The Cruel Prince (The Folk Of The Air #1)
By Holly Black
Genre: YA Fantasy
Recommended For: Ages 14+, fantasy and faerie lovers, those who like to imagine what it would be like to travel from our world to a fantasy realm

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.

The Gist:

Holly Black creates a magical and vivid world full of interesting people living in an intriguing social system. The main character Jude faces an uphill battle against prejudice against her mortality, however it only serves to make her more determined to prove her worth and that she’s just as strong and talented. I fell in love with the world and the real-ness of Black’s characters in this book. A tad slow to start, but it quickly amps up the tension and definitely held my attention for the rest of the book.

What I Liked:

The faerie world that Black created was beautiful to me. We see a land dripping with magical charm and we get a clear picture of what life was like in that world and the social/ruling structure. The prejudice thrown at Jude because she’s not one of the Folk shows us the type of people and culture we’re dealing with. But I love that it never stops Jude from being who she is. She’s never ashamed of being a mortal, but instead works hard to prove she has value.

The tension between Jude and Carden was so well handled in my opinion. Black gave enough mean tricks by Carden to make us not really like him, but not so much that we hated him. I think parts of the romantic storyline and tensions were obvious, but most of the time it is, or it has to be. It’s a delicate line to walk doing the whole “I hate you” in the beginning then that fades to “Maybe you’re alright and I could love you” But I thought it flowed well and was believable. I think I’m satisfied with the authenticity of where it’s going.

One of the more interesting aspects of the story for me was the relationship between Jude and Madoc. He killed her parents, yet for all intents and purposes she seemed fine living with him. He’d grown to love her and treated her well and wanted to protect her. And she didn’t mind him, maybe even liked him some. Yet I never felt myself asking “WHY IN THE WORLD IS SHE OKAY LIVING WITH THIS GUY!?” which I think is a testament to the writing. Black seems to be good at creating believable narratives between the people we love in the story and the people we might not like too much. She shows the real-ness of each character, their flaws yet doesn’t present them as outright evils.

What I Didn’t Like:

The sister Taryn annoyed me. She seemed whiny and weak and like all she cared about was pleasing this mysterious boy she was to be engaged to. I say that while also admitting that I don’t think that was a flaw in the story, only because I think a lot of girls are like that and can relate to that (I know I could) and they should see the consequences of that.

There were parts in the beginning and sprinkled throughout where it felt like the pace slowed down some, but it was nothing too Earth-shattering. I think the point of much of the first half was to lay a foundation of simmering anger towards the fae and their treatment of mortals.

I think the biggest reason I can’t quite give it 5/5 is because of the lack of that delicious love-hate tension. There’s a little bit of a romantic storyline going on, but it’s not like I would have hoped for a magical world. I think I would have liked more scenes with Jude and Cardan and maybe even Locke (though he felt like a super boring character).

LunasLuckyRating: 4/5 Lunas