Brilliant story following Jude who has stayed in faerieland since the murder of her parents. The depiction of bullying in the book was tough, followed by her discovery of how the perpetrator was treated. Lies and deception follow this book, with much more political intrigue than is normal for YA. Also pleasantly surprised that the romance actually took a back seat. Real page turning quality in this book.

Jude and her twin sister are humans living in Faery after their parents were murdered by their big sister's biological father when they were 7 years old. Since then, Jude wants to do everything she can to win her place and be accepted by the feys. And it also goes through the acceptance of her adoptive father (which she seems to have forgiven?!), which she succeeds very well since she does everything to please him, including following a rigorous training in combat. However, this training is useless when her enemies can control her every move. But no worries! Jude's gonna be fine like a chef!

The cruel prince whose title refers to is in fact the youngest prince of the royal family and it is a joy to show every day that Jude is just a mere mortal who tries to compete with her.

But the life of a royal family is also no rest and as usual, royal family rhymes with conspiracies and secrets!

I was fascinated by the painted Faerie and especially by the originality of Jude's character. It's true! She was never forced in Faerie, technically nothing keeps her! And throughout the book, her entourage offers her opportunities to get away quickly on Earth to return to a normal life. Will she take those chances? NO! Jude clings with all his strength to the Faerie despite the wickedness of all these faes against her.

In the end, she may well stay there because she eventually develops this capacity so tender to the ways of manipulating others by lies and unspoken words. For once, the prince is not romantically engaged with the main character, nothing prevents feelings from developing between them in book 2 but in this book 1, the prince's role is not at all that of pretender. He's really cruel with Jude!

Expect some interesting turnarounds, especially towards the end thanks to the beautiful feather of Holly Black.

In short, a very nice first book which sets up an original situation in a world that we already know well in the novels.

If I had to sum this book up in one word, that word would be "cool". This book is SO COOL and also just really clever. It was my first book by Holly Black and it really was not what I was expecting. I am definitely going to be reading more books by Black now because wow!

First of all, the world that Black constructed was awesome. When I was younger, I was obsessed with fairies, and books had me convinced that they lived alongside us. I haven't read a lot of books about fair folk since my childhood, so I can't compare this to other books with fairies, but I know this was a really good story. I would have liked a teensy bit more of world-building but that's just me being picky. I really liked the story, I thought it was so gripping and I was tearing through the pages to find out what was going to happen next. I also liked how there was very minimal romance because I'm not sure if I shipped the romance and it is so easy for books like this one to be engulfed by a romance storyline. Black stayed true to the main story and I was grateful for that.

Overall, I thought the characters were done very well. I really liked Jude because she wasn't what I was expecting. I guess I thought that she would be like other protagonists from similar fantasy-type books but she was different. I thought she was bold, strong, intriguing and flawed, which in turn made her really likeable. I would have liked the characters outside of the family to have been a bit more three-dimensional though. I also would have liked to have known more about Oriana. I really hope in the next books, we get to see more of her because I find her really intriguing. I loved the dynamics between each character, especially the dynamics within the family; the twins' relationship was especially done so well, I loved it.

I thought the writing was very good and I really enjoyed reading it. It is that kind of writing that seems effortless. It was easy to read but very descriptive. This book has me excited about the next books, I'm looking forward to them coming out and I can't wait to read them. I would definitely recommend this!

* I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

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"I have been trying to feel nothing about what happened. I am afraid that if I begin to feel, I won't be able to bear it. I am afraid that the emotion will be like a wave sucking me under."

"...if you live your life always afraid, always with danger on your heels, it is not so difficult to pretend away more danger."

This book has been everywhere recently and I've had it as an e-arc for months but I've only just got round to reading it. It follows three sisters as they are taken by a father they never knew who is part of the faerie world and they are trying to fit into a world were they are viewed as illegitimate and human by the unusual magical creatures around them.

I liked the writing style, it's my first Holly Black read and I can see why she's a popular YA author as this was a fun, entertaining and interesting read with political intrigue, a hate to love romance, secrets and a range of magical creatures. Overall, I did enjoy it but it wasn't as amazing for me as the hype led me to believe.

So, I had heard a lot about Holly Black's books and became extremely curious. This was actually the first of her books that I got round to reading and... I loved it! Wow, I had no idea of what I was missing out on. Now, I'm not normally a big fan of faeries but as soon as I finished The Cruel Prince I wanted more! I cannot wait for the next book in the series to come out...

There were soooo many things I loved about this book. Starting small, the settings were AWESOME. The descriptions really made the location come alive, and even a faerie newbie like me managed to get a fairly accurate idea of what Faerie must have looked like. And oh, isn't it wonderful?? Sure, almost anything will end up killing you, but that's no reason not to go there, right?

The characters were so wonderfully complex, it was a true delight to read about them! I really liked Jude from early on in the book, and enjoyed seeing things from her point of view. She is a very complicated character, who's had a very complicated life: born human, she is forced to grow up in Faerie as a member of the household of her mother's first faerie husband, who is also the man who murdered her parents and a bloody general... y'know, the usual. The relationship between faeries and humans was also fascinating, and the discrimination and bullying were incredibly well-crafted and realistic.

I also loved Madoc as a character: he was clearly Bad, with a capital B (murderous kidnapping faerie, etcetera), but at the same time, I ended up really liking him, especially in his relationship with his "daughters". Cardan was also a very interesting character, and for most of the book I alternated between hating him with a passion and actually feeling for him. I can't wait to see how he will develop in the next book!

Finally, the plot was A M A Z I N G! I was continually surprised by the turn events took, and every time I thought I had figured out where we'd end up, I was deliciously proven wrong. This is a very clever and intricate book, and I am seriously looking forward to more political intrigue, plotting, spying, murders, revenge and clever ways to avoid lying in the next installment.

I received with thanks an ARC copy of The Cruel Prince (The Folk of Air #1) from Hot Key Books UK & Netgalley.

This is my true and honest review of The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. This was released for publication on 2nd January 2018.

“I can see why humans succumb to the beautiful nightmare of the Court, why they willingly drown in it…”.

For this is what happened to me, I was sucked in and drowned in the beauty of this book. I will be the first to agree that I struggle normally with hyped books and read them when the hype goes down. I am so glad that I got an ARC of this amazing book, as I was enthralled all the way through.

Jude and her sisters are taken from their parents and the mortal world when they are young. They are thrust head first into a society that is beautiful but also dangerous. We follow Jude as she navigates the politics in the world that she must live in. I liked Jude as a main character she was not afraid to stand up for herself and be who she wanted to be. Her sisters are complicated and each unique in their own way. Her step father and step mother also had several layers. For me I loved the dynamics of Court of Shadows. The cruel prince Cardan himself is not always as he seems, cruel yes, but also very charming. There is a character in this book I despise more that Cardan but will not add this as it will spoil he fun of finding out who.

I can see why this has been described as Game of Thrones meets Fairies. This world is cruel and full of twist and turns.

I cannot recommend this enough, this is a book is truly worthy of the hype. All I can say is I need book 2 now (please).

I’ve finally fallen in love with Holly Black and her fae world! Seriously, I’ve tried to read a number of her books before now, and I enjoyed them but The Cruel Prince just clicked. It was so deliciously dark and full of political intrigue and betrayal. I just really really enjoyed it. And the ending - oh my gosh! I can’t wait for the next book in this series as it just took a turn that I didn’t see coming. Loved the characters and how vicious and vindictive some of them can be. The Fae are just so complex and cruel in their own, different ways. But it’s still a world that I loved sinking my teeth into even though it’s a world where the creatures would sink their teeth into my mortal skin if I ever had the chance of going there!
Great book, intricate world, complex characters; I’d definitely recommend The Cruel Prince!

Right, a disclaimer before I start: I LOVE Holly Black and have done since I read Tithe too many years ago to remember. I am so excited to be back in Faerie with her, so this is not at all an unbiased review! I also happen to think this is the best book Holly’s written so you know, spoilers: I loved it.

Holly’s world-building is always breathtaking, and The Cruel Prince is no exception. The opening chapter set the scene brutally, but perfectly – happy endings are going to be hard to come by in this series. Which is how things should be to be honest. I found that Holly painted a picture so vivid it was easy to lose myself in the world, from the estate where Jude and her sisters grow up, to the High King’s palace.

What I really loved was how morally ambiguous everyone was. Everyone is capable of doing bad things, and you never know who to trust – which is of course the problem our heroine, Jude faces. A human brought up as a member of the Gentry is an anomaly – it is something only true of Jude and her twin sister Taryn – and Jude suffers for it. Most of her classmates think of humans as scum only fit to serve and resent Jude being treated as one of them. This does not lead to a very pleasant life for Jude and Taryn, but what I loved about Jude was her refusal to give up. She was determined to get what she wanted – knighthood earned by merit, and a place in the hierarchy no-one could question – even though there’s a chance it could get her killed. She is strong and resilient, and even when she’s betrayed by the people around her, she keeps on going. Again, and again and again. She’s a fantastic character – not always likeable, and sometimes frustrating, but fantastic.

The plot (which I’m not going to go into in detail, because spoilers) is gripping. Right from that first brutal chapter, I was sucked into the story and didn’t want to leave. I needed to know what happened next. In many ways, The Cruel Prince is a policitial thriller, just not set in our world. Jude finds herself working as a spy for the next in line to the throne, and there were some scenes where my heart was in my mouth because of the potential danger she was in. The book is full of intrigue and potential conspiracies (and the odd cameo from Holly’s earlier Faerie books), and I loved it for it.

I really cannot recommend The Cruel Prince highly enough. If you’ve read Holly’s other books you’ll get an extra kick out of it, but you don’t need to, as this is a separate series. I’m already dying for book 2 and I can’t believe I have to wait a year for it. I’m not entirely sure how I’m going to cope!

I totally get what this book was going for and sometimes it did succeed but overall it was just a little lacking. While I didn't see the last twist coming I did find the whole book lacking something. Jude was an interesting character and on the whole I liked her though some of the things she did frustrated or confused me. Though not as much as some of the supporting characters whose motivations were iffy at best and missing completely at worst. There was also an air of unnecessary violence which I get was to show how the fae world worked but it felt a little too much sometimes. I have incredibly mixed feelings about this and am sadly unsure if I will continue with the series.

I gave this book 3 out of 5 stars.

The Cruel Prince is a tale best read at a slow pace to fully take in all the worldbuilding and intricate storytelling. Holly Black creates a world where the rules of the human world don't apply and princes can have legs of beasts. It starts off with a double murder and takes you deep into a world where life and death clash at a moment's notice. The Fae don't play fair no matter the rules and our main character Jude as a human risks all to belong and save those she cares about. If you enjoy deep storytelling this book is for you. Also if young adult books, fae, and Holly Black is your jam. I got an e-copy from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This was probably my second book about faeries. I'm not really a fan of this kind of book because I have always found the names for the families and races in the faerie world to be way too complicated for me to be able to remember them.

This book was a pleasant surprise despise all the complicated names though. I really liked the world and its building, the characters and the plot. Why the 3.5 rating then? Let's talk about that.

So the world was really interesting, I really liked the idea of a world living alongside ours and hidden by magic. I hope the author goes deeper into this on the next book in this series.

The characters were interesting even though I didn't like them all.

Jude - I really liked her. She was a strong character but towards the end of the book she really disappointed me. How can you hate someone the way she did and in the end you are starting to fall for this person? I hope she gets to her senses on the next book.

Taryn - Don't like her at all. Weak person and a very bad sister. When Jude needed the most she walked away on her, chose love over sisterhood and she was ok with being cheated on just for the sake of blending in. That's not ok.

Vivi - So freaking sweet. She doesn't have the best attitude towards her father but you can understand that and I don't blame her at all. Her sexuality was briefly exploited in this book. I want to read more about her relationship in the next one.

Cardan - I just the same feeling about him as I have for Snape from the Harry Potter series: Love is not an excuse for bullying.

There's more characters worth mentioning but for the sake of making this post not that long I'm not gonna talk about them. The overall feeling I had with all the characters was I kinda like them but at the same time I kinda hate them. That's one of the reasons why I can't give this book a bigger rating.

The plot twists, because there are a couple, were a mixed bag for me. Some were predictable and some were not. Some I like and some I didn't.

Something else that bothered me with this book was that it felt kinda of rushed towards the end. Like everything started happening in the last 50/100 pages of the book. I must confess though, it didn't feel like enough. I need the next book and I need it now...

Overall I enjoyed this book quite a lot and I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys YA and Faerie.

A darkly drawn tale of fae folk. I loved this books and nicely set up for a followup. The characters are interesting and well described and the action moves on swiftly. A definte must for the library.

In a bizarre (for me) twist, this was getting 3.5-4 *s right up until the second to last chapter. I love Holly Black but for much of this book, it felt like a stripped back and over simplified version of one of her other fey stories. It certainly didn’t seem to compare to Valiant for example. And then it sort of worked on me when I wasn’t reading it, meaning I had to get back to it asap and see how it progressed. That takes real skill. As does the pitch perfect rendition of someone who is suffering from acute and constant bullying. If you then consider how powerless a human is up against faeries, who are stronger, more resilient, long lived, faster and also have magic. The mere fact of being able to glamour a human, effectively mind-jacking them and making them do whatever they want is terrifying. (Seriously what if your childhood bullies had been able to do that?!) I didn’t really like Jude for most of the book. I could see why she was the way she was – a lot of it was the oppressed turning vicious. Which is a common occurrence with bullying/ oppression of any kind. When your internal measure of value is so skewed, then you often equate strength with power and power itself becomes a goal. Having said that, I found her extremely irritating at times not least because I have this unrealistic expectation that people should be superior to their circumstances. I also got really annoyed with the whole Locke thing. The only person who was stupider about that was Taryn. But I digress. Black writes excellent characters. All are flawed and compelling and have moments of greatness. I loved Madoc and I really liked Cardan by the end, showing the author as the master of manipulated reader sympathies that she truly is. I love the direction this series is going in and genuinely cannot wait for the next book. Maybe the 5* didn’t come until the denouement but that just goes to show how well Holly Black pulls all the disparate threads together at the end. As good as the original Tithe trilogy (and for nerd points it was so good to see Roiben and Kaye again.) Highly recommend.

I have been a big fan of Holly Blake since her Tithe series which I read in my early teens. This very reminiscent of the series but unique its own way. I absolutely loved this book. I founds this very refreshing from other YA fantasy books, that have become same old same old. The twist and turns had me guessing all the way to the end and I am dying to read more to see how the story will continue to develop. One of the best books I have read.

Books like this are always harder for me to review for a variety of reasons, but namely because they take me on such a rollercoaster of feelings. I've seen so many adoring reviews for this book and it's the reason that I ended up starting it a little earlier than originally planned. I have my ups and downs with Holly Black's books but I've always loved her imagination and especially her ideas on the world of the fae. In that respect, this was no exception.

To be honest though, it took me a good two thirds of the book to really get into what I was reading. The reason? The opening, though interesting and clearly there to build the world, was a little boring. Nothing really HAPPENED apart from Jude and her sister going to school and some parties, and being bullied! Also, let me tell you, that bullying was pretty intense too so I'm going to put a big trigger warning on it for those that find that difficult to read. I felt that Black found it hard to decide what kind of book she wanted it to be, at least to begin with. The characters were a little too changeable as well and I found it hard to pin their personalities, thoughts and feelings down.

Then, around the 60% mark, EVERYTHING CHANGED. It all just seemed to click into place and I found oodles of court intrigue, unlikely alliances, sizzling tension and clever plot twists! If only the whole book had been like this because I raced through that last third and found myself desperate for more by the time it finished. I finally found that I got what Black was trying to do. It was like Black had planned the perfect ending, and had just had a bit of trouble deciding how to get there. Also, kudos to Black for including little cameos from her other fae series! I got a bit excited to see Roiben and Kaye... But seriously, words cannot describe how BREATHTAKING the finale of this novel is and it deserves a high rating just for that! I will definitely be reading the sequel, and I'm so excited because now there's no more need to info-dump or use filler material to create little sub-plots until the main event happens. Now, this thing is ON and book two, I can already sense, is going to be spectacular.

An interesting read, full of action, a brave (maybe even too brave for her own good) protagonist and even YA politics.

I want to be honest in saying that I didn't get hooked by this book right from the beginning. It actually started to make me unable to put it down around 2/3 of the way, which I thought to be considerably late.
That's when all the plot twists and scheming escalated, and when the real action began.
That's when I started appreciating the heroine, too.

That is the reason why I am giving this book 3 stars.

It was a good read, but its pace during the first half of the book was too quick, with too many back stories interrupting the narrative's flow, and scenes taking place so quickly sometimes, that it was hard for me to really connect with the heroine.
A heroine who I found a little reckless, more than brave, most of the time during this period.

I understand that the story had to be built, and the author wanted to get that quickly out of the way so that the action started, but it could have happened a lot more smoothly, in my opinion.

Maybe I am just not used to this writing style.
Nonetheless, I will probably read the sequel, because I would like to keep up with the story's progression.

I'm afraid this book just isn't dark enough for me. It doesn't go there. The so called "cruel prince" spent the whole 20% that I read strutting around and dolling out empty threats, never actually doing anything worse than kicking mud over our protagonists food. It might get better further on, but I honestly don't have the patience to find out.

Absolutely loved this book, I couldn’t put it down. I read it in 4 days, it’s very easy to read and quite fast paced. I didn’t see the twist coming at all and I thought the storyline was a quite refreshing new take on the YA fantasy genre. Definitely going to read book two just annoyed I’ve got to wait a whole year!

This book is probably the most anticipated book for a lot of people and the hype surrounding it is absolutely worth it. As soon as I started reading the book I was completely invested into the storyline and the characters. The pacing of the book wasn't too fast but also not too slow and always left me interested into the story. Especially the many plot twists kept surprising me.
This was my first book by Holly Black but I can say that her writing style is really magical and her world building and characters are well writen and thought through.

Wooza! This book was so good.

At the age of 7, Jude's parents have murdered in front of her and then she and her sisters were then stolen away to High Court of Faerie. Years later Jude just wants to be one of them. To do this she wants a place in court but to do this must defy her nemesis, Carden.

I loved this story. Jude is a such a different character to what I normally come across, she has been brought up by the person who murdered her parents. This has had a profound effect on Jude, she has been in survival mode for the last 10 years doing anything she can to fit in and be part of Faerie. Despite being terrified 90%  of the time Jude is brave and strong and I really admired her courage.

Carden and his friends torment Jude on a daily basis, he is the definition of a jerk but some reason I found myself liking him. I can't really explain why because he is a dick for the majority of the book.  

The story itself is a whirlwind of twist and turns and betrayals at every corner. It kept me guessing until the very end. This is the first book by Holly Black that I have read but after this, it certainly won't be the last.  Overall this was a really awesome story and if you love books about the fae then this is a must-read.