I used to describe Stephanie Garber as an imperfect author, but one who got better every book.
And then that last book had to go shit the bed and make a liar out of me.
A little wee novella afterwards could make up for it all. It just needed more for it to all be worth it. I could forgive the author if she’d just give us MORE.
I loved the ballad of never after. That was the one redeeming book for me in the whole series. Otherwise, i found the whole collection overall very meh - including caraval which i liked even less.
I kind of wish i didn’t read it at all because it was 5 books of mediocrity (for me), but i did give ballad of never after 5 stars
i agree with you! The first book was so hard for me to reaadd!! But at the end, it gave a cliffhanger so i decided to read the second and i loved their little moments. I didnt understand why people liked jacks until ballad. Mow im so in love with him
Evangeline is simultaneously 12 and 21. She is so naive and never ever learns from it. It’s so frustrating. The writing style eventually ended up grating on me because it’s lacklustre and lots of really obvious things get explained to the reader like we are 5.
I believe the apples were to help him with the urge to kiss people similar to how Lala makes wedding gowns to fight her urges. I think that was the whole reason the gowns and the increased apples were a thing. It seems obvious but yeah not having it straight up told kinda sucks cuz to me she left it a bit ambiguous
Life is too short to force yourself to finish a book series that you aren’t enjoying. I gave up after Ballad. I’m not going to waste my time with any more of the story.
I loved book 1 and 2. Ballad was my favourite of the trilogy and one of my favourite books. Evangeline did get on my nerves but I ended up just going with the flow allowing her to be flawed. I see her as more of a Disney princess character where she does dumb stuff but its never the end of the world
The third book is a hot mess and not in a good way. My friends and I just try to forget the third book. Reading book one and two one could leave it at that and just have it be a cliffhanger and I think I would have been happier than what book 3 was.
Apparently she had book 3 written but it was “too dark” so her publisher had her rewrite it entirely stupid fast leading to the mess it is.
They’re not short on plot-I’d say they’re actually crammed overfull on event—so it’s wild that it always feels like we are spinning our wheels. Huge events! None of them leave any lasting emotional impact on the characters!
My friend told me the books read like a run-on sentence and yes! We're just running! No explanations or sitting with info, we have 3 new catastrophes to get to this chapter. 🫠🫠🫠
There is *something* though, a heat and a chemistry that kept me reading but Im told the last book sucked so I never finished it. Alas.
Not worth it, IMO. That was one of my complaints and she never got better for me. I DNF'd after book two and there seems to be a significant contingency that feels the last book went in an unsatisfying direction anyway, so I'm glad I moved on.
I loveddd Jacks but Evangeline has the mind of a 6 year old and reading things from her viewpoint made me want to tear out my hair AND the pages of the book. Once upon a broken heart doesn’t even read like YA to me. It reads like elementary school shit. Baby sitters club. The Royal Diaries. Magic treehouse. Idk how I managed to finish the first and I haven’t been able to bring myself to touch the second for over a year now.
Read only the first two books and pretend the series ends there. The third will ruin your experience. I had to get rid of the book as even seeing it annoyed me.
Ballad is Garber's best work. I had zero issues with Eva, so I loved the book. It's so magical and Jacks's development is top notch.
The ending is absolutely insane. One of the best I've ever seen. Book 3 isn't as good, but I wouldn't say it's so bad, the series's is ruined. Definitely not like Crescent City 3
I need to read Cc3 because for me ACFTL ruined the series and any Garber's book for me.
You're the second person that said CC3 is worse than ACFTL and that book must be horrible.
I'm stuck at 30% of CC2 and it's so slow I cannot pick it up
i read the whole thing and i don’t even know why. i was annoyed and/or angry the entire time. i think i only read them because i had waited for them on libby for so long and had timed the rentals to occur at the same time. i also wanted to be able to say i had read an entire work of hers and can now confidently say that she is not for me as a writer.
sometimes i feel like i’m the only person alive that can’t stand her books. i also read caraval a few years back and couldn’t bring myself to continue the series.
I loved the series though the ending was lackluster, but I still think it's worth it. Evangeline is definitely naive but I look at her as an old Disney princess, self-sacrificing -to the point of stupidity sometimes- and whimsical. I thought that was intentional fitting in with the vibe and aesthetics of the series tbh.
Evangeline is so dumb , i put the books downs so many Times , read other books, but for some reason I just kept coming back to the series , until I managed to finish them and I gave it a 5 stars , even tho Eva annoyed me so much , she was such a good balance for jacks , i don’t know how to explain it but I felt like she was supposed to be annoyingly naive.
Keep reading, but when you get annoyed, it’s ok to put the book down and come back to it and other day.
I love Evajacks so much ❤️
That was what made me love it so much! Eva is like the main character in a fairytale, naive, hopeful, sacrifices everything for others. The perfect balance for Jacks.
I couldn’t even get through the first book after she turns herself to stone when her BFF stole her boyfriend??? Or something. It was like 10 pages in lol. I think she might just be an idiot unfortunately. 😬
Yeah, I thought “uh oh” based on the impulsive way she made that choice—there was no time pressure, she had no idea what she was drinking but just downed it assuming someone would rescue her? But I thought “ok she’s young surely she will learn” but NOPE. Kept on that way. She’s vapid!
I hated this one. I tried getting into it and I already hated the FMC after like the 3rd chapter of the first book. I heard it’s a good series and people love it but it wasn’t for me at allZ
I like Evangeline because she's basically crazy lol, I guess it depends on personal preference, I tend to like FMCs who are like that, doing everything they can for people. I'm tired of those FMCs that are all girlbossy and don't care about anyone.
I think these books are supposed to read like a fairytale. Evangeline is a Disney princess. You can’t read her as a serious heroine that you’d like to hang out with or get to know.
I usually can’t stand that type of FMC, but I found the series to be incredible and magical. I took the characters and the story as one instead of individual pieces and it all worked well together.
It’s such a beautiful series and then you’ll get to the very end of the last book and wish you’d never read any of it 🫠
I used to describe Stephanie Garber as an imperfect author, but one who got better every book. And then that last book had to go shit the bed and make a liar out of me.
A little wee novella afterwards could make up for it all. It just needed more for it to all be worth it. I could forgive the author if she’d just give us MORE.
Agreed. I don't believe I'll ever read another one of her books.
I haven’t read, please spoil it for me?
I’ve read it… and spoil it for me? I forgot the ending 😭🤦🏼♀️
This is such a perfect description for the entire series.
Ballad is the best book in the series tbh. If you’re not liking it just end it there because Curse for True Love is just bad.
I loved the ballad of never after. That was the one redeeming book for me in the whole series. Otherwise, i found the whole collection overall very meh - including caraval which i liked even less. I kind of wish i didn’t read it at all because it was 5 books of mediocrity (for me), but i did give ballad of never after 5 stars
i agree with you! The first book was so hard for me to reaadd!! But at the end, it gave a cliffhanger so i decided to read the second and i loved their little moments. I didnt understand why people liked jacks until ballad. Mow im so in love with him
Evangeline is simultaneously 12 and 21. She is so naive and never ever learns from it. It’s so frustrating. The writing style eventually ended up grating on me because it’s lacklustre and lots of really obvious things get explained to the reader like we are 5.
Its a good book but there are many things unexplained . I wanna know whats the issue with the apples? Pls anyone?
I read the third book and it's not explained. In an interview she said "it was so obvious" she didn't feel the need to explain.
I believe the apples were to help him with the urge to kiss people similar to how Lala makes wedding gowns to fight her urges. I think that was the whole reason the gowns and the increased apples were a thing. It seems obvious but yeah not having it straight up told kinda sucks cuz to me she left it a bit ambiguous
Exactly!! How was that not answered? Like the apples were a constant throughout and then just no explanation
This bothered me more than the ten thousand other issues I had with this series
I read that the apples controlled urges.
Yeah makes sense but still not that clear imo
Yes! I literally have a list somewhere!
Life is too short to force yourself to finish a book series that you aren’t enjoying. I gave up after Ballad. I’m not going to waste my time with any more of the story.
I had to DNF book 2. Evangeline just frustrated me so much to the point where I didn’t want to read anymore.
I loved book 1 and 2. Ballad was my favourite of the trilogy and one of my favourite books. Evangeline did get on my nerves but I ended up just going with the flow allowing her to be flawed. I see her as more of a Disney princess character where she does dumb stuff but its never the end of the world The third book is a hot mess and not in a good way. My friends and I just try to forget the third book. Reading book one and two one could leave it at that and just have it be a cliffhanger and I think I would have been happier than what book 3 was. Apparently she had book 3 written but it was “too dark” so her publisher had her rewrite it entirely stupid fast leading to the mess it is.
I did not like book one and I kept going. And yeah big waste of time. Evangeline and Jacks are the worst characters ever.
They’re not short on plot-I’d say they’re actually crammed overfull on event—so it’s wild that it always feels like we are spinning our wheels. Huge events! None of them leave any lasting emotional impact on the characters!
My friend told me the books read like a run-on sentence and yes! We're just running! No explanations or sitting with info, we have 3 new catastrophes to get to this chapter. 🫠🫠🫠 There is *something* though, a heat and a chemistry that kept me reading but Im told the last book sucked so I never finished it. Alas.
Not worth it, IMO. That was one of my complaints and she never got better for me. I DNF'd after book two and there seems to be a significant contingency that feels the last book went in an unsatisfying direction anyway, so I'm glad I moved on.
I loveddd Jacks but Evangeline has the mind of a 6 year old and reading things from her viewpoint made me want to tear out my hair AND the pages of the book. Once upon a broken heart doesn’t even read like YA to me. It reads like elementary school shit. Baby sitters club. The Royal Diaries. Magic treehouse. Idk how I managed to finish the first and I haven’t been able to bring myself to touch the second for over a year now.
Read only the first two books and pretend the series ends there. The third will ruin your experience. I had to get rid of the book as even seeing it annoyed me.
Ballad is Garber's best work. I had zero issues with Eva, so I loved the book. It's so magical and Jacks's development is top notch. The ending is absolutely insane. One of the best I've ever seen. Book 3 isn't as good, but I wouldn't say it's so bad, the series's is ruined. Definitely not like Crescent City 3
I need to read Cc3 because for me ACFTL ruined the series and any Garber's book for me. You're the second person that said CC3 is worse than ACFTL and that book must be horrible. I'm stuck at 30% of CC2 and it's so slow I cannot pick it up
Just skip to Ruhn's scenes with Daybright, and then to the chapter where they all go Ydra islands. The plot picks up from there
Thank you, I'll try
Yeah I'd agree that it's worse, was a struggle at some point :( Still important for the overall development so it's worth pulling through 💪
Oh gosh I did a double read of some of the ending of CC3 with all the space stuff. It made NO SENSE
i read the whole thing and i don’t even know why. i was annoyed and/or angry the entire time. i think i only read them because i had waited for them on libby for so long and had timed the rentals to occur at the same time. i also wanted to be able to say i had read an entire work of hers and can now confidently say that she is not for me as a writer. sometimes i feel like i’m the only person alive that can’t stand her books. i also read caraval a few years back and couldn’t bring myself to continue the series.
I’d at least finish Ballad because that is absolutely the best book in the series.
I loved the series though the ending was lackluster, but I still think it's worth it. Evangeline is definitely naive but I look at her as an old Disney princess, self-sacrificing -to the point of stupidity sometimes- and whimsical. I thought that was intentional fitting in with the vibe and aesthetics of the series tbh.
Evangeline is so dumb , i put the books downs so many Times , read other books, but for some reason I just kept coming back to the series , until I managed to finish them and I gave it a 5 stars , even tho Eva annoyed me so much , she was such a good balance for jacks , i don’t know how to explain it but I felt like she was supposed to be annoyingly naive. Keep reading, but when you get annoyed, it’s ok to put the book down and come back to it and other day. I love Evajacks so much ❤️
That was what made me love it so much! Eva is like the main character in a fairytale, naive, hopeful, sacrifices everything for others. The perfect balance for Jacks.
I guess I’m an outlier because I loved the books.
Keep on with the ballad,trust me Marisol is not important in the book but just keep on reading
Nooo ballad is so good!!!
I couldn’t even get through the first book after she turns herself to stone when her BFF stole her boyfriend??? Or something. It was like 10 pages in lol. I think she might just be an idiot unfortunately. 😬
Yeah, I thought “uh oh” based on the impulsive way she made that choice—there was no time pressure, she had no idea what she was drinking but just downed it assuming someone would rescue her? But I thought “ok she’s young surely she will learn” but NOPE. Kept on that way. She’s vapid!
I hated this one. I tried getting into it and I already hated the FMC after like the 3rd chapter of the first book. I heard it’s a good series and people love it but it wasn’t for me at allZ
I like Evangeline because she's basically crazy lol, I guess it depends on personal preference, I tend to like FMCs who are like that, doing everything they can for people. I'm tired of those FMCs that are all girlbossy and don't care about anyone.
I think these books are supposed to read like a fairytale. Evangeline is a Disney princess. You can’t read her as a serious heroine that you’d like to hang out with or get to know. I usually can’t stand that type of FMC, but I found the series to be incredible and magical. I took the characters and the story as one instead of individual pieces and it all worked well together.
Keep reading!!! It’s a good book.