Review: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Book Review

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
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Synopsis
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.

What I thought
The Cruel Prince is the first book in a young adult fantasy series by Holly Black. This story is about three sisters who are taken to the land of the Fae. This story is told from Jude’s perspective ten years after she and her sisters were stolen away and their parents murdered.

There is so much hype surrounding this book and everyone seems to love it; however, I was not very impressed by this story. I was looking for an epic Fae story and I was very disappointed. I saw every ‘twist’ long before they happened and I found the story hard to get into. There just wasn’t anything to keep me hooked, being able to predict most things before they happened and the rest of the story just felt bland.

I gave this book three stars due to the ending being the only thing that caught me off guard. Don’t get me wrong this book is not bad. I just could not get into the story. I think that all of the hype around this book may have set it up to fail.

My daughter absolutely loved this book so for me, this could just be a matter of my tastes changing and me needing more intricate books.

My Rating: /5 3 stars