My Review of 'The Cruel Prince' (The Folk of the Air #1) by Holly Black | Whimsical Soul

⭐ 4/5 stars

“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”

Okay...umm...THIS WAS THE BEST BOOK I READ THIS YEAR. NOT TO BE DRAMATIC, BUT JUDE DUARTE GIVES ME LIFE.

I loved it so much! All of the stars in my rating are for Jude and Jude alone. How was I oblivious to the existence of this book up until now? And also, this is what I'm talking about when I say I love the enemies-to-lovers genre. This. Exact. Book. Authors get it wrong so many times that I had given up my quest for the perfect book to sate my hunger for this trope. But there it was, hidden and obscure underneath my overlooked Goodreads recommendation widget.

The book follows the story of Jude Duarte, who's a mortal. She's taken away from the mortal world by her parent's murderer and brought into Faerieland. She adapts quickly and realizes that it won't be an easy ride for her in this world, where danger lurks at every corner. She decides to fight her adversaries and realizes that she must get worse if she cannot get better than them. She has grand ambitions and wants to become a knight in the royal court of Elfhame but is discouraged by her foster father, who tells her she is no killer. 

Cardan, the prince of Elfhame, is the perpetual thorn in her side; with his cruel smile and pitch-black eyes, he is always causing trouble for Jude. He hates her, and she makes sure never to let it go amiss that she hates him too, fiercely. 

Taryn, who's Jude's twin sister, is her complete opposite. She is quiet and timid and never wants to challenge the faerie folk. However, she always makes her displeasure known at everything Jude does to attract unwarranted attention from Cardan and his friends. 

I have never tried wading the dark and murky waters of the fantasy genre, my only claim to fame being the harry potter books, and very recently, the blood and ash books. It's rare when a book is so good that it makes me feel so many emotions and feelings that I can't stop thinking about it. There were all the essential ingredients - romance, lies, betrayal, politics, spying, and so much more. I couldn't get enough of it. 

Jude is probably the best female main character I have ever enjoyed reading about so much. The author wrote her character so well. I was in on everything she wanted to do. Her ambitions, dreams, determination, her doubts over her identity as a mortal in Faerieland, was all so palpable. Her resolve to overcome her disadvantage and fight her adversaries was so infectious. It made me want to learn to swordfight and usurp a kingdom of my own. She was just so REAL. She was just ten when she was snatched from the mortal world and thrust into the world she came to be familiar with, the land of faeries. She struggled to be accepted into this world, all the while having conflicting thoughts about living with her parent's murderer and accepting him anyway. 

Such trauma in her early years made her tougher, and she decided to take control of her narrative rather than just staying the General's bastard daughter or a weak mortal in Faerieland. She stood up to her bullies and did not get cast down by her foes. She is an excellent strategist, and her tactics make for an exciting reveal at the end of the book. She was not one of those air-headed teenagers who go crazy over a boy. She stood her ground and did not even let Locke's betrayal get to her and told him that she would hurt him back if he hurt her. 

“Most of all, I hate you because I think of you. Often. It's disgusting, and I can't stop.”

CARDAN!! Ohh, I want to see where their story will go in the following books. I believe there are sides to his character that we haven't seen just yet, and it will be interesting when the story unravels further.

I loved how there weren't clichés in this book. It was an actual enemies-to-lovers book with just the right amount of tension not to make it seem like the trope was just casually thrown in to seem appealing. Everything was pretty well-timed, and I did not feel like anything was hurried in any way.

This book was a little lacking in details at times, and some things had totally off-base reasons. But besides that, I loved everything about it.

Highly recommend it!

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