The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

"Lush, dangerous, a dark jewel of a book . . . intoxicating" - Leigh Bardugo, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Six of Crows 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. One terrible morning, Jude and her sisters see their parents murdered in front of them. The terrifying assassin abducts all three girls to the world of Faerie, where Jude is installed in the royal court but mocked and tormented by the Faerie royalty for being mortal. As Jude grows older, she realises that she will need to take part in the dangerous deceptions of the fey to ever truly belong. But the stairway to power is fraught with shadows and betrayal. And looming over all is the infuriating, arrogant and charismatic Prince Cardan . . . Enter the dramatic and thrilling world of the Folk of the Air, brimful of magic and romance from New York Times bestselling author Holly Black.

It was interesting in the beginning but towards the end it dragged on. Also there were too many plot twists.

Hmm okay. I actually liked this. Honestly wasn't expecting that. I feel like hate everything. I might even change my rating to a 5 stars. Let me sit on it a bit and we'll see.

ya fantasy isn't the genre i usually go to but i wanted to give this book a try because of all the praise i was reading and hearing. but what a disappointment. i knew i was stepping out of my comfort zone and i really tried to get into the atmosphere of the book but i couldn't. i have been reading to book for a month and getting through it was honestly pretty hard. objectively, it's engaging and it can be addictive but personally, i just couldn't get into it. i hated most the characters even the ones we are supposed to appreciate. i found the main character pretty boring and even annoying at times, and while a flawed character isn't inherently a bad-written one (obviously), i just couldn't like her despite her flaws. i wasn't rooting for jude and her motivations were pretty unclear to me. overall, my reading experience was boring. i get why people like it and i thought i would love the ennemies to lovers trope in this but it was not convincing enough for me. i wasn't expecting to love this but i wasn't expecting to hate this neither... i feel bad saying all of this because i've read worst novels and if i'm being objective it's not terrible. however, i'm not giving up on ya fantasy because i used to love this genre earlier in my teenage years.

3.5 Good pacing and action and Black has always done well with world building. In spite of that I found Jude saying “xxx sucks” jarring and both out of character and out of world. Think my BOB team will like it and I'm interested enough to read/skim the next one.