Cruel Prince Review

    After the brutal murder of their parents, Jude and her sisters are forced to move to the High Court of Faerie and be raised by the murderer. They try to not attract too much attention especially since humans are not popular among fey, but that can sometimes be hard as they are treated differently than all other humans that live with fey. Jude attracts the attention of Prince Cardan, the youngest child of the High King, but also the cruelest. Still determined to fit in and have a place in Court, Jude does not bow down to Cardan. Now, she will have to live with the results of her decision.

    Keep in mind that everyone has their own opinion. This review is only my opinion, and you may have your own, different one. I would take into consideration what I say, but do not make a decision about the book solely based off of this review. Let's begin:

    This book was my first read that included the fey. Honestly, I am not sure why this is because of how popular the fey are in YA. I know quite a few popular series that include the fey that I really want to read, but this is the one I got to first. I was exposed to the Folk of the Air series through bookish Tiktoks. I saw it everywhere and, in all of those videos, it was regarded very highly. Therefore, I went into this book with pretty high expectations. I am very pleased to say I was not let down, and I now want to read more books with fey in them because it is pretty cool.

    In my opinion, there is nothing this author does better than betrayals. There were SO MANY, and I never saw any of them coming. I had an idea that one might happen, but then there were scenes that made me think I was way wrong. I ended up being correct, but I did not mind having it actually happen because even after I had the idea, I could not tell for sure if I was correct. All of the betrayals were shocking, heart wrenching, and fantastic.

    Another author that I absolutely adore, Victoria Aveyard, said that "Holly Black is the Faerie Queen." While I have not read any other works similar to this book in that aspect, I believe that this would be very hard to top for even very skilled authors. I cannot say for sure I agree with Aveyard currently, but I can say that I feel like I will once I read more books with fey. The magic was everywhere and just great.

All of the characters with the exception of maybe one or two are very deep. They are not people you can understand right away or that you know will not ever shock you. It is quite the opposite actually. I was surprised a few times by things the characters did until I got more information about the character and situation. For a book full of fantasy, the characters all felt very real.

    The storyline is somewhat basic. Even not having read anything with fey involved before, I have read other work with a very similar plot outline. However, this does not hinder the reading experience because of all of the twists Holly Black incorporates. I never felt bored or like it was a reread of another book. Additionally, I believe there was a good balance of action and downtime (it was not quite downtime, but I am not sure how to describe what I mean- sorry!) that kept me from getting bored, but that also did not feel like the author was trying to make up for a lack of story by putting a bunch of action.

    This book is not necessarily gruesome, but it is very dark. In my review of "Stepsister" by Jennifer Donnelly, I mentioned that  I actually cringed at some parts. That is when I feel I can safely say something is fairly gruesome. This did not happen while I was reading this book. It is dark in some of the ideas though. For example, watching your parents get murdered and then being taken to live and be raised by their murderer is something I would consider kind of dark (This is not a spoiler as it was on the back of the book). There are numerous other dark ideas within the book. Even still, they are written very nicely, and I personally really enjoyed them.

    This has nothing to do with the writing, but I love it too much not to mention it. The cover is so pretty. I am not too sure why I like it so much; I just do! It is simple, but pretty and really draws you in. I also appreciated the map. I say that about basically every book I read that has a map, but I am a sucker for maps.

    Overall, I definitely enjoyed the read and am very excited to start reading the second book, which also has a gorgeous cover (just saying). I highly recommend this if you want a darker, but fun quick read. All of the positive reviews are certainly deserved.

Rating: 5/5 stars

Author: Holly Black

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

# of Pages: 370

Genre: YA, Fantasy, Fae, Romance

Series: The Folk of the Air trilogy