{Bookish Review} The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

The Cruel Prince
By: Holly Black
Published on: January 2nd 2018 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Genres: Fantasy (YA)
Source: Bought
Rating: 


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.

Faerie! That was my first excited thought when I read the summary. It promises mystery and excitement as well. Why would the sisters be stolen away to live in the High Court of Faerie? I just had to get this book to find out and so I did!

The prologue was about the murder of their parents which had me cringing. For the girls to have witnessed it... Imagine their horror. Then the story continued into the first chapter. My first thought of it was, "Wow! What a very short first chapter!" Indeed, it is only made up of one line. 11 words to be precise.

The thing I like about this book is the few surprises that it threw at me. Things did not turn up as what I've expected and I like that. I feel that the world building is well done as well as the politics within the High Court about the succession of the throne. The thing that didn't sit well with me was the fact that the human twins managed to live with the man who murdered their parents right in front of their eyes. That's brutal!

Overall, The Cruel Prince is a well-written book which I really enjoyed a lot. A quick check on Goodreads told me book 2 will only be out in 2019 and book 3 in 2020. I don't think I can't wait that long to find out more about the story. That's the down side of reading a book when the series has yet to be completed. I'll try to be patient.