56 pages • 1 hour read
Stephanie GarberOnce Upon a Broken Heart
Fiction | Novel | YA | Published in 2021A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
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Themes
Every Truth Contains Lies
In Chapter 7 of Once Upon a Broken Heart, Evangeline remembers her mother telling her “all stories are made of both truths and lies” (7). This idea persists both within the novel itself and within the fictional stories in the novel’s world. Through the truths and lies Evangeline and Marisol tell, the lies embedded in Evangeline’s romance with Apollo, and Jacks’s motivations to open the Valory Arch, Once Upon a Broken Heart explores how truth and lies cannot be separated.
Immediately after Evangeline makes her initial deal with Jacks, she regrets her decision. She wants to tell Marisol the truth but can’t bring herself to do so until the end of the book. As a result, Evangeline lives a lie where Marisol is concerned. Given how Marisol lies to Evangeline, it may be that Marisol doesn’t believe Evangeline is a hero for saving the wedding in Chapter 3, but regardless of Marisol’s beliefs, Evangeline saved Marisol and Luc’s wedding party from the curse. However, she only needed to save them because she made a deal to curse them in the first place. It is both truth and a lie that Evangeline is a hero because it’s true that she’s also the villain. Similarly, Marisol lies to Evangeline about spelling Luc and Tiberius. It seems true that Marisol finds love, but that truth is marred by the fact she forces it on her suitors.
Like Marisol’s relationships with Luc and Tiberius, Evangeline’s romance with Apollo is built on lies and manipulated emotions. Evangeline waffles between believing Apollo truly loves her and thinking his emotions are false. She wants the truth of a happy ending but can’t believe the lie of Apollo’s affection. The closeness Apollo and Evangeline share in Chapter 30 suggests there might be true emotions buried in the lies. When Tiberius breaks free of Marisol’s spell at the end of the book, he instantly hates her. By contrast, when Apollo’s obsession wains, he is tender toward Evangeline, and when Jacks releases Apollo’s emotions entirely, Apollo doesn’t seem hateful in the few moments before he falls unconscious. It may be that Apollo could have grown to truly love Evangeline in time, but the lies controlling his emotions would likely have confused the process.
Jacks manipulates Evangeline throughout the book. Rather than outright telling her untruths, his lies are ones of omission. He doesn’t tell her why he wants three kisses from her or why he wants her to open the Valory Arch. Instead, he manipulates the situations around her to arrive at the outcomes he seeks, all the while dragging Evangeline along. He is honest with her about his manipulation at points and consistently treats her better than he treats most others, but it is unclear if he does so because he likes her or because he needs her to willingly give blood to open the Valory Arch. He wields both truths and lies like weapons until it’s nearly impossible to tell which are which.
Whether blatant or hidden, lies cannot be kept secret forever. The lies within a truth twist that truth until it isn’t recognizable, and only by revealing the lies can the truth be untangled. Even revealing the truth doesn’t guarantee a positive outcome. At the end of the book, Marisol uses Evangeline’s truth against her, and Evangeline resolves not to be a part of Jacks’s lies anymore. It is said the truth sets people free, but that freedom may contain just as many lies.
Endings Are Not Finite
In Chapter 8, Evangeline recalls her mother saying that “every story has the potential for infinite endings” (60). Often, endings are grouped into two categories—comedy/happy or tragedy—but even within these two classifications, there are infinite ways events could play out. Shown by how Evangeline’s “happy” ending keeps changing, the ending of “The Ballad of the Archer and the Fox,” and the many paths a story could take, Once Upon a Broken Heart shows how stories can end in any number of ways.
When the book opens, Evangeline’s happily-ever-after with Luc has been disrupted by Marisol’s love spell. Rather than accept that ending, Evangeline seeks out Jacks’s to bargain for a new one. When her deal also doesn’t award her with Luc’s love, Evangeline takes the chance to find love in the North. Her romance with Apollo, if manufactured, starts to end happily, but when Jacks’s manipulations are revealed, the ending to that romantic story, too, changes. At the end of the novel, Evangeline still hasn’t found her happy ending, but she refuses to give up because her story has the potential for infinite endings, which means a happy one is still possible. All her previous attempts at a happy ending have failed, which is natural because, if stories have infinite endings, they are just as likely to end unhappily as happily. It may also be that a romance gone bad could turn into a happy ending because a seeming “ending” may not be the end, after all.
“The Ballad of the Archer and the Fox” is a story from the Magnificent North that Evangeline’s mother used to tell her. In the story, an archer is in love with a girl who can turn into a fox but cursed with the need to hunt her. Due to the North’s magic, the story’s ending cannot be known, which means it could end with romance, death, or any other one of infinite options. Since one of Jacks’s names is “the Archer” and Evangeline’s last name is “Fox,” the story is likely about them. It may be that “The Ballad of the Archer and the Fox’s” ending will be revealed when Jacks and Evangeline’s shared story arc is complete. Even so, finishing the ballad is not the end of their story. Whether the archer kills the fox, the archer and fox fall in love, or something else happens, that moment is but a single moment in a much larger story.
Characters’ choices influence the direction a story takes. If Evangeline had chosen not to make a deal with Jacks or to tell Marisol about the deal sooner, Once Upon a Broken Heart would have gone a different way. The power to manufacture a story is in the hands of the storyteller or author. Garber chose to tell the story the exact way it appears. She could have selected different paths for Evangeline, Marisol, Jacks, and others, placing them in any number of different scenarios. The book itself is now complete, but as the first in a series, the characters’ stories are not finite. Even if Once Upon a Broken Heart was a stand-alone novel, one could extrapolate any number of ways for the story to progress after its final page, showing how this story, and all stories, never truly end.
Every story is part of a larger story, and each ending is just a moment in a greater tale. Whether characters fall in love or die, there is more to be told. Even happily-ever-after can be a story, if one without much conflict or tension. Stories are, by nature, infinite, and finite endings are just where we choose to end them.
The Pros and Cons of Second Chances
Throughout the book, characters are given second chances either by other characters or to change their lives. These chances lead to both positive and negative outcomes, which shows that second chances are not always successful or beneficial. Through Nocte Neverending, the second chances Evangeline gives Marisol and Jacks, and the second chance Evangeline gets from her deal with Jacks, Once Upon a Broken Heart shows there are good and bad aspects to second chances.
Evangeline describes Nocte Neverending as a chance to find “opportunities that some people search their whole lives for” (131). The event is intended as a way for the North’s prince to find a bride, but the party itself is much more than that. Apollo will only choose one girl as his bride, but the hundreds of people in attendance have the opportunity for a second chance at something, whether love, status, or another aspect of their life. Nocte Neverending represents possibilities. It is the kind of magnificent event where anything can happen and where anyone can find what they seek. It also represents the importance of stepping out of one’s comfort zone. Evangeline and Marisol never would have gotten the chance to attend the event without the empress’s invitation, but once they’re there, they embrace the power and magic of Nocte Neverending, as well as what it can offer them in the long run.
Throughout the book, Evangeline gives Jacks and Marisol many second chances. At heart, Evangeline is good and honest, and she wants to believe everyone else is, too. As a result, she trusts people she shouldn’t trust, which leads to being betrayed and manipulated. Marisol repeatedly makes herself out as a victim, ruins things of Evangeline’s, and makes excuses, but Evangeline wants to trust her and so pushes aside these warning signs. At the end of the book, all the second chances Evangeline gives Marisol almost get her killed. Similarly, Evangeline gives Jacks many second chances. Jacks is more open about manipulating Evangeline than Marisol is, but the second chances Evangeline gives Jacks still put her in dangerous situations. After Marisol’s betrayal, Evangeline’s ability to trust breaks. The assumptions she makes about Jacks in Chapter 53 may be true, or they may be the result of too many second chances leading to negative outcomes for Evangeline. She doesn’t want to give any more second chances, even though Jacks may deserve them.
Evangeline’s deal with Jacks gives her a second chance at love with Luc, which doesn’t work out. Instead, she realizes her second chance has ruined something for someone else and tries to fix it. As a result of the deal, though, second chances pile up in Evangeline’s path. From Nocte Neverending to skirting blame for Apollo’s murder, Evangeline continuously has the chance to make up for past mistakes and choices. No matter how many second chances she gets, though, she can’t undo what’s been done. Second chances are an opportunity, but they are also a reminder of a previous chance gone poorly. Second chances give Evangeline new opportunity at love and freedom, things she loses again at turns, showing how second chances don’t always let us make up for the past.
Second chances offer new opportunities, but those opportunities are not always positive ones. Nocte Neverending gives Evangeline the second chance of a lifetime—what seems like a whirlwind romance with a prince—but it ultimately leads to Evangeline realizing the love is false, her becoming a fugitive, and Marisol seizing her own second chance to remove Evangeline from her path. Second chances are less about simply having another opportunity and more about how we use that opportunity to change our situation.
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