A Curse for True Love

Even though I absolutely loathe the memory loss and miscommunication trope, I really loved the book. I read this book over a span of couple of weeks as I had my exams and by the time I finished it, I felt like I had grown out of it and that made me really really sad. I had enjoyed and swooned over all her books, and I didn't want that phase to end at all. Sometimes fantasy books make you realise how bleak your reality is. Knowing that it is not real, and the world does not exist, has started to make me really upset lol. I used to read these books for escapism but I kind of want to take a break from this genre now and build my own life.

well that was bad the books are super fast paced and somehow enjoyable to read, but not good in any way shape or formit was so fucking cringe 80% of the time :cringe:jacks is so fucking edgy he actually surpassed me when i was 13also again with that immortal hundreds of year old grown man somehow falls in love with a child, a 17 year old girl. lol yippie (thats a crime)   also i love the fact that garber just forgor about all the side charas. is lala going to get with castor? who knows. what happened to lucien? who knows. what happened to marisol? who knows. why the fuck was the 17 year old able to kiss the grown man without dying? who fuckin knows     it also felt like 20% of the book was eve remembering shit. give a brief summary of what she remembered, dont completely copy paste what happened in previous books... it just bloats  

Still love the characters but something didn’t hit for me in A Curse For True Love.

The plot execution for A Curse For True Love was my least favourite out of the entire trilogy, and this wasn’t because the plot idea was bad but rather the story didn’t flow between events for me, it felt pieced together by plot points and sometimes I felt like the events were told from the wrong characters POVS. I still enjoyed my time when reading, the world and characters held my attention and kept me interested.

The ending between the characters is sweet but fell flat, which replicates exactly how I felt during the end scene of the Caraval trilogy between Legend and Tella.

I really wanted to feel more during Jacks and Evangeline’s encounter at the phoenix tree. The entire trilogy was leading up to this moment, I wanted my heart to break and then be put back together but this didn’t happen. Don’t get me wrong it was a nice ending but the build up to this moment was 3 books long, this moment needed to be longer and more detailed.

I did appreciate the POVS from Apollo but I would have rathered more POVS from Jacks. More of his internal struggles and turmoil. I wanted to read the scene from his POV when he gave his heart away, what he was thinking, feeling and his reasonings. This is exactly where the author could have broken my heart. Instead it was told second hand from other characters, missing out on a massive opportunity to evoke readers emotions.

I am looking forward to reading more books from this author and watching her writing grow. Overall I love her ideas, characters and worlds. Can’t wait to see what she does next.

I realised I don't like how Stephanie ends her trilogies because, well, she doesn't. The whole trilogy could have been made into a duology; Apollo was brought back with a ton of determination that he just chucks out the window. Aurora was just a plot point and I wanted to know more about Dane/LaLa. And despite it being the final book, it was the shortest and left a lot to ask for.

The redeeming feature was that they finally ended up together.

But I have so many questions: how did they even kiss? What about the apples? What about the rest of the Valors???

I hope things weren't left so open to push out another trilogy in the Caraval universe, though if she did I would still shamelessly read it.

Rating: 3.5 🌕🌕🌕🌗🌑

“It had taken all the heartbreak, all the almost love and the wrong love, to know that this love was true love.”

Expectations were high for this book, and this often works against its own success. Overall, I think this is a great series, and I don't regret the effort I made to have the matching UK hardcovers.

Stephanie writing is beautiful, and similarly with the previous books in the series, her storytelling abilities shine on the second half of the book, which coincides when we get more of Jacks.

They got the HEA they deserved, and my main concern right now is: How will they solve Jack's being immortal and Evangeline being human?

I liked the inclusion of Apollo's and Jack's POV, as I see them as more complex characters than Evangeline, and loved to learn about Jack's curse source, which made a lot of sense considering what we learned in the previous book.

The best surprise for me was the role played by Evangeline self letter. Absolutely wonderful!

Other general thoughts:

While I loved the series, I also feel a bit disappointed with its loose ends.

Whereas everyone wanted to know about Jack's apples, I already had that piece figured out... what I wanted to know was Evangeline heritage. Why did she have a connection with the Valor arches? Why did we get some many pieces of her mother teachings to end up not knowing anything more about her? Why did her mother leave the Magical North? Why did she always tell Evangeline the Ballad of the Fox and the Archer? Was all of this because every curse has a back door? Her being a key was a way out for the Valors curse and for Castor's helmet, not for Jack's curse... I don't know.

In my mind, Evangeline was the key for the Story curse, but that bit stays the same, and her role was mainly focused on love... which is ok, but I wanted more. (How do you leave something like the story curse open???

Me genera algo ese berraco final, ¿Que es? Ni idea pero algo hace dentro de mi.
La trilogia me parece buena, no es lo mejor del mundo, ni la quinta maravilla pero es bueno y entretenido, aunque siii tiene momentos donde se pone lento y no necesito saber pero bueno, como que lo necesito saber nada de Apolo. Apolo cae mal, muy mal.

Sublime, magnífico, mágico, lo amo.

Me encantaría decir que voy a hacer una reseña sin spoiler, pero estaría mintiendo porque ni me encantaría porque qué haces que no te lo has leído aún (no me encantaría) y porque no pienso hacerla sin spoilers. Hemos venido a guerra.

Primero, lo que más odio de este libro es el pov de Apollo porque son capítulos que podrían haber sido de Jacks (te amo Jacks, nunca ningún hombre estará a tu altura, simplemente cualquier hombre se le queda en la suela). Y al mismo tiempo me gustan esos capítulos porque entendemos mejor la historia, aunque creo que es obviamente una forma de la autora de contarnos la historia de lo que está pasando a espaldas de Jacks y Evangeline que no habría sabido cómo contarnos de otra forma. Ahora bien, solo hay un momento más feliz para mí en el libro que va antes de la muerte de Apollo (está muy bien muerto, pero Wolfric me hiciste sufrir por un momento -they almost got me in the first half-), y ese momento más feliz aún que la muerte de Apollo es cuando Jacks y Eva por fin se besan. Fuegos artificiales explotando en mi cabeza.

Eso sí, yo creo que la maldición de Jacks la rompió Donatella y que después de eso no está maldito, pero no puedo decirlo con seguridad porque cuando va a besar a Eva (que lleva el brazalete este de Vengeance) se dobla de dolor. Claro que por lo que sabemos afecta a la gente que ‘pretende' hacer daño al portador. Así que Jacks pretendía hacerle daño, no es como que le fuera a hacer daño. Eso es lo que me lleva a pensar que no está maldito.

También quiero saber cómo van a continuar Eva y Jacks, porque Jacks es inmortal pero Eva no, por lo que Eva llegará algún momento que muera por causas naturales. ¿Puede ser que Jacks se vuelva humano o Eva inmortal? Sinceramente me gustaría más lo primero, así que quiero saber qué pasa.

Tampoco creo que deje de escribir sobre este universo Stephanie Garber (ni quiero que lo haga), porque aún no sabemos que pasa con Castor y LaLa, yo creo que va a haber otra serie que trate de ellos. Aunque no creo que me pueda gustar más que estos libros de Jacks, básicamente porque me gustó Jacks desde que en el segundo libro se nos presenta en un carruaje.

Pero bueno, en resumen que me ha encantado el libro, Evangeline me parece una maravillosa protagonista sinceramente, no se me hace pesada lo cual aprecio porque hay muchas que digo por favor cállate ya. Me encanta que se gire y le pegue a Apollo cuando la toca en la posada (merecidísimo). Y Jacks me puede pedir lo que quiera la verdad, yo no conozco la palabra no cuando se trata de él.

I don't even know what to put for this just yet, even rating it is hard so I need to slowly reread it and take the words in. I finished this at 2am so that explains where my head was at in the moment.

I love the ending but everything that came before has me a bit confused, I wish there were more Jacks chapters. It was very counter-intuitive having a memory-less Eva with a majority of the chapters and then a weak Apollo with the next. Jacks would have been the suitable character to focus on and he should have fought for Eva more since she did most of the fighting in tbona. I wished we saw more of Jacks, his presence seemed very fleeting and he disappeared very quickly.

Then there were the plot holes, why was Eva such a big target for murder? Yes, she was Jacks' ally but she completely lost her memories. In that sense she was never in cahoots with Jacks, so was it just an excuse for moments with Jacks? It seemed as if the story was jumping around a lot, Eva could never actually catch a break AND she never saw Kristoff even though she was meaning to. Time only ever slowed when Eva was with Jacks in the Cursed Forest and all other moments with him after, as well as her moments with LaLa. Whenever Apollo was around, it was as if time sped up so much.

Now, I wish this book were longer, even 500 pages would have been enough to complete the book well. But I can't fault Stephanie creating a happy ending for Jacks and Eva, in which their only antagonist got himself sealed off into a tree.

3.5 stars for now!