be really sweet to see Noé thinking about how he “hasn’t had a real best friend since Louis” or something along those lines, and it would still totally work for the eventual tragedy too. Friends being forced to turn against friends for a tragic death is some prime sad shonen content. Plus then we’d get the angle that Vanitas having a real friend is making him into a better person, which is also classic good shonen. There’s no big reason for Mochijun to not go down this path, but she doesn’t.

Noé talks about how Domi is his “precious friend,” and he and Roland talk about their “friendship” with each other, but with Noé and Vanitas, the language is always more vague. People like Roland say Vani and Noé “get along well,” but the kind of good relationship they have is rarely (if ever) specified. Even in the most recent arc, when Noé is yelling at Vanitas for disregarding their relationship, he never drops the “friend” word.

— A Writer’s Diary, Virginia Woolf (August 31, 1928)

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝟹𝟶, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟺 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚒𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙵𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚣 𝙺𝚊𝚏𝚔𝚊, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟺-𝟷𝟿𝟸𝟹

This is it. My final OUABH review (that I also posted on Goodreads). I finally gathered my thoughts and could write a more or less decent review. I came to some realizations while writing it (like I truly don't like Eva, despite previously saying I did enjoy her), and it ended being a more negative review than I expected, but oh well. These are my honest toughts. I still love the Caraval universe, tho. And I still love Jacks with all my heart.

Spoilers ahead, beware.

My rating: ★★☆☆☆

I really wanted to love this book. The Caraval trilogy are three of my favorite YA fantasy books. I totally love them. Jacks is my favorite character not only from the Caraval universe, but in general. So, when Garber announced the release of Once Upon a Broke Heart and said we were gonna see and learn more about Jacks, I was thrilled. I really was so excited because the ending of Finale didn't do it for me (I didn't like Dante as the final choice, and not because Jacks is my fave, but because Dante's character was a bit of a mess, in a technical sense). I couldn't wait for this book to be released, and when I finally got my hands on it, I pulled an all-nighter to read it. That's how much I wanted to love it. But that didn't happen. This book was such a dissapointment for me. And I'll use this little space to rant about it. 1. Evangeline Fox. Let's talk about our new MC. I'll be honest, I didn't like her. One of the things I enjoyed about the Caraval trilogy is that, even if the books utilized many YA tropes and clichés, they felt refreshing (at least to me, of course). It's not the case with OUABH. It didn't feel special, I felt like a YA fantasy book of the bunch, you know? And it partly was because of Evangeline. She's your typical "normal" girl. A good girl. But what she doesn't know is that she's some sort of chosen one, the only person who can open a magical vault. There even is a prophecy about her! And while she's your typical "normal" girl, she's not completely like the rest, you know? She's different. She's special. Why? Because the author said so, it's not like you actually see her doing anything out of this world. In fact, she never does anything. You see, things just happen to her because she's just that special. She doesn't have the need to go outside and look for adventure, because adventure will find her. She gets noticed by the Empress, and she's sent to another country as an ambassador (despite being a common girl with no experience whatsoever in politics and/or foreing affairs? But the plot needed her to go to this new country, I suppose), a prince falls for her, a Fate befriends her, she's the talk of the town, and why? I don't know, because the plot needed for those things to happen, not because Evangeline did anything to earn it. She's the plot's punching bag. Things keep happening to her all the time for no reason other than because they need to happen. Personality wise Evangeline isn't that likeable either. Garber tried to portray her as this sweet good girl that's too good for this world, that always sees the best in people and gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, that tries to help everyone, even her enemies, because she's just that good; it ends up becoming exasperating. You stop perceiving her as a good girl and instead you start seeing her as a dumbass. People lie to her all the time and she's too dumb to notice it. She gets tricked and manipulated and after all that she still decides to trust that very people that lied to her face. There's a fine line between innocence and stupidty. Evangeline is not innocent, she's straight up stupid. She sometimes feel like a diet Mary Sue. 2. Jacks & the romance. I decided to talk about these two things in the same point because my problem with Jacks ends up greatly influencing my problem with the romance. So, Jacks. Our self-centered Fate. Our little yandere. If you pick up this book expecting to find the Jacks from Legendary and Finale, well, prepare for a big dissapointment. That Jacks is GONE. I've seen some people call this book a "fanfic" for Caraval's fans, especially for Jacks' fans, but it's not. I do not know who this book is for, but it's not for Jacks' fans, because Jacks is so out of character that Garber could had given him a complete new name and I wouldn't have guessed he was supposed to be Jacks. In Legendary and Finale Jacks was portrayed as this sinister trickster, he was mean , he saw humans as lesser creatures, as toys. And it was understandable because he was a Fate, a nonhuman magical creature that had lived for

thousands upon thousands of years. He didn't have a human's set of morals and values because he simply was not human. None of the Fates were. And that was really interesting. I enjoy when authors portray nonhuman creatures as, well, nonhuman. Be it vampires, fairies, demons, angels, you name it. It's more believable when their morals are kind of twisted, it makes them feel as more out of this world. More alien. And that's the point. That's why Jacks became my favorite character when he first appeared in Legendary. But all of that gets thrown out of the windown in OUABH. In OUABH Jacks is suddenly so composed, so level headed. He's less sinister, way more less sinister, less manipulative, less mean, less magical, less Fate. I suppose that, because he was going to be our main love interest, Garber toned him down to make his relationship with Eva feel less toxic? If you are expecting to find the shitshow that was the whole jackstella relationship, that's not going to happen. Jacks is now your typical YA love interest, you know, à la Jace Morgenstern. He is now human . I mean, not in the literal sense of the word, it's just that he doesn't feel like a Fate anymore. No Fate feels like a Fate anymore. Garber "humanized" them way too much for my liking. Lala? Completely hated her. Bring me back the Fates from Legendary and Finale please! I've noticed that this is a pattern with Garber. When she tries to make a character more sympathetic she ends up completely destroying them. It happened to Julian, to Dante and now it's happening to Jacks. She's good at creating compelling morally gray characters, but when it's time for them to have a relationship they have to either be good or bad, what's that morally gray nonsense? And since the main love interest can't be bad, they have to be good, even if that doesn't make sense with their previous established characterization. And this really hurts me because I love the Jacks from Legendary and Finale. I'm into morally gray and villanous characters, what can I say? And this is the reason why I couldn't enjoy the romance, because everytime Jacks and Eva had a moment together I was thinking "this is so out of character for Jacks". Jacks had a very warped way of demostrating his love, of showing that he cared for the object of his affection, a selfish twisted way of loving in general. He would lie, manipulate and force himself on the girl he liked, but now you want me to believe that he can restrain himself? That he can be sweet? That he can be respectful? Jacks? The same Jacks who lied to a girl to get her to marry him without her knowledge? The same Jacks that used his magic to force a girl to be with him? The same possessive Jacks that would do all sorts of shady stuff in the name of love? Hahaha that's funny. So all these "sweet" moments between the main couple just made me roll my eyes, honestly. I couldn't see past the mischaracterization. Also Eva is so painfully boring, the romance just didn't get me excited. And another thing about the romance: what's with Jacks' heart beating again? The love between Eva and Jacks is moving too fast it feels like an instalove. These two just met and Jacks is already in love with here? In love enough for his heart to start beating again? Really? Not even three months have passed since the events of Finale, but Jacks is already in love again? Wasn't it supposed to be kind of hard for Fates to fall in love? Wasn't it especifically hard for Jacks to fall in love because he first needed to find his one true love? Ah, this one true love thingy confuses me too. We get confirmation that yes, Tella is Jacks' one true love, and his heart would only beat for his one true love, right? But Eva is making his heart beat too? For a Fate that supposedly had a hard time finding the love of his life, he's finding them quite easily here... He's got two already! It's just nonsense. Garber is ignoring her own world building. 3. Vampires. My opinion on this could be very well summirised to: WTF? What the f***k are vampires doing in this book? It was so strange.

And to be honest, I think the problem with the story is that it tries to portray Eva as someone she's not. And in almost every case, portraying a character as someone they are not ends badly and strips them of their traits that make them interesting and leaves them bland (for example, Jason Grace-are you telling me the powerful well liked guy who told Hazel to her face that it may not be the best idea to save her brother is a nice kind underdog? Nah.).

Eva's not a good person-she just tries to be, she really does, but at her core she's very selfish. She starts the story by making a deal with someone who is known to not be a good person who will guaranteed mess things up. Then later on she continues to fulfill her deal even when she knows it will end up hurting others, because she doesn't want to die, and continually wishes for Apollo's love even though she practically brainwashed him.

That's not what a fundamentally good person does.

And while this could make for an interesting story, a morally grey Eva with an even more morally grey Jacks, but the story doesn't do that. And that's a shame.