Book Review: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Hello Everyone,
Welcome back and thanks for joining.
Today I will be discussing The Cruel Prince Holly Black and I do hope you join me. This book was a difficult one for me to rate, simply because I enjoyed it immensely but felt like certain things were lacking or were not flushed out completely to the extent I would have liked them to be. This is not a problem by any means, I am after all very picky, but it did bring the rating down quite a bit for me.
Our narrator is Jude, who just so happens to be a mortal living among fairies in their realm. The interesting thing about Jude for me was her status within the courts. It doesn't take long to find out that she is not like the other humans in fairyland. She is still in possession of her will for one thing and extremely conflicted about her situation. Jude is in possession of a twin sister whom I did not like. Taryn came across as weak, easily manipulated, selfish, and uncaring. Is it clear I didn't like her? But really it was obvious all the devotion between the twins came from Jude alone. This was demonstrated when Taryn casually left Jude to be murdered by a sadistic fay and didn't even try to help. There are other examples too, but I don't want to turn this into a rant. I’m sure she has redeeming qualities, it's just that I can't see them.
Jude is my dream Slytherin child, who has no idea what she's doing but will do it anyway just to feel like she has some power. I can't say I blame her. Her musings to herself about her own nature make for some of my favorite quotes. How can I resist someone who says things like “If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.” All her life she felt powerless and lesser in comparison to the fay. It almost makes sense that she would do anything to get out of that situation. The thing she does not do, unlike her twin, is entangle her siblings in her scheming. Until the end when she has no choice. But overall her character and her arc of growth were extremely well done. In many ways, I think she surprised herself more than she surprised me as the reader but that could be due to my own Slytherin standing.
The relationships in this book are complicated, to say the least. They’d have to be if some of them are with parental figures you love and yet who have murdered your actual parents, Jude even tells herself “I love my parents' murderer; I suppose I could love anyone.” Like I said complicated. Yet so well done. I believed it. I believe the love and the hatred with is an accomplishment on the part of Holly Black because often I end up exhausted with this attempted portrayal. So kudos, and I bow to you. We also have the sibling dynamics which are always fascinating because there are so many layers. Jude both admires her older sister Vivianne and doesn't understand her choices in the slightest. In a way, she’s as helpless against the glamour of faerie as the stolen away mortals are.
The weakness of this book came from the lack of one thing: the Cruel Prince himself Carden. I wanted to see more of him, and his interactions with Jude. I read books for relationships, as should be obvious by me constantly talking about it, and this was a relationship that was not utilized to its full potential. The two of them do not spend enough time together. What we do get is pure gold and highly addictive to my complicated romance starved soul, but there isn’t enough of it. I would have like two to three more scenes between the two of them.
Overall this was a good book, which just fell short of excellent for me because of one specific thing, but I believe this will be addressed in subsequent books judging by the internet. I highly recommend this book for lovers of fantasy, complicated romances and relationships, and Slytherin characters. Holly Black creates an addictive world that you don’t want to leave, much like Fairy itself.
