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journeyinyourhand · 5 years

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The Cruel Prince by Holly Black Review (Spoilers)

The Cruel Prince follows the story of Jude Duarte, a human living among the creatures of fay in a magical place called Elfhame. When she was 7 years old, along with her two sisters, she witnessed the murder of her mother and father by the man who would become her foster father, a man she would learn to love and respect. This man’s name is Madoc and he is the high general for the King of Elfhame.

In the Kingdom of Faerie, humans a are viewed upon as second class citizens. Humans in Elfhame fall into one of several categories: People who were tricked to be in service of the fay, a human who has shown some special skill that is favored by one of the fay, used as lovers to keep the blood of the fay alive (it is very hard for the fay to have children), or in the case of Jude and her twin sister Taryn, as wards under the protection of one of the fay. This is especially shown in the schooling of the gentry (the highborn of Elfhame). Even though being human, Jude and Taryn are allowed to join these lessons being the foster daughters of Madoc, the high general. In school, Jude and Taryn constantly get bullied for something they can’t change about themselves, which is the fact that they are human. While reading, I viewed this portion of the book to be an allegory to the big problem of bullying in our world in this day in age. Kids can be bullied for the smallest things, usually things that they can’t change about themselves. Jude decided that if she is going to be picked on, she is going to make life a living hell for the people who are picking on her, especially after witnessing her sister cry from being bullied. The main culprit for all the bullying that is done to Jude and her sister is the youngest prince of the high king, Prince Cardan. In the first half of the book, I hated Cardan. He is such a jerk. What you start to find out later in the book is that just like in the real world, people who are bullies tend to get bullied themselves in some other capacity. Cardan is being bullied at home by his older brother Balekin. Since he is humiliated at home, he wanted someone else to share in his pain. This doesn’t excuse Cardan’s behavior, but it does give reason to it. One member of Cardan’s posy, Locke, shows an interest in Jude and decides to somewhat stand up for her and try to woe her. To his success, it works. Jude starts to really like Locke. She likes his company, she likes kissing him, she likes having someone pay attention to her for something other than the fact that she is human.

One thing that Jude wants more than anything is to make a spot for herself in the kingdom of Elfhame that is more than just the human foster child of the high general. To do this, she wants to become a knight. Growing up in Madoc’s household and being taught with the gentry, Jude has become proficient in sword fighting and views it to be one of her only skill sets. Jude plans to volunteer to be picked to be a knight at the next tournament but her dreams get shattered when Madoc tells her that he won’t allow it. Madoc’s decision here is really the inciting incident for later decisions in the book. Jude would have been happy being a knight but since she is not allowed to do the thing she wants, she ends up finding a place for herself in another way. Jude still decided to fight in the tournament and her skill catches the eye of Prince Dain, the next King of Elfhame. Prince Dain recruits Jude to become a spy for him for the fact that she can lie unlike the fay and that she is pretty good with a weapon. He also grants her resistance from glamour. The spies of Prince Dain are called the Court of Shadows.

Being a part of the Court of Shadow, Jude learns new skills and is assigned on missions. One mission is to go to Hallow Hall, where Prince Balekin and Prince Cardan live, and find something of worthy that Prince Dain can use. Jude completes this mission, but not without stealing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland from Prince Cardan’s room and witnessing Cardan getting beaten by a human servant under Balekins orders. The completion of this mission was finding a letter in Queen Orlagh handwriting stating “I know the provenance of the blusher mushroom that you ask after, but what you do with it must not be tied to me. After this, consider my dept paid. Let my name be stricken from your lips” that was addressed to Balekin. Later when Jude opens Alice and Wonderland at home, she finds a piece of paper tucked inside the book with her name written over and over again in Cardan’s handwriting with smudges and holes in the paper from writing too hard. At that moment, she comes to the conclusion that Cardan must really hate her.

When it comes time for Prince Dain’s coronation, everything goes wrong. First, Jude finds out that Locke had been playing a game with her and her twin sister. Locke had asked Taryn to marry him under one condition, she prove her love for him. The way she would prove her love is to let Locke try to get with Jude and not tell her anything about Locke and Taryn. This is such a stupid way to show someone you love them. It’s an awful deal for Taryn. She betrays her sister and gets to see her man cheat on her just so she can marry him. When I found this out, I began to not like Taryn or Locke very much. Locke is an asshole and Taryn chose a boy over her sister and that is just not right. Next, Balekin, along with the help of Madoc, murders the entire royal family, aside from Cardan because he was nowhere to be found, to try to get the crown. The crown can only be passed down from one member of the Greenbriar line to the next and Balekin believed he would be a better king than his younger brother Dain. My jaw was probably wide open when I read this chapter the first time because I was really surprised of the events that passed. Jude was witness to all of this and for a second time in the book, her heart breaks. All that she has worked for to find a place in Elfhame were she belonged was stabbed in the back by Madoc. Jude tries to escape and who does she find on her way, none other than Cardan; the person that everyone is looking for because he is the only one who can crown Balekin now. She brings him to the Court of Shadows and he is surprised to find out that she was a spy for Prince Dain. Even though throughout the entire first part of the book, you really hate Cardan, you start to feel bad for him. All of his family just died, even if none of them really liked him much, and he is just scared about what is to come next. He is scared for his life. The author emoted such hatred for this character to then have you feel sorry for him and to hope that he makes it out alive.

When trying to figure out what to do, Jude leaves Cardan with the Court of Shadows to go home and see what Madoc’s play is. Jude is given a day to come back. If she takes longer than that, the Court of Shadows will cut their loses and kill Cardan. When Jude sees Taryn, anger takes over her and she challenges her to a duel for her honor, which was grievously betrayed. Taryn states that she wanted to tell Jude but she couldn’t because then she would fail the test that Locke gave her to prove her love. Jude then asked what Cardan said to her the day she witnessed her crying from his words. Cardan told Taryn that it was because of her that he kicked dirt onto Jude’s food. Locke tricked him into thinking that Jude stole Locke from Nicasia. That Jude was suffering in Taryn’s place. Jude throws her sword at Taryn and tells her to pick it up. Jude grabs the sword on the wall and tells Taryn she can make the first strike with the better sword. The two sisters start fighting and would have probably seriously hurt each other if Vivi did not glamour them to stop. Well, Vivi was only able to glamour Taryn because Jude is resistant to glamours but Jude ended up throwing her sword across the room as to not seriously hurt her twin when she realized Taryn would not block her blow from the glamour. Madoc pulls the two girls into his study to lecture them about family fighting with family. After Taryn leaves, Madoc mentions that he is not too fond of Locke and does not think he is good for either Taryn or Jude. He also asked Jude if she knew where Prince Cardan was and Jude lies to him saying she does not. Later that night, Vivi offers Jude to run away with her to the mortal world. Jude asked Vivi to give her a day to think on it.

The next day, Jude goes to Oriana’s room to find Taryn since she wasn’t in her room. Taryn is at Locke’s house and Jude catches eyes of a golden acorn on Oriana’s desk. This acorn is the twin to the one she had taken from Locke’s house earlier in the book. From that small acorn, Jude figures out that Oak is not Madoc’s child and Prince Dain had Liriope (Oaks actual mother and the mother of Locke) murdered with poison that was provided by Queen Orlagh of the undersea. With this knowledge, Oak is part of the Greenbriar line and can crown a King, or even be crowned himself. Oriana lets Jude know that Madoc is already privy to this knowledge and Jude suggest that Madoc will probably get Oak crowned king so he can rule as his regent. Oriana does not want this for Oak and makes Jude promise that she will find a way to make sure Oak is safe. Jude gives her a maybe as an answer.

When Jude returns back to the Court of Shadows, she comes to find Cardan drinking and laughing and playing cards with them the Roach, the Ghost, and the Bomb (all members of the Court of Shadows). Jude, angry that Cardan is having a good time, pulls him into the other room to have a chat with him. She has him sit down and then she sits at Prince Dain’s desk and points the crossbow at Cardan. Cardan tells Jude he is terrified and that he will answer any question she has for him. Through the whole interrogation, Jude finally finds out why Cardan hates her so much. He hates her because she has a father that loves her even though she is a human who was born to an unfaithful wife while his never cared for him even though he is a prince of Faerie. He hates her because she doesn’t have a brother who beats her. He hates her because Locke used her and Taryn to make Nicasia cry after he stole her from him. He hates her because after the tournament, Balekin never failed to throw Jude in his face as the mortal who could beat him. Cardan is jealous of Jude. But the thing that makes Cardan hate Jude most of all is that he thinks of her, often. Jude doesn’t believe him at first and goes around the desk and pulls a knife on Cardan and leans in close enough to him for a kiss. His eyes widen and his face shows a combination of panic and desire. Jude then kisses him. This moment of the book is so intense and quite funny. Jude ends up making out with a person she hates while holding a knife to his throat.

Jude comes up with a plan and makes Cardan think that he will be crowing Oak High King of Elfhame to then have him go to the mortal world with Vivi to grow up so that Madoc does not have true influence over him. To enact her plan, Jude ask Cardan to be in her service to make sure that he won’t betray her. He agrees to be in her service for one year and a day after Jude agrees that Cardan can live in Hallow Hall, get every last bottle in the royal cellars, and have the Roach teach him how steal. Cardan and Jude then travel to the Unseelie courts to try and get them to agree to backing a new king. One of the Kings of the Unseelie court, King Roiben says he will back this new king if the king will give him a favor in the future. Jude makes this agreement with him. By this point, Jude has made multiple promises to people she may not be able to keep. She has definitely spread herself thin.

When Jude arrives to Balekin’s dinner, everyone is surprised to see Cardan with her. In Cardan’s mind, he is working alongside Jude to enact her big plan. What he doesn’t know is that Jude was keeping her true plan away from him. She told him to kneel down to show Oak how it’s done to be crowned king and while he was in that position, she ordered him not to move for a full minute. In that minute, Oak crowns him High King of Elfhame. Jude’s thought process is that the safest way to make sure Oak can get the crown when he is older is to have someone else wear it while he grows up in the mortal world. After Cardan is crowned, he makes a toast to Jude, who gave him a gift tonight, one he will repay in full. This scares Jude because she knows how angry he is with her at that moment because Cardan never wanted to be king. The Court of Shadows decide to give Jude her code name after this whole debacle, The Queen.

In the epilogue, Cardan warns Jude that a year and a day can pass in the blink of an eye. He tells her he won’t be a good king. He will be her puppet. Jude will do the work of ruling while Cardan will drink wine and make his subjects laugh. He promises her that he will not be useful.

I highly recommend this book. The characters are written really well and you really get to see the motivations of each characters even if you are only reading from Jude’s perspective. Cardan is not happy with Jude by the end of the book, but he has always held a hatred/disdain for her. Like they say, there is a fine line between love and hate and that is definitely explored more in the next book.

#the cruel prince #holly black #review #spoilers

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