The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1) by Holly Black

 

Summary (from the publisher): 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 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.

As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal 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.

Review: This started off with a bang and initially reeled me right in as the reader meets young Jude on the day that her parents are brutally murdered and she and her sisters are forced to go live in the High Court of Faerie. I love that Jude is ambitious and calculating, willing to make alliances and do what she needs to in order to survive and protect those she needs to. Like others have mentioned, this book is far more about political maneuverings than any sort of romance. 

But this dragged for me! I find that I am just not as interested in power dynamics and fighting for control of the crown. I also felt that the writing felt a bit elementary at times, with the characters' flip flopping back and forth in their behavior and dispositions. So many of these characters are incredibly ruthless and cruel. I had a hard time forgiving Jude for growing to admire and model her behavior after her parents' murderer. And maybe it was just me, but I found the constant name dropping of different creatures jarring! Jude is constantly casually mentioning seeing trolls and various other mythical creatures around the kingdom. It just felt like a lot, especially since only the immortals and humans are really the ones given any sort of depth in the book. 

I soldiered on with this because my book friends assure me that the series gets better! And I did like elements of this. But I have to be honest that I contemplated giving up on this multiple times. 

Stars: 3