The Cruel Prince

The Folk of the Air, Book 1

De: Holly Black

Narrado por: Caitlin Kelly

By number-one New York Times best-selling author Holly Black, the first book in a stunning new series about a mortal girl who finds herself caught in a web of royal faerie intrigue.

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.

©2018 Holly Black (P)2018 Hachette Audio

Mixed feelings . . .

Any additional comments?

This book is divided into book 1 and book 2. My feelings and review are similarly divided.

Book 1 bored me. I actually stopped reading it twice and only picked it back up because I spent money on it. Having finished the entire book, I can now see that book 1 is dull because it is almost entirely setup for book 2. It is mostly repetitive scenes of our protagonist being downtrodden and bullied ruthlessly by 4 seemingly-interchangeable characters. Once the bullies' personalities start to show, anyone who's read a book before can anticipate which one is the faux love interest and which one is the real deal, but it seems like the protagonist willfully ignores obvious signs of their true characters--which while perhaps believable, is frustrating to read. I spent book 1 impatient for things to happen. The best I can say about it is that it facilitates the thrilling events of book 2, and we did get to watch the interesting character development of our protagonist.

Book 2 hooked me immediately. It is pretty much just straight hours of payoff for everything that book 1 tediously set up. Starting from the ending of book 1, THINGS HAPPEN. Lots of things. Fun things. There are many events and revelations I did not see coming, and it is satisfying to watch all the elements that were introduced in book 1 get reincorporated in one form or another -- though some of these reincorporations were not as satisfying as others. I actually felt things, good or bad, about the characters. The author even managed to make me hate a character! Which means she made me care enough to actually hate. The ending made me want to read the sequel, despite how much I did not enjoy book 1. I would have enjoyed this book more as a whole if it did not take so long for the real story and real characters to get going.

Just like the book itself, I liked the reader more in book 2. Maybe she just hit her stride later or maybe it took me a while to get used to her. But in book 1, I often felt like I was a child sitting on the carpet and she was reading me a picture book. I think part of this is because I don't think there is even one contraction in the entire book?? Dialogue with no contractions sounds unnatural and stilted -- I can't blame the reader for that. By the time I finished the book, I was totally fine with the reader. She created some good, distinct voices.

As a side note, this book contained one of the most interesting characters I've recently read in fantasy: murderous-fairy-cat-dad! I greatly enjoyed the nature of his character and his relationship/interactions with other characters. He is the character whose fate/endgame I was most interested in.

Ending thoughts: I have an overall positive opinion of the book! I do feel like it is worth getting through the boring parts to get to the good stuff. And I can't really dislike a book that contains a character I enjoy as much as murderous-fairy-cat-dad.

So good you’ll want to cyberstalk the author

This audiobook is so good you’ll want to cyberstalk the author, Holly Black, for excerpts and release information for the sequel. The performance by the narrator is stellar. Caitlin Kelly’s has epic range. Her character voices are vivid and magical.
The novel has:
✔️ Insanely creative world building.
✔️ Stoic, strong, believable lead heroine and a cast of characters worthy of a Lewis Carroll novel.
✔️ Wicked plot twists that will have you dancing around the room while biting your nails.
✔️ When the last line is read, you’ll gasp, and then laugh like a drunkard in anticipation of the day you can read the sequel.

Do yourself a favor and get The Cruel Prince by Holly Black. 🙌🙌🙌🙌

Whatever Award they give to books...GIVE IT 2 Her!

Out of 91 books that Ive read or listened to THE CRUEL PRINCE is the Best freaking book I've read in the past 365 days!

The last 3 months I've been in Fantasy Book Hell. I couldn't find a GREAT book. I had okay and not too bad. But nothing knocked me off my feet.

And then, I came upon this one. Goodness I feel revived! After that ending I have chills. I hate reading new books because im such an impatient listener. In my excitement I guess I can tell you alittle about the book.


The book evolves around the lives of three sisters. The oldest, Vivi, who is the only real Fae. The other two, Taryn and Jude, are twins and also regular humans. One thing I found interesting is that the story is told by one of the mortal twins, Jude, instead of Vivi.

Vivi is actually more of a backdrop. She has a few scenes here and there, but her story line doesn't affect the story much. The real drama is with the twins. The second thing I found interesting is the use of the twin bond. Usually when an author puts twins in a story they have this unbreakable bond and super scary close-ness. It's not so with this set of twins.

Both of the twins want to be accepted but they attempt to achieve it in completely different ways. Taryn wants to charm them with her politeness, while Jude wants to earn their respect with a blade.

The Cruel Prince that the title refers to is Carden. He is indeed cruel and seemingly lacking of all decency. But with all intelligent creatures, there is always more than what you see on the outside.

I'm quite taken in by Jude. I felt her short burst of happiness, my stomach ached when she was in pain, my chest tightened when she was betrayed, and now at the end of this journey together, I feel like I'm helping her hold this burden she carries. And tells me that the author has achieved the ultimate goal. I'm now a part of this world and 100% caught up in the lives of its characters. That's sone good f $!#/ writing!!!

It was great

The only reason I gave it a four star instead of a five because there were one or two parts where the storyline took a longer time to establish what was obvious. Im pretty sure it was stretched out longer than it had to in hopes of making the book lengthier in pages (or in this case, lengthier in audio.) but it’s not a big deal either. The character development is pretty satisfying and I’m a sucker for Royal/magic/romance genres so and that being said, I will definitely go read/listen to the next book.

Cardan's tail

that is all.

ok, honestly though fantastic story, cute characters, dark but emotionally intelligent plot.

if youre into folklore and Scottish/Gaelic fae stuff, its heavily influenced by this.

well read by the narrator, and i always like how some folks who read these books have the larges vocal range.

did i mention Cardan's tail 🥺👉👈

Slow-Moving Train Wreck

Let me be perfectly clear--I don't necessarily mean "slow-moving train wreck" as an insult. I'm really not sure how I mean it in a positive/negative meaning. What I mean when using that phrase in this moment is that listening to this book unfold was like watching something terrible happen, knowing it was going to happen, and not being able to do anything to stop it. The abusive relationship budding between Jude and Cardan is messed the f up--I knew it was coming, but it was still pretty not okay. That said, I'm curious to see what Holly Black is going to do with them in the next one, so I'll probably at least read "The Wicked King."

#Abuse #SiblingStories #Violent #Dark #Tagsgiving #Sweepstakes

unexpectedly engaging!

I thought it would be childish amer mildly entertaining, but was surprised by how engaging the characters are. Everytime I thought I was seeing the plot before hand, the author surprised me with plot twists.

Amazing

I bought this without realizing it was YA but was pleasantly surprised! Beautifully written, creative, and surprising! I would recommend this to anyone. Can’t wait to start the next one!

Definitely YA

Whole book was filler, all the action at the end. Hopefully book 2 will be action oriented.

Enjoyed this

Very interesting and keeps you on edge not knowing what to expect next! I enjoyed it and can’t wait to read the next book.