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A review by julies_reading
The Wicked King by Holly Black
3.0
The sequel to The Cruel Prince, Jude is having to carefully navigate her newfound power without being found out. A wedding is impending, and it's revealed to Jude that someone close to her has already betrayed her.
I read this in a recent vlog where prompts determined what series I would read right now or DNF forever, check it out here: Do it or DNF Vlog
The reason I'm in the middle of too many series is because I don't know what to do when I rate a first book in a series a 3.5. If it's a 3, I'm not continuing, If it's a 4, I'm at least planning on continuing. This is one of those that stuck around in my "unfinished series" pile because it fell in between. I was under the impression that I wasn't going to like book 1 at all, and I ended up liking some elements of it more than I thought I would. I heard this book is supposed to be the best in the series, and because it's short and YA, I decided it would be worth my time to at least try starting it. Was it? Meh.
I understand why people like Jude as a main character. She's cunning and a very active protagonist, pulling strings behind the scenes. I'm not super opposed to the relationship, and I thought Holly Black actually did the balance of how much Cardan should be in the book correctly. This is more of a fantasy-with-a-romance (my preference) than a fantasy romance as a lot of the promo/chat about this series would have you believe. There's one scene in particular that made me see why so many people consider this their favorite in the series, but it it didn't do anything for me. In the first book, I was interested in this flavor of fantasy with the original idea of fairies, but I didn't care about it in this book. As much as the political maneuvering was cool, I didn't really care about the stakes of it. The thing that I thought was the worst in this book was the stark lack of plot. So little happened in this book, especially in the first 80%, that I thought I had missed something. Really, the whole time I was reading this, I was just trying to get through it as quickly as possible. I think my original instinct - dating back to around 10 years ago with her pre-TFOTA books - was correct, that Holly Black just isn't for me.
Overall, I just don't think this series is for me. I might have liked this more if I was still a teenager, but I should've trusted my gut and skipped this one.
I read this in a recent vlog where prompts determined what series I would read right now or DNF forever, check it out here: Do it or DNF Vlog
The reason I'm in the middle of too many series is because I don't know what to do when I rate a first book in a series a 3.5. If it's a 3, I'm not continuing, If it's a 4, I'm at least planning on continuing. This is one of those that stuck around in my "unfinished series" pile because it fell in between. I was under the impression that I wasn't going to like book 1 at all, and I ended up liking some elements of it more than I thought I would. I heard this book is supposed to be the best in the series, and because it's short and YA, I decided it would be worth my time to at least try starting it. Was it? Meh.
I understand why people like Jude as a main character. She's cunning and a very active protagonist, pulling strings behind the scenes. I'm not super opposed to the relationship, and I thought Holly Black actually did the balance of how much Cardan should be in the book correctly. This is more of a fantasy-with-a-romance (my preference) than a fantasy romance as a lot of the promo/chat about this series would have you believe. There's one scene in particular that made me see why so many people consider this their favorite in the series, but it it didn't do anything for me. In the first book, I was interested in this flavor of fantasy with the original idea of fairies, but I didn't care about it in this book. As much as the political maneuvering was cool, I didn't really care about the stakes of it. The thing that I thought was the worst in this book was the stark lack of plot. So little happened in this book, especially in the first 80%, that I thought I had missed something. Really, the whole time I was reading this, I was just trying to get through it as quickly as possible. I think my original instinct - dating back to around 10 years ago with her pre-TFOTA books - was correct, that Holly Black just isn't for me.
Overall, I just don't think this series is for me. I might have liked this more if I was still a teenager, but I should've trusted my gut and skipped this one.