The Cruel Prince by Holly Black Also by this author: The Wicked King
Series: The Folk of the Air #1
Also in this series: The Wicked King
on 01/02/2018
Genres: Action & Adventure, Dark Fantasy, Fairy Tales & Folklore, Fantasy, General, Royalty, Young Adult Fiction
Pages: 384
Format: Hardcover
Source: Library
By #1 New York Times bestselling author Holly Black, the first book in a stunning new series about a mortal girl who finds herself caught in a web of royal faerie intrigue.
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.
Stories about Faerie fascinate me. The many different takes that never fail to include one common thread – Faerie is cruel, violent, & just plain a place no one should want to go.
The Cruel Prince is everything Faerie is made out to be, but with one twist – mortals, humans, can play the games as well if they’re smart about it.
Jude is the one who doesn’t fit in, kidn of wants to, but at the same time wants to fit in on her terms. She wants to be one of them, but not? Jude wants to fit in by being a member of the Court as someone’s knight.
Taryn just wants to fit in. She just wants to be one of them, but not in the same way her twin sister Jude does. Taryn wants to fall in love and become the wife of one of the Gentry and fit in that way.
Vivienne is half-fey, half-human. She’s the reason Jude and Taryn ended up growing up in Faerie in the first place. She would honestly rather live in the mortal world.
Cardan is an ass, but he’s a loveable ass in a way. You realize that his hatred for Jude isn’t what it appears to be.
This was one of the best representations of Faerie I’ve read and the best recent novel dealing with Faerie. I didn’t want to put it down. It has such a unique perspective. You don’t usually get Faerie novels from a mortal’s point of view.
Extremely well written, this book needs to be read by anyone who has a love of Faerie. I gave this one 5 stars because it is just excellent.
