review | the cruel prince series:
let's FINALLY discuss this beast, shall we? it's been almost a week since i finished this series and i just never felt like reviewing it, in all honesty.
i really wanted to LOVE it.
and i did, until the last book.
when i started this series, i was in an intense mood to get lost in a story that's not mine, a world not mine to face, struggles not mine to deal with. i enjoyed the first two books for the most part. i really did get lost in jude's problems. her story. her world.
even though i disliked her, i understood her fury. and even though i didn't empathize with her, i was still invested in her story and wanted to follow her in the next part of it.
one of the things i disliked--that got even worse in the last book--was the repetitiveness. “kiss me until i'm sick of it.” like, OMG STOP! i get it. cardan wants you to kiss him until he's sick of it. i get it. okay?
holly black really overdid the copy-paste thing. and it totally became much worse in the last book.
one other thing is that the matter of their appearances, which wasn't mentioned much or a huge part of the story in the first two books, became a little too unavoidable in the last book. it weirded me out so bad and caused me to kind of tap out from, and no longer connect to, the story at times.
other than that, it was well and good, rightfully, and i was too happy just losing myself in a book to make note of the silly plot holes--but the way the third book ruined everything for me is so sad.
(potential spoilers for the very ending of the series ahead.)
jude is a murderess in the first two books. i get it. i even undertood her fury. i excused her. because i thought--i BELIEVED--it must not be all there is. that there MUST be growth. especially because it felt like there was a part in her that was soft. redemption is the name of something, right?
but oh the huge letdown.
in the end, jude excused the terrible things she did like this: i've no other choice. she took too much pride in being called a murderess and was totally okay with velarian's curse coming true.
the huge frickin letdown.
what a way to grow from a naive girl to an unapologetic murderess. i'm sorry, was that supposed to be somehow attractive? if so, i feel a little lost here.
verdict: terribly disappointed.