Kirstie's Reviews > The Cruel Prince

I was told to drop everything - including the icy pole I was eating at the time - and read this book. I disobeyed re: the icy pole, but did immediately purchase the audiobook and start downloading it. By the time I finished my icy pole it was ready to play (best of both worlds, neener-neener Jake ;p )

This book was just about made for me, fairy tale world (though more 'land of fey' than actual fairy tale), girl warrior, and romantic entanglements aplenty - yes please :)

For the first half of the book I'm just wandering along, confidant I know what kind of book I'm reading, then BAM *huge* twist and breakneck pace from that point onward. It was quite the ride!

The story world was interesting, but not all that vastly different from other 'fey' worlds, drawing on familiar myths and old wives tales for its world building. That's not to say it isn't an interesting world, but it also wasn't out-of-the-box ground breaking. (then again who am I to point fingers when half of my fantasy is set in pseudo-medieval Europe settings ;p )

The characters were well drawn. Jude, our protagonist was that interesting sort of messed-up where she knows something is a bit wrong inside her because of all she's seen but she either represses it with confidence and moves on or deals with it and moves on. She's also that irrepressible standing-up-to-bullies kind of girl which I love, even going so far as to ignore her twin's cautions. The blatantly obvious bad-guy/real love interest is suitably wicked with dashes of, 'oh yes, I can see how she'll fall for him'(though naturally she herself doesn't see that until were on the verge of the climax (no not *that* climax you dirty minded people, this is YA after all ;p )). The 'you're supposed to think this one the love interest' guy was suitably dastardly yet dreamy :) . I also really loved Vivi and look forward to more interactions between her and her GF Heather (that line (view spoiler)[ when hiding she and her family are fey from Heather when Heather asks "When will I get to meet your parents" and Jude claims their father is 'old fashioned' and while she means 'he wants her to do things the fey way' but misleads by sounding like she's saying 'he wouldn't get a gay couple' and Jude is thinking to herself that Madoc wouldn't give two shits if Vivi was bi or not (paraphrasing ;p ) was just gold to me (hide spoiler)]

The deep POV really works for me in this book too. I was submerged, but not drowning in it (as some short stories I've read lately kind of have). The prose itself is clean and very window pane with moments of flashing brilliance when the light glares of the glass.

(view spoiler)[One thing that disappointed me was I sort of expected Madoc would not actually be aiming for the throne himself. I wanted Jude to be wrong, assuming him bad when he's not that bad... but I suppose that already happened with her step-mum Aurianna, and I guess that leaves him open to being a villain in future books - which I'm certain he will. (hide spoiler)]

The book wraps up in a satisfying enough place that the year long wait until the next release won't kill me, but you can bet as soon as the preorder shows up on Audible I'll click that button HARD, because there's a wonderful lot of plot threads that draw you into the next story (such as what's up with the Alice In Wonderland book at Cardan's house).

The romance and world are a little tropey, but honestly if you broke those tropes you'd probably have people complaining far worse than by following them. Not to mention there are enough twists and pivots in the actual story to make up for it. This was a breakneck pace read for me which I thoroughly enjoyed and highly recommend to any lovers of Feyworld stories.