Series: The Folk of the Air #1
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.
2.5 Drink Me Potions
Faerie might be beautiful, but its beauty is like a golden stag’s carcass, crawling with maggots beneath his hide, ready to burst.
Back into the land of the fae. While I’m acquainted with faeries from various authors (see Julie Kagawa, Lesley Livingston, recent Cassandra Clare), this is my first real romp with Holly Black’s version of these mythical creatures.
And it’s definitely the crueler side highlighted.
Twins Jude and Taryn have lived with the faeries since they were young after being kidnapped by their parents’ killer. But they’ve been treated fairly well, to the status of Gentry, which explains the extreme Stockholm syndrome present in these girls.
Yet this land is no place for mortals. Or at least, not if they want to be treated well and with respect.
I struggled with Jude as the main character for most of the book. While the high class faeries mocked them and tormented them, I get wanting to hurt them back and to feel less powerless. But Jude pushed back sometimes too hard and it led to consequences that I don’t think she really thought through. And consequences that fell on other people, namely Taryn.
At the same time, it’s this deep anger and willingness to do anything to gain power and control over her own situation that made Jude real. And over time, she became someone stronger – with maybe less scrupulous morals (in some ways).
And yet none of [land, knighthood, love] seems all that valuable anymore. None of those are true power. True power isn’t granted. True power can’t be taken away.
The romance, likewise, got better with time. Prince Cardan is not nice. In fact, that’s a pure understatement.
I couldn’t get a good read on him and I’m not really sure what his attraction to Jude is based on. It’s definitely a slow burn kinda romance so I appreciate that more than insta-love. But I withhold judgment on how it’ll go from there.
The pacing was excruciatingly slow in the beginning. Nothing really got exciting until maybe two-thirds or more into the book. The beginning is basically Jude being angry (instead of having to deal with just being scared) all the time while everyone is cruel to her. I can see why everyone loves this novel overall, yet you really gotta pat yourself on the back for getting to the point where it gets exciting.
With that twisted ending that almost felt like it was left mid-sentence, I do look forward to seeing what’s next in store in this faerie court. The intrigue is afoot!
Overall Recommendation:
The Cruel Prince fell a little flat after all the hype that surrounded it upon release. Slow in its execution and featuring a romance where I couldn’t exactly say I was rooting for the guy for most of the book, the only highlight was the imaginative land of faeries crafted by Holly Black and the twisted ending that I didn’t see coming. Having an irritating but realistic protagonist such as Jude made the journey more interesting, that’s for sure. With book 1 setting the stage in the last 1/3 of the story, I find myself extremely intrigued as to what will come next!
Down the Rabbit Hole 
1 thought on “Review: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black”