Once Upon A Broken Heart 💖

My most recent read was Once Upon A Broken Heart by Stephanie Garber. ⭐⭐⭐

Some things I liked:

• The characters I liked how all their personalities meshed together which made the story and conflicts a lot more entertaining. They all felt very fleshed out, and it was easy to identify with each character. 
• The fairytale aspects If you couldn't already tell, the girl who just created a blog about her reading and movie-watching pleasures was a fairytale kid! I genuinely could not count how many times I read the Grimm Brothers' tale of Little Red Riding Hood, and this book felt very nostalgic and close to my heart because of that connection, however it might just be because I will enjoy a fairytale story no matter what (I read The School for Good and Evil)
• The setting Is it entirely unique? No. Is it technically the same setting of Caraval? Maybe. Do I care? No. I loved the whimsical fantasy of this book, even if it did not break any boundaries. I felt so swept up in the story because I wanted to learn more about the Magnificent North. 

Some things I disliked:

• The biting I am not sure what drove this author to include biting not once but twice outside the context of the vampires in this book. It made me so uncomfortable because not only was it simply odd but it also was described in so much unnecessary detail. Who asked for him to bite her ear? We knew he was not a vampire! 
• The vampires Moreover, the addition of the vampires made me unhappy because I was under the assumption that we left them with The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn - Part 2 in 2012. I understand their narrative role, however I did not appreciate it.
• The cutoff I understand that it is a series and the function of the ending was to build anticipation for the next release, but this ending simply reminded me why I prefer standalones. While I enjoyed this book, I hate cliffhanger(ish) endings due to their lack of completion. I will be reading the second book as I have heard it is better, but is it wrong to hope for a conclusion to this novel? Simply a pet peeve of mine.
• The covers I read this book through the library because, unfortunately, I am American and the US covers of this series are severely inferior. If anyone has a link to buy the prettier covers for less than $30 a book, I would be forever indebted to you. 

While those are not my only thoughts on the book, they summarize my immediate reactions. I read Caraval a few weeks ago, and I liked it about the same. I felt that the setting was wonderful but that the plot fell a little flat in that book, and while this one did impress me a little more, I still have similar feelings in the end. I hoped to continue the rest of the Caraval series eventually, however I feel more connected to the characters in this series, so I will be reading The Ballad of Never After before starting Legendary. 

Thank you so much for reading through my first book review! Hopefully you enjoyed, and please, tell me anything you think I could improve on in the comments. Thank you again, I will be back soon!

-Ellie