Brainfullofbooks

One ever present theme in Once Upon a Broken Heart is fantasy vs reality.  In the lush world of this Cinderella retelling some stories are cursed so that parts of it are forgotten completely.  Even when people “remember”, the tale is never the same twice: it’s always told just a little bit differently every time.  This makes it hard to tell the truth from the lies; which parts are fiction and which parts actually happened. Clearly Garber drew inspiration from northern sagas—just like the tales in Broken Heart northern sagas are a combination of reality with inflated truth and outright lies for dramatic storytelling purposes.  They blend fact and fiction together until it’s hard even for academics to say which is which.  In fact, scholars who study the sagas and Eddas have argued over just that for centuries and come to no agreement.  None of them have successfully drawn the line between fact and fiction because it’s impossible, just as it is for the northern tales in Evangeline’s world.  As someone who has studied them—I for one reveled in that little reference to the real nature of northern stories.  This was a brilliant move as it made her world seem richer and more real, not to mention it added an extra dose of magic to make the story a little bit more interesting.

            No fairytale is complete without a love story and this tale certainly has one.  Who the male love interest is, is up for debate, though it looks to be between Jacks and Evangeline.  Their relationship starts on rocky ground but improves over the course of the book until it seems like Garber is setting it up for them to be together.  Still, I’m not ready to call it yet.  For one thing Evangeline is already married (technically) so I’m not quite sure how that would work out.  Not to mention the fact that Garber still hasn’t smoothed all the edges of their relationship—they may be beginning to like each other and perhaps fall for each other—but their connection isn’t the best yet.  He’s still using her and perhaps manipulating her so I hesitate to say they’re sure to end up together nor that they should.  Though as of right now it’s all just based on Evangeline’s guess.  There’s nothing to truly confirm that’s the case . . . but if she’s right I might have to rethink my stance on their relationship.  I guess I’ll just have to wait to see how I feel about the next book. While I suspect Garber will try to remove the impediments little by little until there is nothing in thier way, she may prove me wrong. Not to mention, it remains to be seen if she will accidentally fall into the realm of toxicity instead.  As it is, I don’t fully support their relationship and unless Jacks stops being so conniving, I’m rooting for Prince Apollo.

            Fore and foremost, all fairytales are love stories, and that’s really what this entire novel is.  All the characters are motivated by the one thing that drives us all: love.  While this is a kind of fairytale, there are no villains here—mostly because everything they all do is out of love which makes them sympathetic and all their actions justifiable.  Some like Evangeline and her sister are driven by the need to be loved.  Even Jacks ultimate motive at the end of the day is to find the love of his life.  Romantic love is not the only kind on display here.  All of Tiberius’s actions are out of love for his brother: thus, platonic familial love is shown to be just as important as romance.  Either they wish to be loved—to find love—or act out of love for another person.  Isn’t that true for all of us?  Every single person in this world is driven by the need to be loved.  They seek out love in any and every form—and most people’s actions are for or guided by those they love.  Even if it’s not the romantic kind, we humans spend our entire lives in search of love.  So, it’s only fitting that Garber chose it as the impetus for all the characters.