4.01k reviews for:

A Court This Cruel and Lovely

Stacia Stark

3.97 AVERAGE

3cuteangel's review against another edition

4.75

adventurous emotional funny mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

stand_bi's review against another edition

4.0

slow-paced

msmalicious's review against another edition

3.75

emotional mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

space_corgi's review against another edition

3.5

medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: Complicated

Diverse cast of characters: No

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

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The writing for this novel is almost painfully elementary. Just a lot of all tell with no show. 
That being said, still crushed through it because the concept itself is compelling. Otherwise, this would be unreadable imo. 

tailsandpages's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous challenging dark emotional hopeful mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: No

sienamd's review against another edition

3.5

adventurous dark emotional tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

lexx113's review against another edition

4.5

adventurous mysterious medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Complicated

Loveable characters: N/A

Diverse cast of characters: Complicated

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

e_lisabeth_writes's review against another edition

4.0

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The beginning was a little bit slow, but if you work past that, the story is incredible. I'm loving how everything is unfolding and slowly beginning to become more complex. Prisca is a delightfully dynamic heroine, who's got just a touch of that morally gray vibe.

jpreads15's review against another edition

3.0

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3.5 ⭐️ Potential spoilers ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️
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I just have to say….. if she said “mercenary” one more time, when it was OBVIOUS that’s not what they were, I was going to lose my mind.

A lot of this book was super predictable. Most of the “plot twists” I saw coming and the ones I didn’t (specifics about her background), didn’t really shock me. I guessed the MMC’s situation from the beginning.

I also think there could have been more to develop the relationship between the FMC and the MMC. It was basically just Rowan punching Aelin in the face over and over but suddenly they like each other. He literally went from being a constant jerk to kissing her to being super flirty when they saw each other in the castle the first time, then back to being a jerk intermitently. His personality/ treatment of her was so confusing.

Also, things just kept falling into place until the end. Every time I expected something to go wrong, it didn’t. It was all just easy. And then the end really wasn’t even bad. She doesn’t really lose anything/ have anything majorly bad happen to her after her mom.

I think the story has potential. This was a decent start to a series. I’m going to keep reading. But hopefully the next books get better.

jlamb81's review against another edition

5.0

adventurous challenging dark hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: A mix

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes