Book Review: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

“No matter how eager you are for it, you cannot make the moon set nor rise any faster.”

I can’t say there was anything in particular that made me want to read The Cruel Prince. I read the synopsis at a bookstore once and thought “oh, sounds interesting,” then added it to my TBR. After seeing it mentioned a few times online, I decided to take the plunge.

I was excited to dive into a new world of faeries and magic as well as read a book driven less by romance and more by action/politics. Don’t get me wrong, I do love romance, but I was excited to expand my fantasy pallet, especially after the masterpiece Give the Dark my Love.

This book had good things. I won’t deny that. There were things that I really appreciated about it. However, there weren’t enough good things to make up for… everything else. Overall, this one fell flat.

The Technical Stuff

Reading Format: E-book

Genre: Fantasy

Content Rating: T

NeuroCandy Scale: 🍬🍬🍬🍬

Rating: ⭐⭐

Official Summary from the Holly Black Website:

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.

Review

First off, this book had way too much exposition. Things didn’t actually start happening until 30% in. There was so much time spent setting up the action– and even then the book was still exposition with a side of plot. There was also too much time spent setting up how awful the titular character of this novel is. We get it, he’s terrible (but handsome, I guess; though it's never explicitly said that he's handsome, but I'll get into the telling rather than showing issues later) and we should hate him.

I did not enjoy Jude’s character, which made for a difficult read because she is our heroine. She was whiny and didn’t start being proactive until well over the halfway point of the novel. There were also plotlines at the beginning of the novel, such as the knighthood, that were completely irrelevant by the end.

It wasn’t just Jude that I didn’t like. Throughout the book, I had a hard time finding someone to root for because the characters were flat. There were no characters that I even loved to hate because they were all so boring. Usually I love characters who are morally gray or well-written villains, but there was no substance to be seen in these people (and/or fae). The Court of Shadows were the most interesting characters, and Oak was adorable, but even then I was not particularly attached.

“‘Chase me!’ he yells, out of breath,

full of the wriggling ecstasy of childhood. Even faeries are young once.”

I am not a fan of fantasy books where the world exists alongside modern humans. I know this is purely personal preference, but it ruins the worldbuilding for me. There are too many holes for me to accept that a fantasy world and a modern human world can coexist. The fae obviously think of themselves above humans, so why is their technology (or lack thereof) so primitive when modernity is right next door? The fae could easily replicate the things humans have invented and even improve upon them.

I was disappointed in the party scenes. I love reading about the joy that comes from dancing, eating, and drinking in fantasy worlds and I felt absolutely nothing while reading about these things in The Cruel Prince. This is because this book was all about simply stating the events instead of taking the time to immerse me in them. These are usually some of my favorite scenes in the fantasy genre, and I was looking forward to some of it only to not get my fill. Even during the apple scene, I was being told that Jude felt incredibly happy but I felt none of it myself.

All of these complaints come from the fact that The Cruel Prince had a bad case of telling and not showing. There was a huge lack of emotion or feeling throughout the story, which made for a tedious read. I want to feel what the characters are feeling, not be told what they’re feeling, and the story felt monotonous because I was never emotionally impacted. I hardly batted an eye at all the betrayal that Jude endured because I had no reason to be attached to the characters or events of the book.

I did say that there were some good things about this book, and I’ll give Holly Black credit where credit is due. When I didn’t have to think about the human world, the worldbuilding in this novel was extremely creative. She certainly did her research on fae lore, which showed in her stellar worldbuilding.

“I like for things to happen, for stories to unfold.

And if I can’t find a good enough story, I make one.”

The creatures were imaginative and the nuances of magic were incredibly well thought out. I loved that humans could avoid enchantment with berry necklaces and salt. I also loved that there was a difference between being put under a spell by a faerie and being put under a spell by food, which meant that when humans are put under protection from spells, it does not apply to ingesting food. Also, the descriptions of the food during meals throughout the book were mouthwatering. These were all things that I considered very well-written.

I went into this book fairly blind, as I do often. One thing that I did know is that this book was based more around action and politics than romance. Then, I was subjected to the archaic notion that “If a boy picks on you it means he likes you!”

There is more chemistry between a brick wall and a blade of grass than there is between Jude and her love interest. Not only that, but he has tortured and terrorized her into two baselines of existence: anger, which she clings to in order to avoid feeling the second- fear. I’m supposed to start rooting for them? Uh, no thanks.

“What could I become if I stopped worrying about death, about pain, about anything?

If I stopped trying to belong? Instead of being afraid, I could become something to fear.”

Can we please stop normalizing abuse being a way of showing affection? It’s outdated, though I suppose I shouldn’t have expected more from fae who can’t be bothered to learn about plumbing. (You can’t tell me these creatures wouldn’t benefit from being able to run a bath the new way.)

At least I found Rhys (from the ACOTAR series) to be morally gray by the time the love interest came around, but I find absolutely no redeeming qualities in this character. Again, there is absolutely no chemistry and I found myself rolling my eyes at the prospect of the love interests.

It was at this point (80%) that I almost DNF’ed the book, but I don’t review books unless I finish them because sometimes books pull out something awesome in the last 100 pages and I will always write about a book’s redeeming qualities.

That being said, I have to give Holly Black a respectable nod for the twist at the end. I did not see that coming at all and I loved it. I read most of this book convinced that I wouldn’t be picking up the next one, then Holly Black swooped into the last chapter and dropped the bomb that made me reconsider. That’s the issue though; it wasn’t until the last chapter that I felt any need to keep reading about these characters. Even though I’m curious about what happens next, the thought of reading the second book when the first one went at such a snail’s pace is far too daunting right now. If I do pick up the second book, it won’t be for a long while.