Book 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 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.

AMAZON — GOODREADS — BARNES & NOBLE — BOOK DEPOSITORY

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I was first introduced to Holly Black through a cereal box. I was about ten years old, and Simon and Schuster did a special promo with a cereal company. So, I found myself with a mini edition of the Spiderwick Chronicles, which was a pretty cool read. After that, nothing life changing happened. I didn’t read any other Holly Black book until late 2018 when I decided to succumb to the Cruel Prince hype.

The Cruel Prince features Jude, a human who lives among fae. She’s reminded daily of how she’s worthless because she’s human, and so she yearns most of all to be the most powerful knight in Faerie. I’m a sucker for fae stories. Out of all the fantasy creatures, fae have to be the most badass. But that’s not why I enjoyed this story so much.

I started out feeling such disdain for Jude because of how much she wanted to be accepted by the fae. At a point, she became very pathetic in her wanting to be powerful and whatnot. Fortunately, things changed for the better when she went up against Cardan at the tournament. Her attitude changed from “I know I’m not fit to lick your shoes, but I’ll kill to be one of you” to “I might be a worthless mortal, but I’ll defy you and bring you down with me” and I loved it! I loved her strong will and realness. She still did some very questionable things, but that’s what made her very interesting to read about.

I shouldn’t have been surprised at how rotten Prince Cardan was, seeing that the story is literally called The Cruel Prince, but I really disliked this dude. When the reason behind Cardan’s evil behaviour came to light, my feelings changed to mild pity. I don’t believe there’s anything that can excuse such vicious behaviour, but at least, Cardan’s background made him seem less like a mindless villain.

I’ll spare a paragraph for Jude’s family members, just because. Vivi is like the quintessential YA fantasy heroine (long lost daughter of a high-ranking fae who is in love with a human and does everything to provoke her father), and I liked her quite a bit. Taryn, on the other hand, went from mildly flaky to very slimy. I feel like she’ll end up doing some stupid stuff in the next book, and I can’t wait to find out what it is. I was confused at how things with Madoc were received by the girls. I mean, he did murder their parents in front of them, but somehow, they could overlook this and treat him like this very honourable person until he betrayed the king and staged a coup? Interesting.

It’s not every day that I read a story with a lot of awful characters and still end up liking it. Even though a lot of the characters didn’t inspire warm and fuzzy feelings in me, I found The Cruel Prince to be awfully well written. The author didn’t follow the usual YA fantasy formula, and I ate the story up in less than a day. That said, it feels like this book is just a teaser for the next story, so I’m eager to continue the ride!

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