Gemma

I really really enjoyed the second book!

The humour is dry and well balanced. The additional characters added in to expand the plot kept things fresh and Kitty was a great focus point.

I feel like the plot is fairly well wrapped up, so I???m curious to see what book three has in store for me.

The Cruel Prince took booktube by storm even before the official release date. I remember the buzz surrounding this book as various members of the community read the arc and began gushing about Holly Black, “the queen of fae fiction”. I'd never read anything about fae, or anything by Holly Black so while the hype had me interested it never convinced me to read it immediately.

Later, after the buzz died down I read some reviews that dimmed the hype surrounding the Cruel Prince. And it was after the publication of the second book and only a few months before the third book I decided to pick it up.

At eight, Jude has two sisters and a set of parents who love her. But with the arrival of the biological father of her eldest sister, she loses her parents and her connections to the mortal world in one fell swoop. The book picks back up around the age eighteen where Jude and her twin sister are the only mortal members of the gentry class in Faerieland. They are in uniquely dangerous positions as the most vulnerable members of society but they can change that by becoming permanant members of faerie courts. And this book really is about how Jude wants to prove herself and become a member of the court so she can live a safe and ‘normal' life amoung the Folk.

I really liked this book, and I think that was down to the characters protrayed in the story. It focuses on Jude, but probably most importantly on her connection to her twin sister and Cardan, one of the farie princes. There were quite a few moments over the course of this book where I expected the plot to do something, and it would completely upturn those expectations. I also really enjoyed that the faeries were exactly as cruel and brutal as the title suggests, and doesn't really hold back on those aspects. I had expected that due to the YA label, and that I had heard so much buzz about a particular romanitc relationship developing, the book would pull short of really making me believe how cruel the fae were. In reality, the fae were terrible characters with redeeming qualities that did not wash away their true nature. It made the characters who filled this world a lot more interesting and fleshed out.

This one is a surprising four stars from me, and I would reccomend it!

The Cruel Prince took booktube by storm even before the official release date. I remember the buzz surrounding this book as various members of the community read the arc and began gushing about Holly Black, “the queen of fae fiction”. I'd never read anything about fae, or anything by Holly Black so while the hype had me interested it never convinced me to read it immediately.

Later, after the buzz died down I read some reviews that dimmed the hype surrounding the Cruel Prince. And it was after the publication of the second book and only a few months before the third book I decided to pick it up.

At eight, Jude has two sisters and a set of parents who love her. But with the arrival of the biological father of her eldest sister, she loses her parents and her connections to the mortal world in one fell swoop. The book picks back up around the age eighteen where Jude and her twin sister are the only mortal members of the gentry class in Faerieland. They are in uniquely dangerous positions as the most vulnerable members of society but they can change that by becoming permanant members of faerie courts. And this book really is about how Jude wants to prove herself and become a member of the court so she can live a safe and ‘normal' life amoung the Folk.

I really liked this book, and I think that was down to the characters protrayed in the story. It focuses on Jude, but probably most importantly on her connection to her twin sister and Cardan, one of the farie princes. There were quite a few moments over the course of this book where I expected the plot to do something, and it would completely upturn those expectations. I also really enjoyed that the faeries were exactly as cruel and brutal as the title suggests, and doesn't really hold back on those aspects. I had expected that due to the YA label, and that I had heard so much buzz about a particular romanitc relationship developing, the book would pull short of really making me believe how cruel the fae were. In reality, the fae were terrible characters with redeeming qualities that did not wash away their true nature. It made the characters who filled this world a lot more interesting and fleshed out.

This one is a surprising four stars from me, and I would reccomend it!

I first read this series when I was in secondary school, a couple of friends and myself read the first two books pretty quickly and loved them. I think my fourteenth birthday party was watching the movie with those friends (we almost universally hated it) and I never got round to finishing the third book. At this point, there are four books in the series and a set of short stories due to be published. It's been around ten years since I read the series and I never finsihed it, so I decided I would begin a re-read to finally catch up.

Wow, my memory was exaggerating how good this first book was. I want to stress that the author wrote this book around the age I was when I read it, and I do feel that his age should be taken into account. Eragon as a book has not been fleshed out, and a lot of the story felt bare. There where time skips to get to the next plot relevant moment, and a lack of development in the setting or characters. Another reviewer pointed out the heavy influnces of Star Wars and Lord of the Rings, which I can definately agree with. I would also like to highlight the audiobook, which is how I read it. The audiobook probably ruined a large chunk of my enjoyment as the narrator gave Saphira an inexplicable voice and made a small portion of the characters Welsh?? I would not reccomenf the audiobook.

I think the series gets better in the later books, and I will report back with reviews as I intend on finally finishing this series.

The Rogue, the second book in a secondary trilogy from Canavan, stagnates and thoroughly suffers from middle book syndrome. This second trilogy follows the next generation of characters from the Black Magician trilogy that I loved so much in my teenage years.

The reason I feel so neutral about this book is the fact that the plot stagnates a lot. We set up a lot of relationships and built up a lot more of the world that the story in either trilogy had not exposed the reader to before. Otherwise, the story in this second book isn't all that memorable. Canavan's writing is solid, and a pleasure to read. This second trilogy still has Sonea as a main character, which was one of my favourite aspects of the first trilogy. I will really miss reading her chapters at the end of this series.

Overall, I am beginning think this second trilogy isn't essential to your reading experience of the world of the Black Magician trilogy.

The Raven Boys is a low fantasy young adult novel about four private schoolboys in Virginia and Blue, the psychic's daughter. I have heard about this series from probably everyone I know who reads and from half of the booktube community I follow. I decided to pick it up after being recommended it so many times over the years because I felt I needed to know finally if it was exactly as good as everyone said it was or if I'd find another over hyped YA novel.

And as with the trend this year, I immensely enjoyed the book. We begin focusing on Blue, the daughter of the local psychic in Henrietta, as she goes on the annual trip to the local churchyard to record the names of everyone in the town who will die in the next twelve months. The novel goes on to follow her as she meets the Aglionby boys and discovers their search for the Welsh king.

I found the plot of the book to be intriguing, however slow to start. For the first half of the book I didn't know when things would begin to happen. While this wasn't a negative experience as vital the backstory and characterisation was done in this half it did feel slow. In fact, at one point in my status updates I lamented that one of the male characters felt surplus to requirement as he had rarely been involved in the plot so far. This was quickly corrected as the second half of the novel ramped up the pace. The characters are actually where I think the book excels. The book is in the third person perspective, which I prefer, and it spends time in all of the main character's heads but focuses mainly on three. Of these three, Adam and Gansey were my favourite characters. The setting felt equally real, and I have no faults with the book there. My only complaint was that the author regularly used flowery writing to describe various things or feelings throughout the book that made absolutely no sense.

All in all, a pleasant surprise of a book.

The Raven Boys is a low fantasy young adult novel about four private schoolboys in Virginia and Blue, the psychic's daughter. I have heard about this series from probably everyone I know who reads and from half of the booktube community I follow. I decided to pick it up after being recommended it so many times over the years because I felt I needed to know finally if it was exactly as good as everyone said it was or if I'd find another over hyped YA novel.

And as with the trend this year, I immensely enjoyed the book. We begin focusing on Blue, the daughter of the local psychic in Henrietta, as she goes on the annual trip to the local churchyard to record the names of everyone in the town who will die in the next twelve months. The novel goes on to follow her as she meets the Aglionby boys and discovers their search for the Welsh king.

I found the plot of the book to be intriguing, however slow to start. For the first half of the book I didn't know when things would begin to happen. While this wasn't a negative experience as vital the backstory and characterisation was done in this half it did feel slow. In fact, at one point in my status updates I lamented that one of the male characters felt surplus to requirement as he had rarely been involved in the plot so far. This was quickly corrected as the second half of the novel ramped up the pace. The characters are actually where I think the book excels. The book is in the third person perspective, which I prefer, and it spends time in all of the main character's heads but focuses mainly on three. Of these three, Adam and Gansey were my favourite characters. The setting felt equally real, and I have no faults with the book there. My only complaint was that the author regularly used flowery writing to describe various things or feelings throughout the book that made absolutely no sense.

All in all, a pleasant surprise of a book.