The Cruel Prince by Holly Black – Review

Welcome everyone to another book review! Today’s review is of one of the most super-hyped book on Goodreads, The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. This was very unimpressive considering the amount of great reviews and five stars that it gets. I expected a lot more that what I got, but it was still a little fun.

Book: The Cruel Prince

Author: Holly Black

Rating: 1.5 stars

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 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. 

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Quote: “If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”

*The Court. I liked the betrayals and politics in The High Court. All the bloodshed, arguments, and the fight for the crown was pretty okay.

*Cardan. The only character in this book to gain my sympathy was Cardan. Originally I hated him, but I finally grew somewhat sympathetic for him by the end of the book.

*Addictive. Even though it was meh, I couldn’t bring myself to put it down. It had this addictive way of making you want to finish it, no matter how boring it was.

*Nothing else? It’s been about a week since I read this, and I’m trying so hard to find anything redeeming or great about this, or even remotely ‘good’, but I can’t. It was just so meh, and unmemorable.

Quote: “If you hurt me, I wouldn’t cry. I would hurt you back.”

*Jude. I don’t exactly know if I like her or not. She’s pretty confident and has this no nonsense attitude and is ready to do anything even if it’s a super bad idea and border-line crazy. I like that, but she wasn’t that great and I didn’t grow to love and cheer for her. And towards the end, I just thought she was a little too power-hungry. Also, what’s up with her and Cardan?

*Characters. Like Jude, they weren’t that memorable and I didn’t care what happened to them. Locke was an idiot, Taryn was an annoyingly backstabbing sister, Vivi was just Vivi, and Cardan’s other cronies were cruel.

*Plot. It’s just meh. I thought that it would be a revenge story or something similar, but that was not what happened at all. Jude gets herself caught up in The High Court fiasco and uses that to make herself even more powerful. Her ‘reasons’ for wanting to ‘make things right again’ were just an excuse for her to seize the opportunity that she saw to make herself an important part of The Court.

Quote: “I have lied and I have betrayed and I have triumphed. If only there was someone to congratulate me.”

I didn’t really like or dislike this. I thought it was just meh, and very underwhelming. For a book that was pretty hyped, it just fell flat. I’m super wary and unsure if I want to read The Wicked King.

One sentence summary: A very hyped book with one-dimensional characters and a boring plot.

Overall, 1.5 stars

★1/2

Have you read The Cruel Prince? What did you think? Do you think it’s worth it for me to read The Wicked King? Let’s chat in the comments below!

P.S. What do you think of the new theme?