Ratings:
Star Rating: ★★★★★
If This Book Was a Movie Rating: PG-13
Review:
think of a political thriller crossed with fantasy and i-want-to-kill-you-but-i-also-want-to-kiss-you enemies to lovers. THAT WAS THIS BOOK.
THIS BOOK was one of THE BEST books i have ever had the pleasure of reading.
how will I recover?
how will i get over cardan?
*sobs tears of joy in faerie*
note: this is a review i wrote after reading and loving the entire trilogy, so it’s got my spoiler-free thoughts on the Cruel Prince with a dash of my devotion for the other two books ;)
LE PLOT
At the start of the story, Jude Duarte is a human girl living in the beautifully wicked, magically deceptive world of Faerie. A world of the fair folk, wine-drunk revelry, and endless bloodlust. A world that despises
Jude wasn’t born there. Her life began in the human world, a normal child with completely human parents and two sisters: her twin, Taryn, and older sister, Vivienne. Life is good, which is to say nothing unnatural happens.
But of course, that can change rather unnaturally quickly.
When Jude and Taryn are only toddlers, a furious, green-skinned faerie appears on their doorstep. He calls himself Madoc, the Grand General of Faerie. Turns out, Jude’s father was her mother’s second husband.
Many years before, Jude’s mother had lived in Faerie, marrying Madoc and giving birth to Vivienne. But she had felt out of place, a mortal among an immortal people. She’d vanished with her secret lover and baby Vivi, hoping to escape Madoc forever.
But of course, who can hide for an immortal life?
Having finally found his unfaithful bride, Madoc kills her and her husband, and then takes Vivi (and her sisters out of duty) to the world of Faerie.
In the present day, Jude and her twin sister Taryn live in Faerie as members of the Gentry. They are mocked and hated by all the fae for being human. Four tormentors in particular stand out. Nicasia, Valerian, Locke, and Prince Cardan. They hate the human twins more than most, and aren’t afraid to make spectacles of them for all the faerie Courts to see.
Taryn wants to avoid conflict, preferring to give Nicasia, Valerian, Locke, and Prince Cardan whatever they want to leave them alone.
But Jude hates them too much for that. She knows that her and her sister will never be left alone, not in Faerie. So Jude chooses a different route. She desires power. More than anything, she wants the power to show the fae that being mortal doesn’t mean being weak. Jude is cunning and ambitious, and when she sees how she can gain the power and control she’s never had, she doesn’t hesitate.
“I am going to keep on defying you. I am going to shame you with my defiance. You remind me that I am a mere mortal and you are a prince of Faerie. Well, let me remind you that means you have much to lose and I have nothing. You may win in the end, you may ensorcell me and hurt me and humiliate me, but I will make sure you lose everything I can take from you on the way down. I promise you this is the least of what I can do.”
Blood and power. That’s how I can describe this masterpiece. Fae can’t lie, so having to figure out who was being straightforward and who was cleverly twisting their words was exhausting and mind-bending and amazing. Now, there is a LOT of violence and blood, so friendly advice, make sure you look up "Cruel Prince trigger warnings" !!
and don’t get too attached to any of the characters ;)
speaking of which, let’s look at the characters.
AHH all the characters are four-dimensional, rich, and actually have MORE THAN ONE motivation (I know, I know, it is astonishingly hard to believe). The supporting cast to the MCs are *chef’s kiss* wonderful. All the characters are pulled in a thousand directions by their family, their loyalties, their monarchs, their fears, their own wicked desires.
They fight and deceive and lie and are broken.
Jude. Now, many people find Jude not the misunderstood, secretly good heroine they expected. And that would be correct. Jude is the farthest thing imaginable from a “good girl”. She’s cynical, resentful, and hates those who hurt her. She’s killed her enemies and fought at the head of armies. She lies, cheats, and steals without remorse. She’s ambitious and power-hungry.
Jude Duarte is in no way innocent of her rumored crimes.
“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”
But in a way, that’s part of her charm. She’s not perfect. She’s broken in a million places. She hates and loves. She wants power so she can control those who hurt her. She is the worst parts of ourselves and the weakest made the strongest. Through her, we see a picture of our own desires and passions and hates.
“Instead of being afraid, I could become something to fear.”
But while Jude is wonderful, we must never forget Cardan.
“He looks like a faerie lover stepped out of a ballad, the kind where no good comes to the girl who runs away with him.”
*swoons*
CARDAN. THE TRANSITION FROM A VILLAIN TO A VILLAIN WITH A SWEET SPOT FOR ONLY THE HEROINE.
PROTECT HIM AT ALL COSTS. HE IS BOOK BOYFRIEND.
For starters, Cardan is morally grey and has black hair (I know. It’s meant to be).
But what really makes Cardan so wonderful is that Cardan has been hurt just as bad as Jude has. For how terrible he is, he’s the way he is because of who hurt him and what they did. Cardan’s parents forgot about him. His sisters were kind but absent, his brothers hated him, except for the one who raised him. And Balekin’s definition of raising Cardan was abusing and beating him into villainy.
the number of times i just wanted to give Cardan a hug *sniffs*
AND THEN Jude AND Cardan? COMBINED?
as JURDAN??
10000% YESSS
“Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It's disgusting, and I can't stop.”
their broken pieces match up so perfectly to each other and they hate it and i love it.
for any skeptics out there, know that I’ve now read all three books and the amount of character development both Cardan and Jude experience is ASTRONOMICAL. They develop so much and I love them both to pieces :))
so there we go. my Cruel Prince review *collapses in relief*
i’ve now been writing this review for more than two hours so bye y’all imma go read ;)
“Nice things don’t happen in storybooks,” Taryn says. “Or when they do happen, something bad happens next. Because otherwise the story would be boring, and no one would read it.”
Friend me on Goodreads (yes, you, I wanna be your friend): https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/136268749-isabelle
Buy this book: https://www.amazon.com/Cruel-Prince-Folk-Air-Book-ebook/dp/B06Y5HPRLC/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1626962694&sr=8-1
Buy the Folk of the Air trilogy: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07SL9FC7C?ref_=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_tpbk&binding=paperback
Recommendations If You Liked This Book:
The rest of the Folk of the Air trilogy by Holly Black
The Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo
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