whimsicalfay

[whimsicalfay]

I read the ballad of never after. Good news: Jacks is more evil, Evangeline's POV is much stronger and she stands on her own, and we get to know more about Jacks (he's got a good backstory,) and Lala's more evil too. Plus the vampires are more interesting. Bad news: Tella doesn't show up, though she does briefly influence the last part of the book (Jacks is still smitten with her, though he also loves Evangeline).

O:

That sounds so exciting!!! I can't wait to read it!!!

I'm dying to know Jacks' backstory, and I also want to see a more confident Eva, I want to like her so badly! For what you say this might be the book that makes me appreciate it as our new MC. And I wasn't excited about Lala because I didn't like her AT ALL in OUABH, but now I'm interested, same with the vampires 👀 (aaaah my jackstella heart is happy with this news!) I wonder, the whole true love thing is explained? Because I'm still confused about it... I mean, is his true love Tella or Eva? 🤔 I don't mind spoilers btw, so feel free to tell me whatever you want!

[whimsicalfay]

So...Jacks is going to be more evil (I've seen someone complaining about how much more annoying and evil Jacks is) in The Ballad of Never After! YES!!!!!

Really???!

KDHWISBWISHEUWHFV I LIVE FOR EVIL JACKS!!!

I cant wait to read this new book!! I'm so excited for Jacks!

[whimsicalfay]

d r e a m w o r l d edit by, huntingpearls

[whimsicalfay]

Un autre fois.

(Pics not Mine)

𝙋𝙡𝙚𝙖𝙨𝙚 𝙜𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙘𝙧𝙚𝙙𝙞𝙩 𝙞𝙛 𝙪𝙨𝙞𝙣𝙜/𝙧𝙚𝙥𝙤𝙨𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜-!

[whimsicalfay]

15.08.22

Early autumn crawls across abandoned sunflower fields, as they bow in deference: to dying wildflowers, to setting sun, to the shine of early stars.

[whimsicalfay]

All too easily, memories of the beginning...summon memories of the end.

[whimsicalfay]

I think the thing that gets me about VaNoé and their relationship in canon is that, at least from what I can remember, nobody ever really says the words friend or friendship about them

VnC is so very much about their relationship and about watching them grow closer over the course of the story, and if Mochijun wanted to, it would be really easy to turn into a power of friendship type story. All she’d have to do is draw more emphasis to the fact that Noé doesn’t have many friends and Vanitas has never had a best friend before, and with just a couple of very small tweaks, she could put a lot more emphasis on the platonic. And it could be really good that way too! It could be really sweet to see Noé thinking about how he “hasn’t had a real best friend since Louis” or something along those lines, and it would still totally work for the eventual tragedy too. Friends being forced to turn against friends for a tragic death is some prime sad shonen content. Plus then we’d get the angle that Vanitas having a real friend is making him into a better person, which is also classic good shonen. There’s no big reason for Mochijun to not go down this path, but she doesn’t.

Noé talks about how Domi is his “precious friend,” and he and Roland talk about their “friendship” with each other, but with Noé and Vanitas, the language is always more vague. People like Roland say Vani and Noé “get along well,” but the kind of good relationship they have is rarely (if ever) specified. Even in the most recent arc, when Noé is yelling at Vanitas for disregarding their relationship, he never drops the “friend” word.

And it’s not that this necessarily means anything, but in a story that could otherwise push the platonic, importance of friendship angle, the absence of all that is rather conspicuous. The ambiguous, unspecified nature of their love and closeness is a big part of what makes them feel so queercoded.

[whimsicalfay]

agustín gómez // a. dp // upile chisala // anne carson // franz kafka

[whimsicalfay]

Okay, so there's a book I read a while ago (Sorcery of Thorns), that I want to re-read not because I fell in love with the story, but because I want to write a WHOLE essay on why Nathaniel and Elisabeth had no chemistry whatsoever and about how Nathaniel and Silas made MUCH MORE sense and had way more chemistry than the main couple, and about how to this day I feel mad at the wasted potential, like AAAAHRHDHFKW, Nathaniel and Silas were everything that's good in the universe, perfect ship dynamics, á la Kuroshitsuji, demon x human, master x servant, a creature that isn't supposed to feel love but falls in love nonetheless, THE ANGST OF IT ALL, it could have been so, so good T_T

[whimsicalfay]

I'm genuinely curious: what are your opinions on Scarlett from Caraval? Personally, she's not my cup of tea (I prefer the morally grey characters, and I feel Scarlett is one of the few actually genuinely good characters in Caraval), even though I liked her.

I do think she's a good MC and she's interesting to read. I find her a bit annoying sometimes because she acts a bit holier-than-thou, but at the same time I think that's a good piece of characterization and something that makes her stand out from the other characters, so while she's not my cup of tea when it comes to MCs, I appreciate what she brought to the table and I think she was the perfect MC for the first Caraval book. It was interesting to get to know the Caraval universe through the POV of someone like her, it added to the mistery because she was as clueless about the world as us, the readers, were.

[whimsicalfay]

I think the difference between Tella and Evangeline is that Tella is actually interesting even without a love interest. Without Jacks she still remains interesting. Evangeline, as much as I love her, does not. When I reread Legendary I read it in full. When I reread Once Upon a Broken Heart I skip half the book.

This!!!!!

Even Scarlett (which as a MC sometimes I found a bit annoying) manages to be interesting on her own, without the need of her male counterpart. But Eva, she's only interesting when Jacks is around, it's like she doesn't have a story of her own, idk how to explain it, like she's just there as an observer, she doesn't feel dynamic at all.

[whimsicalfay]

Morally grey things Evangeline Fox has done throughout the book: (1) Make a deal with Jacks to stop her sister's wedding-like this is literally what the book starts with (2) Continue to fulfill same deal even though it will require her hurting people (3) Continually wish for Apollo's love even though she brainwashed him (4) not tell Marisol in her role in ruining her life nor tell everyone else so that they'll blame her rather than the innocent-in this case-Marisol. Eva's 100% morally grey.

"I know Evangeline is trying to be a good person but the truth is her trying to be a good person is 90% of the time is her just trying to make up for her mistakes."

Exactly! My problem with it is that the narrative tries to paint all her actions as "noble" and "pure", because the text almost never acknowledges that Eva is being selfish, on the contrary, it's like is forcing you to think Eva is this poor little victim of the circumstances! So yeah, I'd say my problem isn't with Eva as a character, but with the narrative that Garber is trying to push without realizing her character is trying to tell a different story.

But well, OUABH is the first book of a trilogy so maybe in the future we see some improvement? I hope we do, because I love the Caraval universe and I really want to like this new trilogy.

[whimsicalfay]

Of course, it's only what I heard. I could be wrong, and Tella may not be there. But I'm hopeful we'll see Tella again. I truly think she is what makes the Caraval series great.

I hope she's there!

And same! She was a very refreshing and fun MC and would love to read her again, even if it is as a secondary character.

I agree with you, Tella and the Fates are the best aspects of the Caraval universe <3

[whimsicalfay]

— A Writer’s Diary, Virginia Woolf (August 31, 1928)

[text ID: This is the last day of August and like almost all of them of extraordinary beauty. Each day is fine enough and hot enough for sitting out; but also full of wandering clouds;]

[whimsicalfay]

𝙰𝚞𝚐𝚞𝚜𝚝 𝟹𝟶, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟺 𝚃𝚑𝚎 𝙳𝚒𝚊𝚛𝚒𝚎𝚜 𝙾𝚏 𝙵𝚛𝚊𝚗𝚣 𝙺𝚊𝚏𝚔𝚊, 𝟷𝟿𝟷𝟺-𝟷𝟿𝟸𝟹

[ID: August 30. Cold and empty. END ID]

[whimsicalfay]

I feel that as long as we're going to distinguish TellaJacks from Evajacks we're going to need a different dynamic-and I feel one of the best ways to do so is to turn the tables. Have Jacks be the one with more to loose because of his love interest's machinations, and not the other way around. So I thought: what if Evangeline had been trying to steal Jacks's power so she could use it to manipulate Luc? And the best way to weaken a fate is to make them fall in love with you...what do you think?

I actually like your idea a whole lot!

It would have been so interesting to have a morally gray MC, even a bit evil, and if Garber it's good at something it's at writing morally gray characters, I mean she gave us Dante, Tella, Jacks, I'd even say Julian. She's better at writing morally gray characters/villains that she's at writing good/nice ones IMO. Eva would've been so much more likeable that way!

Imagine Jacks falling for someone else's machinations, being the one toyed with in the same way he toyed with Tella in Legendary and Finale, while Eva starts to fall for him in the process, but she's desire for revenge is almost as strong as her new found love. That would have been so much better, seriously. 😫

[whimsicalfay]

You put my problems with Eva into words perfectly!! She's not a good person, but the text (the or should I say the author) wants you to force you to believe she is and it ends up becoming annoying at some point. You're right, it'd have been way better if Eva was a morally gray character with some schemings of her own, but instead we're supposed to believe her selfish motivations are "wholesome" and "pure".

(And yesss!! That's exactly why I love Tella, she and Jacks are my favorite characters because they're unapologetically morally great, they don't pretend to be something they're not, I mean, you could say that Jacks does but it's when he wants to manipulate people lol).

Final review: Once Upon a Broken Heart

This is it. My final OUABH review (that I also posted on Goodreads). I finally gathered my thoughts and could write a more or less decent review. I came to some realizations while writing it (like I truly don't like Eva, despite previously saying I did enjoy her), and it ended being a more negative review than I expected, but oh well. These are my honest toughts. I still love the Caraval universe, tho. And I still love Jacks with all my heart.

Spoilers ahead, beware.

My rating: ★★☆☆☆

I really wanted to love this book. The Caraval trilogy are three of my favorite YA fantasy books. I totally love them. Jacks is my favorite character not only from the Caraval universe, but in general. So, when Garber announced the release of Once Upon a Broke Heart and said we were gonna see and learn more about Jacks, I was thrilled. I really was so excited because the ending of Finale didn't do it for me (I didn't like Dante as the final choice, and not because Jacks is my fave, but because Dante's character was a bit of a mess, in a technical sense). I couldn't wait for this book to be released, and when I finally got my hands on it, I pulled an all-nighter to read it. That's how much I wanted to love it. But that didn't happen. This book was such a dissapointment for me. And I'll use this little space to rant about it. 1. Evangeline Fox. Let's talk about our new MC. I'll be honest, I didn't like her. One of the things I enjoyed about the Caraval trilogy is that, even if the books utilized many YA tropes and clichés, they felt refreshing (at least to me, of course). It's not the case with OUABH. It didn't feel special, I felt like a YA fantasy book of the bunch, you know? And it partly was because of Evangeline. She's your typical "normal" girl. A good girl. But what she doesn't know is that she's some sort of chosen one, the only person who can open a magical vault. There even is a prophecy about her! And while she's your typical "normal" girl, she's not completely like the rest, you know? She's different. She's special. Why? Because the author said so, it's not like you actually see her doing anything out of this world. In fact, she never does anything. You see, things just happen to her because she's just that special. She doesn't have the need to go outside and look for adventure, because adventure will find her. She gets noticed by the Empress, and she's sent to another country as an ambassador (despite being a common girl with no experience whatsoever in politics and/or foreing affairs? But the plot needed her to go to this new country, I suppose), a prince falls for her, a Fate befriends her, she's the talk of the town, and why? I don't know, because the plot needed for those things to happen, not because Evangeline did anything to earn it. She's the plot's punching bag. Things keep happening to her all the time for no reason other than because they need to happen. Personality wise Evangeline isn't that likeable either. Garber tried to portray her as this sweet good girl that's too good for this world, that always sees the best in people and gives everyone the benefit of the doubt, that tries to help everyone, even her enemies, because she's just that good; it ends up becoming exasperating. You stop perceiving her as a good girl and instead you start seeing her as a dumbass. People lie to her all the time and she's too dumb to notice it. She gets tricked and manipulated and after all that she still decides to trust that very people that lied to her face. There's a fine line between innocence and stupidty. Evangeline is not innocent, she's straight up stupid. She sometimes feel like a diet Mary Sue. 2. Jacks & the romance. I decided to talk about these two things in the same point because my problem with Jacks ends up greatly influencing my problem with the romance. So, Jacks. Our self-centered Fate. Our little yandere. If you pick up this book expecting to find the Jacks from Legendary and Finale, well, prepare for a big dissapointment. That Jacks is GONE. I've seen some people call this book a "fanfic" for Caraval's fans, especially for Jacks' fans, but it's not. I do not know who this book is for, but it's not for Jacks' fans, because Jacks is so out of character that Garber could had given him a complete new name and I wouldn't have guessed he was supposed to be Jacks. In Legendary and Finale Jacks was portrayed as this sinister trickster, he was mean , he saw humans as lesser creatures, as toys. And it was understandable because he was a Fate, a nonhuman magical creature that had lived for

thousands upon thousands of years. He didn't have a human's set of morals and values because he simply was not human. None of the Fates were. And that was really interesting. I enjoy when authors portray nonhuman creatures as, well, nonhuman. Be it vampires, fairies, demons, angels, you name it. It's more believable when their morals are kind of twisted, it makes them feel as more out of this world. More alien. And that's the point. That's why Jacks became my favorite character when he first appeared in Legendary. But all of that gets thrown out of the windown in OUABH. In OUABH Jacks is suddenly so composed, so level headed. He's less sinister, way more less sinister, less manipulative, less mean, less magical, less Fate. I suppose that, because he was going to be our main love interest, Garber toned him down to make his relationship with Eva feel less toxic? If you are expecting to find the shitshow that was the whole jackstella relationship, that's not going to happen. Jacks is now your typical YA love interest, you know, à la Jace Morgenstern. He is now human . I mean, not in the literal sense of the word, it's just that he doesn't feel like a Fate anymore. No Fate feels like a Fate anymore. Garber "humanized" them way too much for my liking. Lala? Completely hated her. Bring me back the Fates from Legendary and Finale please! I've noticed that this is a pattern with Garber. When she tries to make a character more sympathetic she ends up completely destroying them. It happened to Julian, to Dante and now it's happening to Jacks. She's good at creating compelling morally gray characters, but when it's time for them to have a relationship they have to either be good or bad, what's that morally gray nonsense? And since the main love interest can't be bad, they have to be good, even if that doesn't make sense with their previous established characterization. And this really hurts me because I love the Jacks from Legendary and Finale. I'm into morally gray and villanous characters, what can I say? And this is the reason why I couldn't enjoy the romance, because everytime Jacks and Eva had a moment together I was thinking "this is so out of character for Jacks". Jacks had a very warped way of demostrating his love, of showing that he cared for the object of his affection, a selfish twisted way of loving in general. He would lie, manipulate and force himself on the girl he liked, but now you want me to believe that he can restrain himself? That he can be sweet? That he can be respectful? Jacks? The same Jacks who lied to a girl to get her to marry him without her knowledge? The same Jacks that used his magic to force a girl to be with him? The same possessive Jacks that would do all sorts of shady stuff in the name of love? Hahaha that's funny. So all these "sweet" moments between the main couple just made me roll my eyes, honestly. I couldn't see past the mischaracterization. Also Eva is so painfully boring, the romance just didn't get me excited. And another thing about the romance: what's with Jacks' heart beating again? The love between Eva and Jacks is moving too fast it feels like an instalove. These two just met and Jacks is already in love with here? In love enough for his heart to start beating again? Really? Not even three months have passed since the events of Finale, but Jacks is already in love again? Wasn't it supposed to be kind of hard for Fates to fall in love? Wasn't it especifically hard for Jacks to fall in love because he first needed to find his one true love? Ah, this one true love thingy confuses me too. We get confirmation that yes, Tella is Jacks' one true love, and his heart would only beat for his one true love, right? But Eva is making his heart beat too? For a Fate that supposedly had a hard time finding the love of his life, he's finding them quite easily here... He's got two already! It's just nonsense. Garber is ignoring her own world building. 3. Vampires. My opinion on this could be very well summirised to: WTF? What the f***k are vampires doing in this book? It was so strange.

It really threw me off. Remember that the Caraval universe was about witches, warlocks, magicians, Gods (the Fates), circuses, your typical fantasy stuff, but suddenly we have elements of paranormal? And not done very well, if you ask me. It feels like the author forced them into the story because she likes vampires, or because she needed some reason for Eva's ex boyfriend to be around and thought "well, vampires sound kinda cool, let's go with that". And was ever mentioned in Finale that Chaos was a vampire? Because I don't remember anything hinting to that. But should I be surprised? Is Garber we're talking about and she has said she makes a lot of decisions on the go. That's how we ended up with Dante as Legend when in Caraval it was heavily hinted that Julian was Legend. The book really took a weird turn when vampires appeared and it didn't recover from it. I guess if someone reads it without having read the previous books probably they won't find it that weird? But to me it didn't make sense. 4. Magic. Magic was the most important element in the Caraval trilogy, but in OUABH it doesn't hold much weight. Yes, some characters use magic here and there, but it's not a central theme. I came from the Caraval trilogy craving more magic and, well, let's say I was let down. It's specially dissapointing because you have a book starring Fates, and yet there's not much magic in it? F***k magic, instead we got vampires! Lol. Final comments: This book was a hot mess and not a good one. When we were told that Once Upon a Broken Heart was going to be about Jacks, I was expecting a book much more grandiose than the Caraval trilogy, because this time a Fate was going to be the protagonist. And the Fates in Legendary and Finale were really interesting, I would say they were the best part of those books. But no, we instead got a book about little miss Eva. Also, while the Caraval trilogy were romance books, they felt like they had a plot besides the romance. Caraval was about Scarlett navigating Caraval to find Tella; yes, Scarlett had the hots for Julian, but that wasn't her main motivation, she wasn't there to lust after him, she was there to save her sister. In Legendary Tella wants to win Caraval to find out Legend's real identity, because she believes that's the only way she can save her mother; yes, we have romance there too, but we also have a solid plot and Tella doesn't deviate from it. Finale was a bit of a mess, but nothing compared to OUABH. OUABH on the other hand... What is Eva's motivation? Why is she doing what she's doing? The truth is, she doesn't have reasons. At the beginning it made sense for her to go looking for Jacks, but after that it just feels like the plot is moving her around like a rag doll. The whole time she's more worried about Jacks and guys in general than anything else, and that's because she has no real reasons to be where she is. I don't feel like there are big stakes for her. So what if she marries a prince? So what if she opens or not the vault? What difference does it make to her? How does it affect her? In no way, that's the answer. She does thing because the plot needs her to do things to move forward, not because she has any real reasons to do those things. Anyway. I'm really dissapointed at this book. Will I read the sequel? Yes. I'll give Garber a chance to shut my mouth. (I also have the feeling that OUABH was more of a filler book? Like the type of book which only purpose is to establish some things before the really juicy happens? Idk if I make sense, but yeah).