Goodreads Summary:
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.
My Review:
This is my first Holly Black book ever. However, my daughter has read the Spiderwick Chronicles and is a fan of those. I don’t know what I was expecting from this book. Maybe a little bit of darkness? Especially from the title. I’m not sure I got that exactly.
The opening Prologue was really good, but then things got pretty mundane for a while. The main character Jude, I really liked. She really wants to help the kingdom, even though she may have to betray some people in the process. I predicted a whole lot of things early on, and mainly because a certain character felt underdeveloped. I don’t want to give too much away, though.
Jude’s sister Vivi was my second favorite character, and Oak was so cute! Now as for Cardan, since the book is named the Cruel Prince after all, I was actually slightly disappointed in his character. I feel he was underdeveloped, too, but I’m hoping in book two he’s expanded upon. I think maybe because the book is from only one POV which I normally love, but here it would have been great to have been a few other character’s heads.
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As I said earlier, not much happened for a while until around maybe 66% (which is a long while). But when things finally started happening, I couldn’t put the book down. It definitely felt like an opening book of what’s to come. So, I didn’t love-love it, but I did really like it.
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