A review by elerireads
The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

adventurous mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? No
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

2.0

Didn't really enjoy this. But it's quite difficult to describe why - I just found it quite tedious for the first 80% or so. Probably part of it is that I didn't like Jude much - possibly that's just a sign she was quite a well-written teenager and was therefore kind of insufferable. A lot of the world building and lore wasn't too bad but I really felt there was a lot of inconsistency in the moral code. It may be that part of it was intentional, i.e. there isn't really one but it felt more like the author just changed what was or wasn't meant to be shocking depending on what suited her. There was also a massive over-reliance on telling us stuff rather than showing us to make us feel it ourselves. E.g. constantly describing characters as 'ruthless' or 'bloodthirsty' without them ever actually doing anything remotely threatening in the actual narrative. Or "I suddenly realised I would have to..." or "I suddenly felt ..." that's been put in purely to create some tension out of nothing even though there's no way Jude hadn't thought of that earlier or there's no particular stimulus for her to feel like that. People do suddenly feel things out of nowhere of course, but this felt a bit too often and unrealistic.

Annoyingly, I did get quite into it in the last 20% or so, mainly because the stakes got a bit higher than pulling pigtails at school. I say annoyingly because it did make me feel quite a strong urge to read the second one, but if 80% of the next one is also shit, that would be a gigantic waste of time.