Reviews with content warning for Death of parent - The Wicked King

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“For a moment,” he says, “I wondered if it wasn’t you shooting bolts at me.”
I make a face at him. “And what made you decide it wasn’t?”
He grins up at me. “They missed.” - Holly Black 🏹

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️💫 4.5 Stars

Thank you hotkeysya for sending this copy of The Wicked King as part of the second tandemcollectiveuk The Folk of the Air Readalong! 💝

An applause for Holly Black for making the sequel better than the first! I’m always weary of the second book in a trilogy, they can often be slow but THE DRAMA in this book! 👏🏻

Jude really grew as a character in this, I love her even more! I love that we got to understand the way she thinks before she carried out her plans. I’m glad we got to see more of the spies - still my favs. The scenes between her and Cardan were SO much better too. 💕

Cardan really came into his own by the end of the book and I’m LIVING for it! I was waiting for him to really take his king role seriously. Don’t get me wrong - I’m fuming with that ending but he’s smart right? I feel he has a long term plan. 👀

Loved how we had danger and deceit coming from all sides! I still do not trust ANYONE in this whole damn book - Taryn and Madoc being the worst imo. But it just made it all the more exciting, I had no idea what twists were coming! BOOK 3 READALONG END OF NOV!🤯

Content Warnings

gundegaaa's review against another edition

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adventurous funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Character
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Content Warnings

revived_reading's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny tense medium-paced

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

4.75

Absolutely loved this book! However, as with book 1, the only reason it doesn't get 5 stars is because I felt some of the wording was a bit odd. Otherwise, another amazing read.

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teagstime's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

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

3.5

Honestly I feel a little bad rating this <4★s, but I can't rationalize going any higher knowing I enjoyed the first book so much more!

Wicked King is a solid enough book, I just didn't really click with it until the final third 😔 I missed all the intrigue of the first novel!!! Plus, there was mostly just lot of frustration concerning Jude's thoughts/actions. Meanwhile, I was obsessed with... Pretty much all the non-Jude characters. Cardan was incredible, for example! Absolutely adored him and every scene he was in... I'm glad we got to see more of him being clever and competent! Other significant characters I found incredibly interesting were Madoc and Balekin, actually! I've always loved Madoc, but Balekin was a surprise... I really wanted to get inside his brain 😅

But anyway! Yeah! A nice read overall, but not as great when compared to the first imo ❤

[Star rating changed from 4 -> 3.5 after finishing the series]

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