The Cruel Prince [REREAD]

- Holly Black

Albany, WA

September 24, 2022

Goodreads Book Blurb:

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.

Series / Genres:

My [REREAD] Review:

↓ scroll down for original review

absolute favourite:

☆☆☆☆☆ 5/5

Looking over my original review, there’s not much more that can be said after a reread.

Faeries make up for their inability to lie with a panoply of deceptions and cruelties. Twisted words, pranks, omissions, riddles, scandals, not to mention their revenges upon one another for ancient, half-remembered slights. Storms are less fickle than they are, seas less capricious.

The Cruel Prince totally lives up to the initial magic on a reread. I purchased a physical copy for this read-through, and it was hard not to annotate something on every single page. The writing is captivating and transports you into this world immediately. As one of my favourite starts to a book ever, it places you into the terrifying and violent world that Jude navigates with never-ending fear and uncertainty.

I think of Madoc, who had been at Dain's right hand all these years. Faeries might not be able to lie outright, but Madoc had lied with every laugh, every clap on the back, every shared cup of wine. Madoc, who'd let us all get dressed up and given me a beautiful sword to wear tonight, as though we were really going to some fun party.
I knew what he was, I try to tell myself. I saw the blood crusted on his red cap. If I let myself forget, then more fool me.

Every mention of Taryn had me grinding my teeth, Locke forced eye rolls, and Cardan a delicious sense of anticipation. Jude has been fighting for her place for as long as she can remember, but as she comes into her own and discovers what she will truly need to do to belong, it changes her. These changes turn her into the person that Mordoc unwittingly taught her to be. Jude keeps fighting it, even as she realises the change is necessary and unavoidable.

I think of the note I found, of the press of his nibbed pen hard enough to send flecks of ink spattering as he wrote my name. Hard enough to dig through the page, maybe to scar the desk beneath.
If that’s what he did to the paper, I shudder to think what he wants to do to me.

This has to be one of my favourite enemies-to-lovers. Especially because it never totally gives into the lovers part. There’s a taste, a hint of potential that is laden with shame and guilt by all parties, but it quickly reverts back to even more complicated enemies.

I know this was my favourite book in the series on my first read through, with especially The Queen of Nothing being disappointing. I’m hoping, now knowing where it’s going, that I’ll be able to appreciate the story more.

My [ORGINAL] Review:

Esperance, WA

August 23. 2021

almost perfect:

☆☆☆☆☆ 4.5/5

Here’s why I don’t like these stories: They highlight that I am vulnerable. No matter how careful I am, eventually I’ll make another misstep. I am weak. I am fragile. I am mortal.
I hate that most of all.
Even if, by some miracle, I could be better than them, I will never be one of them.

The Cruel Prince should be a case study for authors trying to write unlikeable characters. Everyone in this book is terrible, and the lines between good and evil have been so blurred, they barely exist.

The way The Cruel Prince is written, it feels like anything could happen at any time, and boy, does it. I mean, any book that starts with murder and kidnapping sets an expectation for the rest of the story to maintain that intensity. And, somehow, Black makes it work. The first half maintains a surprising level of anticipation and anxiety while introducing the setting and characters. But, once you start to feel like you have a handle on where the story is going, something changes. Sometimes it’s small, and it feels like a small side-step or diversion before continuing, and sometimes it feels like every action until this point has been a waste because the entire game has changed.

There is not a single likeable character here; they’re all petty, cruel bullies, picking on whoever is weaker at the moment. And it’s absolutely glorious. There is so much depth to explore within the characters and their relationships to one another. Locke is the only shallow, predictable one, and it serves to illuminate how much more complicated everyone else is.

Another high point is the ‘romance’. These characters hate each other so much, and their unavoidable connection is painful and humiliating. It’s so well-written, you can feel the repulsion within their attraction. I’m so conditioned to expect instalove and intense forever love in fae stories, The Cruel Prince was a breath of fresh air. This is most definitely not instalove, and any allusion to how they may feel about one another is avoided at all cost.

The Cruel Prince blew away any expectations I may have had before I started reading. I didn’t think so many twists and turns could be executed while still telling an overarching narrative that made sense. It makes me so happy that this is only the beginning, and I can work my way through the rest of the series now.

I have tried to be better than them, and I have failed.
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.