‘The Cruel Prince’ by Holly Black

While ‘The Cruel Prince’ came out in 2018, I only picked it up earlier this year in the spirit of giving things a chance. I am not a huge fan of the ‘Bullied/Bully-To-Lovers’ trope, and I heard it was rampant in this book series. What do you mean he bullied her with his friends, turned her into a laughing stock and then proceeded to betray her in front of his entire court? No, the fact that he is fae does not absolve him of his crimes. However, my curiosity got the best of me; I found myself unable to resist the temptation anymore, and ‘Booktok’ convinced me to pick it up.

What greeted me was an intriguing fantasy world, with more court politics than romance. It took me a whopping 4 hours to complete the book; I was completely transfixed well into the night, turning the pages eagerly. It was only when I heard the chickens next door singing their lovely melodies that I realised it was best to stop there for the night.

The book begins with Jude Duarte and her sisters having a seemingly normal day in their normal house, even though they themselves aren’t the most ‘normal’. Jude and Taryn are twin sister, and completely human but their sister Vivienne is a different case entirely; she is half human, half fae. The peace is then rudely interrupted by Madoc, a Redcap faerie, storming in and killing the three sisters’ parents. It is most likely the most dramatic first chapter I’ve had the pleasure of encountering in a while.

We follow the sisters lives in Faerie 10 years later, seeing how they live under the roof of the man who killed their parents. Jude and Taryn are bullied mercilessly by their peers for being humans, and the main love interest, Cardan, is one of the worse perpetrators. I won’t go deeper than that for today, to avoid entering spoiler territory, but I will say that Jude is one of the best main characters I’ve ever seen on page.

She is flawed and human, but majority of her decisions are well-thought out, make sense, and are easy to get behind. She knows exactly what she wants, and doesn’t waver from her goals even once throughout the novel. I found myself rooting for her throughout the entire novel, and I’m sure you guys did/will as well.

I have very few criticisms for the book as a whole; my main gripe was the lack of much depth to the other characters. Taryn I can only describe as weird. She is a strange individual whose actions only served to confuse me, and not in a ‘Oh my, what a move that was!’ way, but more so in a ‘…What?’ kinda way. Locke really was not all that, and that is all I have to say on the matter. Vivienne I wish we saw more of. She mostly just appeared on-screen to be cool before disappearing into obscurity and I found her relationship with Jude to be a missed opportunity.

Cardan is also a very under used character. I barely even had a clear image of what he looked like throughout my entire reading experience; bits and pieces of his appearance were scattered amongst the pages and I found myself frantically picking them up and trying to conjure up a picture of what this, presumably, very handsome fae looked like. For example; his tail was only mentioned in the second half of the book! I think that a tail is quite an important descriptor for us readers to have from the very beginning.

Overall, I gave the book a solid 4.5 stars out of 5, docking half for the sudden shock I received from the tail mention. Stick around and subscribe for a more in-depth look into ‘The Cruel Prince’ and my reviews on the next two books in the series. Until next time, my friends!