Review – The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, Book 1) by Holly Black (3.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Urban Fantasy
Length: 384 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: January 2, 2018
ISBN-13: 978-0316310277
Stand Alone or Series: 1st book in The Folk of the Air series
Source: Owlcrate
Rating: 3.5/5 stars

“Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.”

This is the first book in the Folk of the Air series. Holly Black has been very hit or miss for me. I love her Modern Fairy Tale series but didn’t like the Curse Workers series at all. This book fell somewhere in between. The story is decently done but everyone in this book is so completely evil and cruel I found myself slightly nauseous at points.

I always have a bit of trouble getting back into Black ‘s writing style and cadence. Once I get back into it the story flows better. My main issue with this book is that all the characters are jerks, there is not a single character in this book I actually liked reading about.

The story is set mostly in the fae realm, which I normally enjoy. However, I also felt like the world-building was a bit weak here. There is a ton of intrigue and a lot of spying elements to the story.

Overall this is a decent book if you enjoy reading about constant back-stabbing and bullying. It wasn’t really for me though and I don’t plan on continuing the series. I just didn’t enjoy reading it.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– New Release Reading Challenge
– Goodreads Reading Challenge