The Cruel Prince book review

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Series: The Folk of the Air #1
on January 2, 2018
Pages: 370
Goodreads

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 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.

As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal 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.

I have heard so many good things about The Cruel Prince and this series so I was excited to jump into it and learn more about it all. Plus the premise sounded like something right up my street, especially with what sounded like a well developed fae mythology. I will say that from the beginning that I think this book would be better suited for a younger audience and there does seem to be a lot of tropes running through this book and the story which is something that I struggle with. I did really love this book, and the mythology and characters it centres around but I do think I would have enjoyed it a little more if I was younger.

The fae in The Cruel Prince make this book. The way that they are represented and described all the way through is was drove me into this world and the story. I think that each of the characters were really uniquely described and developed, the best thing about the fae in this story was that they weren’t glamorous, they were cruel and unexpected. There are a lot of books that romanticise fae and mythical beings and they lose the essence of what makes them terrifying (think sparkly vampires). I loved the fact that this wasn’t the case with this, that the story had more substance built around the mythology.

I think the best bit of The Cruel Prince was definitely learning about the court and everything that goes on there. I think there was a lovely amount of detail and world building and I loved watching the human characters deal with the world around them. This was dealt with really well and some of the best parts of the book. The beginning and the ending was really my favourite parts of the book, they really sum up the brutality of the books and the characters perfectly. I loved the dynamics between the fae and the humans, it was an interesting way of working through the world and the different things that are happening.

The worst bits of The Cruel Prince would definitely have to be Cardan and Jude’s relationship. The ending for this was good but the lead up made me feel extremely uncomfortable, especially how quickly things ended up changing. I also didn’t think that Jude’s and Taryn’s relationship deteriorating the way it did wasn’t the most realistic thing that would happen especially with the relationships that were building around that.

I would recommend The Cruel Prince, it was a great read and I loved learning about the Fae and the world that they lived in. Plus the characters were well written and well developed, all in all it was an amazing book that I loved reading. I’m not sure when I’ll jump into the next book but it might not be for a little while yet, there’s a lot of books on my shelf.

Are you a big fan of this series? Does it get better with the later books? Let me know.