The Cruel Prince – Holly Black

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”

Jude (The Cruel Prince by Holly Black)

Book Title and Author: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black
Publication Date: January 2, 2018
Publisher: Little, Brown Books
Genre: Fantasy 
Pages: 370
Buy on Amazon.com
Date Read: April 22, 2019
Format: Hardcover
Goodreads Review

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Just finished reading #thecruelprince by @blackholly and I LOVED it!

📚 This is the story of Jude, a human girl taken and raised in the world of the Fae by her parents’ murderer. Jude, having been raised in Faerie and knowing little else, longs to belong amongst them, but most Fae despise humans and Jude and her twin sister Taryn are no exception. Their greatest enemy of all? The High Kings cruel and wicked son, Prince Cardan. Can Jude win her way to a place in Court, or will Cardan and his friends’ obstacles be too much for her? 📚

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫
4.5/5 Stars

This was an epic read from me. I loved the character development and the relationships between characters. Jude is a human living in a Fae world. This means that she is very different from almost everyone around her. I love how fiercely independent and courageous she is. She has been bullied by those her age almost her whole life, has grown up with adoptive parents who aren’t truly loving and one of whom killed her biological parents. It would be hard on anyone growing up in these situations, yet Jude has come out of it stronger than she was before, and getting stronger every day. I admire her.

Cardan is an interesting character. While he comes off as callous and cruel, you can tell that he isn’t all he seems. Every once in a while during the book, he will give Jude a look or do something out of character that makes you hope and truly believe that he is good underneath all of the bad. I am truly pulling for him to be that underdog hero that we all hope for.

I especially found Jude and Madocs’ relationship to be intriguing. Madoc seems to be cold and calculating, yet he kept Jude and Taryn alive and gives them almost all that a true father would. You can see in certain situations how much he has come to love and care for them, yet doesn’t show it. Jude is constantly at war with her feelings over Madoc throughout the book as well, and it is such a dynamic relationship that I hope continues to be expounded upon in The Wicked King.

Overall I really loved this novel. The only reason that I docked a star off my rating was that I felt the plot slightly predictable, though it did not feel that it in any way took away from my enjoyment of the story.