#very mild caraval mentions and spoilers

[thepiedsniper]

A huge review for A Curse For True Love (spoilers, obviously - all below the cut).

DISCLAIMER: I have read the B&N and Waterstones epilogues but not the OwlCrate one yet (I don’t think anyone has, to be honest). So possibly some of my questions will be addressed in that ending.

On the Kiss: there was a compelling theory that Jacks would turn human due to his love for Eva (per the rules established in Caraval) and that’s how they could kiss and be together without killing Eva. I thought this made a lot of sense (because if your universe has established that becoming human is the canonical consequence of an Immortal falling in love, this kind of definitely needs to happen for the prequel series readers to believe that he really loves Eva, right?). Except Jacks clearly never really became human - his tears were tears of blood and the story curse refers to him as a not-quite-human in the epilogue. This also means he's still ageless and will ultimately outlive Eva by A Lot. So, oof.

To that end - I know Jacks is a fatalist and Eva is an optimist, but did it never even OCCUR to either of them to be like "what if we just did everything together EXCEPT kiss for the rest of our lives?" I know Jacks is compelled to kiss (and it’s obliquely confirmed that the apples are his way to fighting that urge) so you'd have him struggling with that arrangement in the long term. But also, Eva seems convinced she's never been in danger of Jacks kissing her before, so why wouldn’t she at least float that idea and see if he goes for it? Why go for the kiss other than Extreme Belief in The Power of Love; i.e. the exact thing Eva found out was actually the one condition that would ensure the curse killed her, according to Aurora like five minutes beforehand. Which Eva Does Not Mention to Jacks, by the way. "Hey, you know that blonde from Valenda you thought was the one exception to your curse and caused you a tonne of angst and confusion ever since? Turns out you had your whole curse backwards these last several hundred years lol."

Eva still owes Jacks a kiss. If you even care.

No but forreal, at least address it. Do a cutesy "OK, then spend that kiss on me, right now, mwah!" bit in the epilogue, or even a juicy "I’m never cashing it in, because not only is it practical that we can still speak telepathically, but I like that you're still tied to me magically foreverrrr". But like, these three magic kisses were the main conceit of this series. Until they weren’t.

The book seemed to shy away from many interesting plot hooks and tropes. Not even subverting them, just...moving on and away instead of fleshing them out. The main one off the top of my head is The Hunt. This seemed like a really specific and interesting event, with a lot of potential tension and parallels to Jacks’ former life as a hunter, if things went wrong in interesting ways. Except we never see any of it, and instead Someone Tries to Kill Eva (turns out Petra had a lover? This plotline is Not Important and everyone quickly moves on despite the fact that I’m pretty sure Belleflower was never found or dealt with) and we get a slightly less satisfactory Hollow II with the Ye Olde Brick Inn. And even the Inn introduces the Only One Bed trope only to sort of fumble it. Jacks has some mystery gold sleep dust (providence unknown) which just kind of doesn't do anything until it knocks them both out at differently convenient times. Idk man, it felt kinda meh to me.

I love Lala. She should have been in this more because she’s honestly one of the more interesting things outside of the romantic tension (which is great, but a novel cannot live on romantic tension alone, lest it become one-note). But also, when she does appear and we finally get to find out what her reunion with her great love was like, it's just kind of glossed over and hinted that her love with Dane has gone sour. Where’s the actual development/exposition!! Who actually dumped who, and why? What did she actually see in him in the first place? The small amount he’s in this book he is a) not turning into a giant dragon (Chekov would be disappointed), and b) kind of a tool. Lala became The Unwed Bride for this guy!!! At least let her have a proper “I realised I was sabotaging all my engagements not because I still loved my unreachable First Love, but because I enjoy the idea of love more than love itself” moment and make her canonically aromantic or something.

Chaos likes/loves Lala? I guess? He also murdered a bunch of people from great houses, for Reasons. He’s around, more than many characters were, but I dunno. What’s his deal these days? Does he still hang out with his vamp friends? Was he killing all those people because his parents asked him to, or was it pure hunger, or personal vendetta? Is he like, Tight with his folks now?

Another wasted (in my opinion) trope is Aurora stealing Jacks' heart away from Eva. I thought we'd get a little juicy angst from Eva seeing the man she loves be manipulated into fake-loving another (which would have also been a little poetic justice for Tella, but that's neither here nor there I guess because the Caraval characters Do Not Matter and are in fact not mentioned At All). But instead, we don't even find out what Aurora wanted to do with the heart, because it's immediately stolen back by Jacks (which like, why didn't Aurora make him swear in blood not to immediately knock her out and steal it back if that was an option? Is she just super delusional?). Also, it was meant to seem really romantic and self-sacrificing that Jacks gave up his heart and possibly autonomy to Aurora to save Eva... except he never intended to let Aurora keep it, so it was just another selfish scheme and not a sign of actual growth/love.

The Valor children in general (aside from Castor and Aurora) were pretty much non-existent when I honestly thought they'd be more of a Thing. One of them has memory magic, but that's not important for some reason. Nah, the thing Apollo did to Eva was just a potion from Aurora or something (providence unknown). Yeah.

It’s unclear why Honora Valor couldn't have reversed Jack's original Archer curse if that's something she easily did with a bit of hair at the end of TBONA. like I guess that says more about that book than this one, but it seems kind of lame that this mythical healer is never even ASKED about Jacks' kissing curse (or anything related to healing ever again).

Cycling back to Aurora for a moment: what was her magical ability in the end? Just non-specific spellwork that seemingly anyone can do (based on the first two books)? They made a point of lamp-shading it and then never actually addressed it.

And speaking of witches/witchcraft, Marisol is one of the many characters that never reappear or get much (if any) mention at all. Eva wouldn't have remembered her stepsister while her memories were gone, which I would have assumed would make for some interesting retconning opportunities for the conniving Marisol. But no, she's just not important anymore, I guess.

Also Gone: Luc. Did he and Marisol run away together after hashing out their twisted histories? Did Luc eat Marisol and then fall of a cliff? Who cares!!!! Not Important Anymore!!!

Tiberius is also Gone (possibly because his existence would have reminded the audience that Apollo has people he Actually Cares About in his life that might have helped him back from The Dark Path). The whole Protectorate just stopped being a thing as soon as the Valory opened. Do they know, or care? Surely they monitor that sort of thing? Was someone from the Protectorate able to piece together the sudden arrival of the “Vale” family at least?

Phaedra of the Damned from the very first book (the girl who first discovered Apollo wasn’t dead after trying to steal his secrets, and also Havelock is there) never gets explained. I assume she’s one of the twins from the Vanished Market mentioned in the Caraval trilogy, but she really was just there for half a scene in the first book and then never mentioned again. OK.

Havelock, Apollo’s most loyal guard, is not mentioned after Chapter 13 (when Apollo really starts ramping up the Atrocities). Again, possibly his existence would have complicated Apollo’s evil villain speedrun, but it would have been interesting to see what he might have done (and if he decided to leave Apollo’s service out of condemnation for the monster Apollo had become, a sentence or two establishing that might have been nice).

Which leads me to Apollo. He went very evil very quickly. I actually really liked the self-delusion in his focalisation, and his whole backstory with the pressures put on him by his father made sense. But damn, dude went from No Murder to Child Murder pretty dang quickly!!! Also, his death was fairly predictable. Which I wouldn't have minded, because not everything needs to be a Surprise Twist, but it really felt like that scene was the climax/final conflict in a sea of other loose ends that got ignored, so I guess I wanted it to be More so that it could make up for all the plotlines whose resolutions got sacrificed for it.

The original fox from the ballad doesn’t matter. She doesn't ever get a name. It's Fine. She could turn into a freaking FOX, which seems like a very cool and rare ability, but sure, she was just Some Chick Jacks was forced to hunt (and then kind of fell in love with and got traumatised by killing). Why do you want to know about her?? Why do you want Jacks to address the ways his feelings for her (and Tella) are inherently interwoven with trauma, in ways that don’t specifically relate to Eva?

I’m not sure I’m explaining this properly (because on the surface, of course the original fox is an important part of Jacks’ backstory and the overall plot; but only in a “Jacks is scared to love because he killed this one girl one time, and that also makes Eva sad” kind of way. The same story could arguably have been told without the Archer ballad, and just keeping the original concept of Jacks from Caraval – he’s the prince of hearts, doomed to kill all but his one true love. He kills many ladies that he hopes he’s actually in love with, but they always tragically die instead.

Cool twist with Aurora’s involvement in the curse, even if it was somewhat predictable (again, not a crime for a plot twist by any means), but I don’t know. It just felt like one of many things that got “resolved” with a quick aside (Eva found an expository journal entry) and then everything quickly moved on because hey, the reader knows what happened now that Eva found that journal entry, so who cares if Jacks knows too? Telling him everything important that Eva learned since seeing him would just detract from the love confession!

It's never officially confirmed whether Jacks of the Hollow's family owned the Hollow? Or what happened to his family, or the original owners if it wasn’t his family. The Hollow doesn't seem particularly attached to Jacks, nor he to it (according to the epilogues).

Eva should have gnarly back scars from her secondhand flaying and it's pretty clear they're either not there or just forgotten in ACFTL. My understanding was that The Hollow allowed Eva to become "fully healed" due to the effects of several weeks passing in the space of a day or two. So Eva's body essentially got the chance to heal naturally over time, in a sped-up way (which still would have left hella scars). Apollo, on the other hand, was healed with vampire venom (which canonically removes scars; see: Luc) but he's still got his back scars for some reason. Both of them healed in different ways during the period when the mirror curse wouldn't have mattered. I personally think it would have been interesting to give Eva horrible back scars she can't explain due to her amnesia. But alas.

All in all, it felt like the kind of book that wanted to be third of four instead of third and final. It wanted to introduce new and interesting concepts, but still had to rush to put a conclusion (satisfying or otherwise) to everything that had come before. I had fun reading it, and all the usual romance/drama/angst with Eva and Jacks was still super fun, but pretty much every other element felt lacking (and even a lot of the EvaJacks stuff kind of just Happened and then Kept Happening without a strong plotline to run along). I look forward to reading a lot of fanfiction addressing all the missing bits. Or a new trilogy series from this rich universe, maybe (even though I doubt it would follow Eva and Jacks directly).