“In Faerie, there are no fish sticks, no ketchup, no television.”
The Cruel Prince is the first book in a new fantasy series by Holly Black and it certainly sets up the future books in the series well. The first chapter is a prologue where we learn how the main character of Jude came to be a mortal living in Faerie, and the book shows the darker side of Faerie lore from the beginning.
“I can no more guess the assumptions that go along with glittering sneakers than a child in a dragon costume knows what real dragons would make of the cooler of her scales.”
At the beginning of the book I thought I understood where it was going to go and how the story was going to play out, but reading further you start to have suspicions that all is not as Jude thinks in the world of Faerie. There is more than one plot twist in the book and while I guessed one of the main ones, I did not guess the one at the end, which is always refreshing for me as I have a habit of guessing endings.
“‘Nice things don’t happen in storybooks,” Taryn says. ‘Or when they do happen, something bad happens next. Because otherwise the story would be boring, and no one would read it.'”
A lot of this book is set up for the next one in the series and while the set up does need to happen, the first half of the book does drag a little, but the second half more than makes up for that as Jude learns to use the weaknesses of Faerie to her advantage and the book ends when Jude’s plan is just starting to be borne out.
ChristyESWriter 