The Cruel Prince

Tan Yen Jin (S1 Canberra) 2020512

        The Cruel Prince is an incredibly well written novel by Holly Black. The book features a young heroine that avenges herself and saves the kingdom she loves with the help of her rival , the cruel prince that turned out to be her love interest by the end of the story. This novel leans towards fantasy , adventure , action and a twisty and eccentric romance. 

        The Cruel Prince is a story that takes place in a kingdom ruled by Fae and magic called Elfhame. The heroine of the story , Jude Duarte , is a human girl who was abducted by an assassin that murdered her parents when she was a child that now lives in Elfhame. All her life she was constantly mocked and tormented for merely being mortal. She attempted to prove herself worthy by entangling herself into the royal court and accepted a job to be a spy for the crown prince. Prince Cardan , known as the cruel prince , continued to slander Jude regularly and humiliate her with every chance he could get even while she worked for his brother. On one of Jude’s missions , she discovered a horrible secret among the royal court that could lead to the crown prince’s downfall along with a mysterious letter with her name written all over. Jude later discovered that the writer of said letter was Cardan all along and that he had been in love with her the whole time. The cruel prince then agreed to help Jude to save their beloved kingdom , Elfhame together. 

        To my mind , this book is simply remarkable. It was fun , intriguing , exuberant , and easily consumable. The author did an excellent job at setting the tension and describes scenes in an astonishing manner. The characters are all quite likable and the storyline never got boring. I enjoyed how the book started off with just Jude trying to fit in amongst the rest of the Fae and it escalates to her exposing the vindicated crimes of the royal court and their connivance beneath their noble facade along with Cardan. The author made a rather interesting take on political corruption and brought it out with a kingdom of Fae , she also encouraged her readers to speak up for themselves by using Jude as an example. What I disliked about this story however would be a few questionable plot holes that had no logical explanations later on. 

        Overall I give this book four out of five stars. I’d recommend this book to anyone who enjoys reading action fantasy books with a romantic subplot , especially for older teenagers. ■