Review: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

"If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse"

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Jude and her sisters were taken from their normal lives when they were little, forced to move away from the mortal lands and to live among the faeries. While it might be easy for their half sister Vivi who is part faerie, Jude and her sister Taryn find it much harder to fit in. However the faerie lands is their home and Jude will not let anyone take that away from her, especially not Cardan the cruelest prince.

"Father, I am what you made me. I've become your daughter after all."

Name: The Cruel Prince

Author: Holly Black

Pages: 384

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Date: January 2nd 2018

Genre: Young adult fantasy

Purchase: Amazon, Chapters

Series: The folk of the Air

My thoughts

I fell in love with this book right from the start. I finished it in about 4 days, and immediately had to buy the second book, which luckily for me had come out the same day I started cruel prince. This is the book that got me through my Kingdom of Ash hangover. It is so amazing seeing Jude's character development throughout this novel. Everything about this book is interesting and so full of detail. It honestly felt like I was watching a movie while reading this book.

The book starts off with Jude living with her parents, her twin sister, and her older half sister. Jude is only seven, and is in the living room with her sisters when a stranger comes knocking on their door. We come to learn that Madoc is no stranger to the parents, Jude's mother was his wife and Vivi (Jude's older half sister) is his child. This is also where we learn that he is two things. One; Temperamental, that is found out when he kills both parents leaving the three girls as orphans. Secondly, he is a man of honour, since Vivi is his daughter, he takes her to faerieland. He also takes Jude and her twin Taryn because of a honourable code, that makes him decide the twins are his responsibility as well. So Madoc raises the girls as his own along side their new brother Oak, who is Madoc and his new wife's child.

We then discover all three girls are being raised as any Faerie child would be raised, they do all the necessary training, and schooling. This is a bit more difficult for Taryn and Jude who are mortal, they do things a bit differently from their peers and even sister Vivi. Not all faeries are accepting of mortals, especially mortals being brought up in faerieland. This I found interesting because Holly Black took a lot of time and detail into showing how differently Taryn and Jude must act. Firstly, they always have salt with them, because they can not eat the food in faerie without it. If they did they would become drunk off it, and crave it all the time. It could end up potentially dangerous. Secondly, they always have a string of berries around their neck under their shirts, this prevents the faeries from being able to glamour them into doing whatever he/she wishes. Lastly, and probably my favourite one of all is that mortals can lie, faeries cannot. Faeries are very literal creatures, and their deals can be quite deadly, however they can not lie. This works in Jude's favour many times, and sometimes it does not. But in a world where you are at the absolute bottom of the food chain, it helps to have any sort of one up on your potential enemies.

"I am coming unraveled, I am coming undone."

I love the character development that we see Jude go through. We see her survive in a place that really doesn't want her, we see her fight and stand up for herself, then just taking all the cruel and evil torture that her sister Taryn would rather sit through. We get to see her become a spy for one of the princes. Then in the end she ends manipulating Cardan into a year of her commands, and saving her little brother oak.

Taryn is a character that I thought was going to be the most level headed, voice of reason but completely surprised me. I hate her, I hate everything she has done to Jude, all to entertain Locke. Who is just as despicable and manipulating. If one thing is for sure, those two deserve each other.

Cardan, where to began with Cardan. I love him, his relationship with Jude is insane. But his character himself, how he acts is hilariously beautiful. There's tragedy behind him which he obviously hids with alcohol, lavish clothing, and hatefulness and spite towards anything that breaths. He is unbelievable smart but so clearly has never been given the chance to show that side of him, which kind of makes you pity him. He is a wonderfully entraining character. I found myself longing for more of him when the chapters he was in were over.

Madoc is one of the most complicated father figure I've ever read about. His and Jude's relationship is rocky. She seeks approval from this man while also reminding herself how insane it is because this man killed her parents. Even though Jude is not his daughter biologically, it is quite interesting to see how he does in his own way care for her, but also will not allow her to stand in his way. Thus making Madoc and Jude's father daughter enemy relationship just as complicated as hers and Cardan's relationship.

"'Have I told you how hideous you look today' 'No you have not, tell me' 'I cannot'"

Thw quote above is hands down my most favourite quote in this entire series. Jude and Cardan are at the dinner towards the end of the book. And Cardan means to insult her by saying she looks hideous. However him saying I cannot shows that he can't tell her she looks hideous because he cannot lie, and if he told her that it would be lie.

Recommend?

I definitely recommend if you are looking for an unpredictable story! This book has many twists and turns and its world building is beautiful but not overwhelming. I think it's a perfect introduction to the world of Holly Black.