"The Cruel Prince Trilogy" is written by Holly Black and it includes three books from "The Folk of the Air Series": "The Cruel Prince," "The wicked King" and "The Queen of Nothing". A lot of books claim that they have the enemies to lovers trope, but no book series does it quite like this. But I must warn you in advance that there is very little romance in these books. So, if you want to read them as a romantasy series, you are going to be very disappointed, because these books are more about power struggles and political scheming with faeries, then they are romantic. They are very fun, fast paced and very Y.A.
The lead character of this trilogy is Jude Duarte. She is just a regular human girl. Jude has a twin sister called Taryn and an older half-sister called Vivienne. She is seven years old when one day a faerie general walks into their home kills her parents and takes her and her sisters to live in the high court of faerie. A very dangerous place. But a place Jude desperately wants to belong to, but cannot. The high king of Elfhame has many children, all princes and princess who mostly want to inherit the throne. Cardan is the youngest prince and the most handsome of all. He and Jude despise each other. All faeries hate humans, but he particularly hates them, and Jude hates Cardan for his cruelty towards her and others and his position as prince. Tensions rise in Elfhame as the king's sons and daughters fight for a bid for power, Jude must find her own place in the world she so desperately wants to belong to and try and save the kingdom as well. But can you truly belong in a world that rejects you?
I have to be honest this is not a literary masterpiece, it is just a good time. As they say, it has fun vibes. I know that a lot of people admire Jude as a badass Female Lead Character, but I didn't like her. She is a badass character and she is also not, at the same time. At some points her emotional immaturity really annoyed me. Cardan is a lot more clever then he gets credit for. Somehow I manage to dislike him as well. His good looks just don't cut it for me. Taryn is by far the character that I hate the most. She is a terrible sister, just awful. Vivienne feels like she lives in a different world then her younger sisters and doesn't really see them for who they are, or anyone around her for that matter. Which made me dislike her as well. For such a fun book, I really dislike most of the characters in it. But it is a fun book. The political scheming is impressive. I was surprised by a lot of the plot twists which was really fun. The plot and the feeling were the best part by far.
When it comes to books the series is unevenly paced. The first book obviously has a lot of world building. It is really slow and takes its time setting up the stage. The end of this book left me speechless. The second book was good and super fun. I loved it. The best of the series. That ending left me so angry in the best way possible. The third book is very unevenly paced. It feels really slow at some points and too rushed at others. I did like it as an ending for these characters. But, I didn't love this book as I did the second.
All in all I really enjoyed these books. They were fun, interesting, suspenseful, and action-packed. And yes it had some nice romance in there as well. It is a Y.A series with zero smut in it in case you are wondering. I enjoyed it a lot. It's not one of my all-time favorites, but it was a good time and a fast read.
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