The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1) by Holly Black

Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.
Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself. 

Format: Audiobook

Narrator: Caitlyn Kelly
Perfomance: 🌑🌑🌑🌑🌓

Story:🌑🌑🌑🌑🌑

This is a great way to start a new series. This might be one of the best YA books of 2018.

The Queen of Faeries, Holly Black, has produced an addicting book I couldn't stop listening to. It opened with a bloody prologue then chapters started slow until it build into a climax of twists and turns that caught me off guard. Just when I thought I could  guess Jude's plan, I get the rug pulled out of me. Everything seemed complicated but compelling. The relationships were fraught with tension and most of the characters were wonderfully nuanced and deep.

Jude the main character was flawed but I really liked what she made of herself. I love the grey morality, the spirit and the cleverness. She came a long way from a mere mortal whose parents were murdered by the fey she now calls father to become the kingmaker, the power behind the throne. 

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

I am excited to find out what she will do next.

Cardan was not as wicked as he was purported to be. He was more of a spoiled arrogant asshole prince rather than a truly evil asshole prince so he had his redeeming qualities. I couldn't say if I like him but I don't not like him either although the undeniable tumultuous attraction between him and Jude got me squee-ing a bit.

Cardan’s gaze catches mine, and I can’t help the evil smile that pulls up the corners of my mouth. His eyes are bright as coals, his hatred a living thing, shimmering in the air between us like the air above black rocks on a blazing summer day.

Madoc, Jude's adoptive father, is also a hard character to put in a box. A family man through and through, for him, family is everything and although he claims to love Jude, Taryn and Vivi's mother, he doesn't hesitate to put a blade through her. He also claimed to love Prince Dain but killed him too. He has a cap he soaked with the blood of his enemies, he loves war but he also love his children, adoptive or otherwise.

Even though Taryn and I are the evidence of Mom’s betrayal, by the customs of Faerie, we’re his wife’s kids, so we’re his problem.

As the High King’s general, Madoc was away often, fighting for the crown. We were well cared for nonetheless. We slept on mattresses stuffed with the soft seed-heads of dandelions. Madoc personally instructed us in the art of fighting with the cutlass and dagger, the falchion and our fists. He played Nine Men’s Morris, Fidchell, and Fox and Geese with us before a fire. He let us sit on his knee and eat off his plate.

Many nights I drifted off to sleep to his rumbling voice reading from a book of battle strategy. And despite myself, despite what he’d done and what he was, I came to love him. I do love him.

It’s just not a comfortable kind of love.

Locke is a fox, both in appearance and character. He loves stories and plays a game with people's hearts. I hate that kind of person. He was probably one of the characters I had come closest to not liking along with Taryn. 

"I like for things to happen, for stories to unfold. And if I can’t find a good enough story, I make one.”

Taryn is Jude's twin. If Jude was mentored by Madoc, Taryn was taught by Oriana. I didn't warm up to her. All she wanted was to fall in love and fit in. What kind of stupid goal is that?

“I am going to fall in love.”

I am surprised into laughter. “So you’ve just decided? I didn’t think it worked  like that. I thought love was supposed to happen when you least expected it, like a sap to the skull.”

“Well, I have decided,” she says. 

Fan's of Modern Faerie Tales series are in for a treat because Roiben and Kaye showed up at court. I haven't read their story yet but I heard it's dark  so I'd probably give it a go. 

Well, The Cruel Prince has a lot of dark elements that appealed to my taste but not so dark it would make it unsuitable for the YA crowd. The characters lie, steal, cheat and murder. There are plots and intrigues at every turn. The writing style, in Jude's voice, was easy to listen to with just enough depth of feelings and without resorting to the typical sarcastic YA-style American teenager voice commonly used in contemporaries. The world of faeries is magical but also very treacherous. There is beauty but as Jude said, it's the beauty of a dead golden deer. Beautiful outside but full of maggots inside. Humans in the faerie world are nothing but playthings but now a mortal human holds the power. Let's see what she does with it.

                                             

                                    

SOUNDTRACK

Power and Control

Marina and the Diamonds

Electric Heart: The Archetypes

Power and control.
Give a little, get a lot,
That's just how you are with love.
Give a little, get a lot,
Yeah, you may be good looking,
But you're not a piece of art.

Power and control,
I'm gonna make you fall.
Power and control,
I'm gonna make you fall.

Women and men we are the same,
But love will always be a game,
We give and take a little more,
Eternal game of tug and war.

Think you're funny, think you're smart,
Think you're gonna break my heart.
Think you're funny, think you're smart,
Yeah, you may be good looking,
But you're not a piece of art.

Power and control,
I'm gonna make you fall.
Power and control,
I'm gonna make you fall.

Women and men we are the same,
But love will always be a game,
A human vulnerability
Doesn't mean that I am weak

That I am weak, I am weak,
I am weak, I am weak, weak,
(Ah-ah, ah ah, ah ah, ah ah), weak,
(Ah-ah, ah ah, ah ah, ah ah), weak,
(Ah-ah, ah ah, ah ah, ah ah), weak,
(Ah-ah, ah ah, ah ah, ah ah), weak,

Power and control,
I'm gonna make you fall.
Power and control,
I'm gonna make you fall.

Women and men we are the same,
But love will always be a game.
We give and take a little more,
Eternal game of tug and war.

Power and control,
I'm gonna make you fall.
Power and control,
I'm gonna make you fall.
I'm gonna make you fall,

We give and take a little more,
'Cause all my life I've been controlled,
You can't have peace without a war,
Without a war, without a war.

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