It's about time for my first controversial blog post. And here it is... I didn't really like The Cruel Prince by Holly Black.
The Cruel Prince
Holly Black
Rating: 3*
I was surprised; lots of people had recommended it. On twitter all I initially saw were great reviews and people raving about it and my friend even lent me the book, insisting I read it (she knew I was a big fantasy fan). I had great expectations. It was my first read of Holly Black's; I had heard of her name after reading a lot of Cassandra Clare's work. And, while I will definitely give credit where credit is due and say I got on really well with the writing style, it was the disappointing plot twists I had issue with.
For those who haven't read it yet, The Cruel Prince follows Jude, a mortal girl who is brought up in a faerie household, by a man who killed her parents. She is mocked and bullied for her inferior mortal status, but soon finds herself gaining power when she uses her ability to lie (faeries can't lie) to spy for royalty. However, this gets her caught up in a family feud over the rightful heir to the crown.
First, lets start with the good things about this book. I actually really liked how the protagonist, Jude, was morally ambiguous: she kills a man, we don't always agree with her all of her opinions and she has bad traits, such as her stubbornness and desire for power. This was a breath of fresh air. As a reader, we are asked to question the actions of our own protagonist/'hero'.
Madoc is also another character that started to intrigue me - he kills Jude's parents in the first chapter in order to take back his daughter, and Jude's half-sister, but out of a sense of responsibility, he also takes Jude and her twin sister and raises them as his own. Despite his killer instincts as a faerie, Black offers us glimpses of humanity, however fleeting.
The faerie world is also described so well - existing within the human realms but out of sight. The order is similar to our own so realistic, yet it also holds a charm I love to find in YA fantasy books. The first half of the book doesn't have much significant action - most of that happens in the latter half. Yet I never found issues with the pacing, perhaps due to Jude's confident unwillingness to stand down to the faeries.
However, the large majority of these faeries were very one-dimensional. The limitation of Jude's perspective is that they are all simply portrayed as bullies to her - she cannot, and doesn't, empathise with them.
The character I liked the least, however, was Taryn (Jude's twin sister), and, after looking at reviews, I think this is a common opinion. Her one motive in life is to fall in love and marry a faerie. Beyond that, she is very one-dimensional. I understood her desire to not attract attention like Jude and stay out of all the conflict, but there's a difference between avoiding conflict and just being so... mellow... as a person. It's the only word I can think of right now to describe her.
I think Cardan is a difficult character for me to talk about because I feel like his arc is filled with more cliches than anyone else. He is so transparent: he likes causing pain and chaos, knowing he can get away with it and he doesn't try to hide this. The first glimpse of something beyond a bully we see is when Jude accidentally ends up seeing his brother (main father figure) beat him. While Black even acknowledges this is a cliche, I still didn't think it worked. In fact, all the suggestions and 'implied' meanings behind characters don't end up as subtle as I think they were intended. For example, Locke's character twist was obvious from the get go. From the start, I didn't understand Jude's desire to sleep with him or even have a relationship with him. But as soon as Taryn mentioned a secret love interest, he was my first guess. It was 'hinted' at throughout the book so, when it came to the big reveal, the momentum was lost. Completely.
I won't get into any of the other plot twists in much detail for fear of spoiling the entire first book but I did guess them all. In fact, I think the title gives one of them away straight away. The Cruel Prince aka Cardan is portrayed as a bully. That's it. It is 75% of the way through the book that his part in the plot is revealed to be more significant than previously portrayed – this isn't a revelation. The title is literally named after him.
I think the one redeeming quality, beside the writing style, is the last page. It actually, after all of this disappointment, created some intrigue about the second book. I know, I was shocked too. I've not yet made my mind up as to whether I'll read the sequel. It took me over a week to even collate my thoughts to write this blog.
Let me know what you thought of The Cruel Prince - even if you were a great lover of it! Were you surprised by the plot twists? Did you guess any of them?
Happy reading! :)