Title: The Cruel Prince
Author: Holly Black
ISBN: 9780316310314
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Pages: 416
Source: E-library
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.
Official Summary
11 April 2022
This book is from seventeen-year-old Jude’s point of view, a girl who was taken to Faerie, the world of the Fae, when she was seven. It shows how she struggles.
This book had its highs and lows. I found when it came to the action scenes I was racing through the book. However, when it was just the filler, that moved from one action scene to another it felt excruciatingly slow. Maybe I was just too impatient with this book because I truly think I could have finished this book in one sitting if I had the concentration for it. Instead, it took me eight days to finish this, which isn’t too bad but at the moment I am reading lots so that is slow for me.
I will say I have read lots of fantasy books and I loved the new look at the genre. I loved that instead of being with the characters as they enter the Faerie world and seeing them deal with the new world, the story starts ten years after they are brought to Faerie and see how they are still struggling.
My favourite character had to be Jude. I think what I love about this character is that Jude is very different from most of the female leads that I have read about. I think this is because more often than not the female lead has to have this hero complex, where they are so selfless, that they would do anything to protect anyone, even strangers. I mean the number of books I have read where a seventeen-year-old girl saves the day by being super sacrificing is unbelievable. And although Jude is the hero of this story everything she does is to benefit her and for her to gain power. She is selfish which makes her character a lot more realistic. I am saying this as a seventeen-year-old girl who wouldn’t die just to protect the world – you guys are all on your own!
I also loved Cardan because I am a sucker for the misunderstood villain to hero trope. Jude’s older half-sister, Vivienne, was a sweetheart. She was truly an amazing sister. However, Jude’s twin sister, Taryn deserved a punch in the face.
Everything I have heard about this series is that the books just get better and better throughout the series. So I look forward to that. Overall it is an awesome book that I would definitely recommend. It was a solid four out of five stars for me.
Also by Holly Black
Book of Night
Charlie Hall has never found a lock she couldn’t pick, a book she couldn’t steal, or a bad decision she wouldn’t make. She’s spent half her life working for gloamists, magicians who manipulate shadows to peer into locked rooms, strangle people in their beds, or worse. Gloamists guard their secrets greedily, creating an underground economy of grimoires. And to rob their fellow magicians, they need Charlie. The Cursed Workers. Now, she’s trying to distance herself from past mistakes, but going straight isn’t easy. Bartending at a dive, she’s still entirely too close to the corrupt underbelly of the Berkshires. Not to mention that her sister Posey is desperate for magic and that her shadowless and possibly soulless boyfriend has been keeping secrets from her. When a terrible figure from her past returns, Charlie descends back into a maelstrom of murder and lies. Determined to survive, she’s up against a cast of doppelgängers, mercurial billionaires, gloamists, and the people she loves best in the world — all trying to steal a secret that will allow them control of the shadow world and more.
Cassel Sharpe comes from a family of curse workers, people who have the power to change emotions, memories, and luck with the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they’re also all criminals. Many become mobsters and con artists, but not Cassel. He doesn’t have magic, so he’s an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family—except for the small detail that he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.
Cassel has carefully built up a facade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his facade starts to crumble when he finds himself sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He’s noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behaviour of his two older brothers, who are keeping secrets from him. As Cassel begins to suspect he’s an unwitting pawn in a huge con game, he must unravel his past and his memories. To find the truth, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.
This magical bind-up includes: White Cat – Red Glove – Black Heart
About The Author
Author Bio from the Author’s Site
Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over thirty fantasy novels for kids and teens. She has been a finalist for an Eisner Award and the Lodestar Award, and the recipient of the Mythopoeic Award, a Nebula, and a Newbery Honor. Her books have been translated into 32 languages worldwide and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library.
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Goodbye, my little book nerds…
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