I'd rather go up in flames with him than watch while he burns.
A Curse For True Love
by Stephanie Garber
Genre: YA Fantasy
About: Evangeline is married to a prince, she lives in a beautiful castle and magic is brimming around her. This is the fairytale ending her child-self dreamed of. Only it doesn't feel like happily ever after. With her memories of the last year erased, she can't help but wonder why, when all looks picture perfect, her heart feels like it's broken?
Thoughts
To say that this book was hyped is a bit of an understatement. Legions of fans have been waiting for the conclusion to Archer and Little Fox's tale. So the book had a lot to live up to.
Personally, I don't think book three has lived up to the magic of books one and two, but I didn't find myself too disappointed as there was a lot I still loved about this book. Stephanie Garber's writing is an absolute dream. You float into her world and it has all the joy and heartbreak that you want from a fairytale. We find out more about the curses, we see more magical places and objects, and there's just this appreciation of myth and legends that makes you feel like you're living your childhood fantasy alongside Evangeline. Magic is real here and you don't want to leave.
I also really loved getting an answer to why Donatella survived Jacks's deadly kiss. That particular mystery really bugged me in The Ballad of Never After and I was very satisfied with the reveal. I would like to understand why Evangeline survives as 'True Love' seems a weak answer. And of course I'm still dying to know what the deal with all the magic apples were but at the same time I'm okay with Jacks maintaining a bit of mystery. Mystery suits him.
Characters I enjoyed seeing in this one: Chaos, LaLa, Wolfric, and obviously any scene with Evangeline and Jacks.
Characters I wished we'd seen but didn't: Luc and Marisol. They were the catalyst that started this trilogy and I feel they deserved to be in the conclusion.
As for the negatives. The two things that disappointed me the most was the lack of plot and the lack of real villains. So much of the book is Evangeline trying to get her memory back and that's pretty much it. I still enjoyed following her and I certainly wasn't bored to be in the world, but I wanted something a bit more tangible to care about. A mystery or a quest. Instead it's mostly Evangeline getting attacked and her memories slowly creeping back to her.
The villain part was the real let down. The tagline for this book is 'May the best villain win' but there's no competition. Apollo is given the role of villain to an extreme and there's nothing more to it than that. It's hard to believe he wants Evangeline that badly so you don't even feel a love triangle aspect, it's simply Apollo is now evil and Jacks has maybe a page or two of villainous action but spends the majority of the book saving Evangeline. I loved Jacks having dastardly plans in the previous books, where you really didn't know what his true goal was. In this one, there's no mystery. He wants to save Evangeline; she wants to save him. He's the good guy; Apollo is the bad guy.
Overall, I loved the magical setting, I loved the vibes and I had a great experience reading. It didn't hit the highs of the previous books, but thinking of the trilogy as a whole, this was such a fantastic series and will always have a place in my heart.
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