Review of The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Genres: Fantasy, Faeries
Pages: 384
Publisher: Little, Brown Books
Release Date: 01/02/2018
Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.
To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.
In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.
The last book I read reminded me of why I stopped reading and reviewing Young Adult books. This book reminded me of why I came back. It's everything I could want from a YA book and more, while being tied to a book that started off my love of YA. The story also reminded me of another early favourite, Poison Study (which I must dig out and re-read this year).
Jude is wild, unpredictable and everything I could want from a YA heroine. I tire of simpering heriones that require everyone else to do the work for them. Or the ones that won't do The Hard Thing because they have all these morals and can never, ever, break them. No worries with Jude, while she's not completely lawless, she does whatever is necessary for things to do the way she wants them to, without coming across as arrogant.
The boys. Can we have a shoutout for the boys? And another for Vivi and her girlfriend? Honestly while this book is crammed to the brim with beautiful boys I did really want to spend a day with Vivi and her girlfriend, as Vivi quickly became my favourite character. After finding out her father is fae and she too, she never disconnects from the human world but stays, I presume, for her sisters. Despite her anger and her disappointment with Jude and Taryn for embracing the faerie world, she never cuts them off.
Of the boys, Prince Carden is easily my favourite. It's hard to work out which one of the boys is The Cruel Prince, as quite frankly, they all are. I really had a soft spot for Carden though and heavily shipped him and Jude, even if all logic says that this is impossible due to their hatred of each other.
While this is a world of faerie, it's a harsh and cruel world of bloodshed, politics and partying - so basically it's like Charles the First's reign combined with Charles the Second's. I guess that makes Madoc Oliver Cromwell to be honest. I was stuck between whether to like or hate Madoc, a problem Jude also shared. I liked his wife though, as much as she nit-picked I think she did care about the girls.
It's worth noting if you haven't read any of Holly's books before that this book is definitely set in the same world as her previous book, Tithe and may also be connected to The Darkest Part Of The Forest, however I haven't read the latter. In fact readers of Tithe may well get a welcome surprise later in this book! The story stands by itself though, so if you don't wish to read the previous books you won't miss out on anything.
Yaay so happy this one exceeded all of your expectations Vickie! Prince Cardan made me feel the ENTIRE spectrum of emotions while reading The Cruel Prince and I just can't get enough of him!
ReplyDeleteHe's amazing isn't he? I do like my men to be a little bit dark. XD
DeleteI hope we're seeing so much more of him and Jude in the next book!