Reviews with content warning for Sexual harassment - The Cruel Prince

Reviews tagging 'Sexual harassment'

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

60 reviews

srk001's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark inspiring mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I liked it more than I thought I would. This book often gets recommendations alongside ACOTAR and I didn't enjoy the latter (DNF'ed ACOMAF), so expected more of the same with this one, but it wasn't. First of all, there wasn't a bait and switch romance and second of all I actually liked the FMC. I believed her when she said she'd become worse than them. She had a backbone. I wasn't immediately sold on the MMC, but he grew on me as more got revealed about him.

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2blueshoes's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

1. pacing is slow for most of the book, but there is enough complicated intrigue and weird world building to keep you reading.

2. It does not feel like a story or world that I have read in fantasy before, and that’s hard to do. I enjoyed that.

3. Romance is basically non-existent in this book, but it does feel like a very long and elaborate set up for future romance in other books maybe? If anything this is really a political intrigue book with a very subtle romance subplot. If that’s your jam, you’re going to love this.

4. The person I am fairly sure is the future hero is A LITERAL ASSHOLE for 99.9% of the book. Like zero redeeming qualities, not even described as attractive? If you aren’t patient with very long redemptive arcs for characters, or if you can’t tolerate not knowing who the true love interest is, maybe skip this book.

5. The heroine feels really young and also not particularly moral??? Like she is decidedly not justice-motivated. She seems really immature and self interested at times. This makes for a surprising read if I’m honest and I think we will watch her develop a lot in the books. This book feels a bit like a prequel somehow?

6.

The hero has a tail

and it is unforgivable. Although I guess it has some sort of symbolic meaning in future books, but to me it’s just a step too far. Yuck.

7. I would have given up on this book entirely if it wasn’t for some really surprising shit that goes down around the chapter 26 mark that had me WTF-ing all over the place. It’s like it suddenly turned into the book I wanted it to be. The last four chapters are, in my opinion, amazing. They had me on the edge of my seat. I hope they reflect what future books will be like.

Oh, final thought: I think listening as an audiobook kinda made this book worse for me than it was, because the narrator didn’t do distinct voices for the characters, and it made it really confusing. Would recommend reading it as a book.

Lots of content warnings on this one.

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polarpenguin's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

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amarahk's review against another edition

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challenging dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A

3.75

Don’t get me wrong, I loved reading this book (mostly), it shocked me quite a few times and the characters are intriguing, however there was quite a few instances, particularly at the start, in which I felt bored - I couldn’t comprehend all the made up words. Therefore I would say the writing wasn’t always enjoyable but other than that, I did like reading it.

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bloomandgloom's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

While the majority of this book was quite boring, I still enjoyed it. There was a pretty good amount of world building. There are also so many times you wil roll your eyes at what the MC does. The romance portions didn't land for me since lI'm not the target audience and made me consider not finishing the book. This is a decent fairy story meant for young adults (mostly teen girls), so temper your expectations if you aren't in that category. There is a lot that adults (with even the smallest amounts of romantic experience) will find annoying but for some reason books are still trying to teach young girls that if a boy is mean to you it's fine because he secretly likes you.

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crunchycrystals's review against another edition

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tense

Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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avie_j's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny mysterious tense fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.5

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noellelovesbooks's review

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4.5

Content Warnings: Blood, murder, death, loss of loved ones, abandonment, infidelity, cheating, toxic relationships, toxic friendships, violence, emotional abuse, bullying, physical abuse, kidnapping, slavery, drug abuse, loss of body autonomy, classism, gaslighting, suicide, pregnancy, and attempted murder of children born and unborn.

OMG how do I even start this review. I just finished reading...not even 10 minutes ago and my brain is still processing everything that happened.

This was a recommendation [and book gift] from Roni...I got fomo seeing all her updates when she was reading the series and decided I needed to read it too...and she was awesome enough to gift the trilogy to me 🥰

I've heard a lot of people talk about the trilogy but not really giving any real spoilers away...like literally all I knew before reading was that there was a Jude and a Carden...someone murdered her parents and she was raised in fairy...and that there was an entire page of just her name over and over. Which really...those 3 facts don't make for much info 🤣 Ngl I think I loved that though...I really had no idea what I was getting into.

From the start I sympathized and loved Jude. I had weird feelings of distrust towards certain characters...which ended up being well founded!

Maybe I can formulate my thoughts better soon...but until then I'm going to go marinate my thoughts and probably start book 2 😝

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bookiereads's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious reflective sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.25

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elderwoodreads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

An excellent book about fantasy court politics and political intrigue. Our heroine is morally gray, but predominatly because of the impossible choices she is put into. I was hooked from start to finish and plan to bump the sequel up on my TBR. If this book was sold to you as an enemies to lovers romance please know this is very minor in the plot (which personally, I loved).

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