Book Review: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

The Cruel Prince

by Holly Black
Series: The Folk of the Air #1
Published: January 2, 2018
Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal Romance, Young Adult
Format: Hardcover (370 pages)
Source: Purchased

GUARD YOUR MORTAL HEART.
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.

I found the premise of The Cruel Prince disturbing.  The fairy king who killed Jude’s family adopts her and all the fairies tell her she’s supposed to be honored.  That by itself is not disturbing enough for me to quit reading, but we’ll see if I can get on board.  (Spoiler Alert: I don’t.)

Also disturbing was that the oldest sister, Vivi, rebelled against the fairy world and the fairy king but Jude and her younger sister were so young that they grew up and adapted to the fairy world instead.  Not only does Jude adapt, she aspires to live like a fairy even though they despise humans and she’s mortal.  Vivi is horrified at this.  (So am I.)

I did like the fairy world.  It’s interesting that humans can lie but fairies can’t.  Despite their fairy magic, it seems like that alone could be powerful against them.  These are the kind of fairies that are made from nature which I liked.  I enjoyed the descriptions of the different beautiful but terrifying fairies.

The prince is so cruel that I can see where this young adult book is going.  Early in the story, he tries to drown Jude and all I can think is that she better get revenge on him.  If they fall in love I’m throwing this book out the window.  Holly Black, the author, does such a good job of making him cruel that there is no redeeming him in my mind and I hate him so much now that I don’t care what happens to him.

Around page 77 I have hope that I’m wrong, that Jude will get revenge on him instead of fall in love because of this quote from her:

“I will make sure you lose everything I can take from you on the way down.  I promise you this” – I throw his own words back at him- “this is the least of what I can do.”

-Holly Black, The Cruel Prince (pg 77)

So they fall in love.  Color me shocked.  The relationship was developed well enough that I didn’t actually throw this book out the window.  However, I still found their relationship gross.

There’s an interesting plot twist a third of the way in which I wasn’t expecting, but even at that point I could tell that Cadan’s older brother was going to be the actual cruel prince instead of Cadon for Reasons. (See Chapter 22–oh look I’m right). “Yeah. Sometimes it sucks to be right. (pg 107)” << My thoughts exactly on this whole book.

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