A review by doodlebeanz
A Curse for True Love by Stephanie Garber

adventurous emotional tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

I was fully invested in this book from the first chapter, I was hanging onto every single word… up until the last 25%. Once
Eva gets her memories back
, the flow of the writing and the pacing of the story changed and I definitely lost the thread pretty quickly. Part of my 2025 reading resolutions was to be less critical of books and to just enjoy them, so I am still giving this book a 4.5 bc it did have me in a chokehold for the first 75-80% of the story and I did like it as an ending to this trilogy, BUT I did have some serious issues with it, plot wise. 
 
Spoilers ahead ! 
 
Firstly, the climax of the book happens just pages before it ends, and the build up to the ending was mediocre to say the least. Every complication or conflict that Eva faced was dealt with in the same page/chapter. By the end, it was just like... that's it? Many actions occurred in the book and then were never brought up again - like Apollo becoming murderous (killing a 14 yr old boy for no reason… killing guards… torturing Eva’s tutor over a note when he knew he was the one who wrote the note… okay), Castor (Or Luc? We’ll never know) killing The Fortuna’s and the inn people, etc. Like why mention it if it had no impact on anything?? 
 
Secondly, the Valors. The Valors were a huge part of the series, they were talked about in every single book… but their storyline in ACFTL was SO underwhelming. Aurora especially. She was set up as some big bad villain with an evvvvvil plot brewing, only for it to be revealed she just had a crush on Jacks CENTURIES AGO and “was more or less defeated by him punching her in the head offscreen” (quote from a Reddit thread which I loved). I get Apollo was technically the main villain, not Aurora, but like... why? Apollo’s descent into evilness and murdering innocent people made little to no sense. He was doing it all under the guise of protecting and saving Eva, because he loved her so much, but then he was about to sacrifice her to become immortal…. What?????? That doesn’t even line up w anything he has done in the entire book… The vague reasoning for this was sort of explained away in a few sentences, something about what his father told him & wanting to be remembered? It was just so confusing. Up until the end of the second book, I had sympathy for him. He had been manipulated and placed under several curses. It would make sense why he hated Jacks and tried to make it work with Eva. There was a lot of potential, but a lot of it just didn't really make sense. 
 
Most importantly imo, the biggest issue was that Jacks was absent for a BIG part of the book, AND we didn't get a satisfying payoff of seeing him and Eva happy together. Apollo is defeated, and everyone just kinda walks away unscathed… with no repercussions… with no consequences… nothing… just they kiss and then boom, story ends. I had a lot of unanswered questions like; why does he eat apples? If he's immortal and Evangeline is human, does that mean she'll die way before him? And, the biggest one of all, HOW DID EVA SURVIVE THE KISS?! Right before she kisses him, Aurora confesses that the curse she placed on Jacks is twisted due to the story curse, and it’s the “only the girl who could *never* love Jacks that would survive the kiss”… which makes no sense… bc Eva def loves Jacks… Some ppl on the internet say that it has to do with True Love’s Kiss and all that, which makes sense, but there was no explanation of that being the cause. Neither of them even ask about it… they just kiss and then Eva ‘faints’ and the reader is obv led to believe that she’s about to die but she just says she’s breathless from the kiss so she fell… then the book ends. IT MAKES NO SENSE HOW SHE SURVIVED! 
 
Also, we never see Luc, Marisol or Tiberius again, which was weird considering they were pretty prominent characters before. Like why was Luc even in book 2 as an imposter..? That storyline went no where fast. He just popped up randomly… I thought he’d play a bigger role in this book, but nope, he was only mentioned 1 time I think. Also, Chaos/Castor got no repercussions for killing an entire Great House? that storyline was abandoned… Lala wasn’t in the book enough either and we never know if she gets a resolution with her first love, Dane, who is now out of the Valory Arch, which is SO overlooked and not explained at all.  
 
This book either needed 150 more pages or way less of Eva trying to remember in the first 250. I wouldn't have minded a later release date if it meant a bigger book to adequately fill all the holes and jumps made. There was just so much left unexplained. And even if the vibes of this book are fantastical and romantic, the true love aspects of magic and curses weren’t really properly expanded on to make sense when the ending came about. 
 
All in all, I did enjoy this book about 80% of the time and I am happy with the B&N extra epilogue that I got, but I still wish more things were explained. At the end of the day, Jacks & Eva will forever live rent free in my mind and I love them fiercely. OUABH was my first fantasy book last year, and it opened my eyes to start ACOTAR and now TOG so I feel fully indebted to this series. I loved it regardless of my negative review!