Monday 12 March 2018

Review: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

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.

-- Goodreads.com description --

This is probably one of the most anticipated and hyped books of 2018. I have never read a Holly Black book before but Fae stories intrigue me.

When I hear the word Fae, I immediately think about pointy ears, magic, tricks, cruelty and Shakespeare. In The Cruel Prince all of these (except Shakespeare) are present and this is something I really enjoyed about this book.

The characters both intrigued and annoyed me. My favourite character is Vivi but I liked Cardan well enough too. I was at times annoyed by Jude but I understood her most of the time. The charachter I really disliked was Jude's sister Taryn. Her inaction was worse than the actual bullying.

As the title suggests, there is a lot of cruelty in this book. Especially when the highborn Fae bully Jude. I didn't have a problem with the inclusion of the bullying scenes, however, I do have problems with how they were handled. I can understand that Jude wants to keep it secret but the bullying should have been addressed by her teacher and family members. We get it, the Fae are cruel, but seeing as a lot of young adults have to deal with bullying, I feel that this topic should have been handled differently.

Aside from that, I did like the second part of the book more, the bullying was not as present and the action picked up too.

The plot twist at the end made me decide to give this book four stars after all. I'm looking forward to reading the sequel, which will likely be different than the first book concerning the issues I have addressed.

Have you read this book or are you planning to? Leave your thoughts down below.



14 comments:

  1. I really enjoyed this book too. Maybe it's just me but I loved how most of the characters, maybe all of them even, lacked serious morals. I can't say I liked any of them a 100% because almost all of them were kinda selfish. But I loved that. Holly definitely knows what her readers want. Vivi was my favorite as well!

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    1. I agree! I enjoyed all of that too, but as a teacher, bullying is a touchy subject and one thing that can make me so angry.

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  2. I've been wanting to try Holly Black too, and I keep seeing good reviews for this. I'm looking forward to finally reading it!

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  3. I enjoyed this read. I would have rated a three on the first half but the second half was a five for me so I went with a four. I couldn’t stand Taryn. Nice review

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    1. Yes, same here! The second half was by far the best!

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  4. I've heard a lot about this title, and I've been quite a lot into fantasy since I read To Kill a Kingdom. If there's also a plot twist that makes things even greater (like I seem to gather here), then I'm all for it!

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  5. I just finished this book this week! And yes, the plot twist caught me by surprise! Can't wait for book 2, which will be published... not sure when... Great review!

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    1. Thank you! Can't wait to read the sequel!

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  6. haha that's is what comes to my mind too when I think Fae! Maybe that's why I don't read about them! I am intrigued though by all the cruelty I heard that is in this book. Glad to hear you enjoyed it! I think I'll read it too

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  7. My gosh, I have seen this book everrrryyyywherrreeee! It's all over my Instagram feed. It really doesn't sound like the kind of book I'd usually pick up, but I'm starting to think it's so ubiquitous that I'll *have* to read it at some point, just to know what everyone's talking about! :) Thanks for sharing your honest review, it's a great help!

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    1. Haha, it's indeed everywhere! I'm glad you liked my review!

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