A review by kritxreads
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad slow-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? No

4.0

Deep in the forest, far from the human world, remains a land of faeries . The magnificent mythical creature who can not lie. They are more than the word beautiful but beware, they have other means to sway you, to glamour you. 

The name cruel prince is really justice to the book. It pierced my heart several times, just don't want to spoil now. 

Let's begin the tale of sacrifice & Love, politics, treachery & power. 
 

This is the tale of Jude and her sisters who was forcibly brought to the estate of Faerieland by Madoc, her adopted father who killed her parents. 

Fast forwarded to ten years, Jude wants to prove herself suitable to the High King, to the court, to her father that she is no weak and vulnerable, She wants the knighthood but her luck seems to despise her, she was targeted and bullied by Cardan, the meanest & youngest prince. What happens after that and the  unexpected twists after twists is worth to read !! 
 

I just absolutely love & hate this, there are some parts where I hated everyone, everything and I just wanted to go inside the book by any means just to kill them myself, and there were some moments where I still wanted to go inside them but to hug and console them, to say some encouraging words. I love Jude because of her rawness, and how real she is, Yes she is stubborn, a mere human who can easily irk some arrogant faeries, yess she is smart, bold, & ambitious too but the bullies broke me somehow cuz of the things she had to go through. I still can't forgive it. 

I just love the storybuilding but the character development is rare in the book, it was mainly focused on limited number of characters which really was not convincing and that's what led me to give 4 stars. 
 but this really is a page turner, i just couldn't stop myself from reading this as fast as I could, and I was always in an constant urgency to go back to reading and unravelling the story of what happens next !