Reviews with content warning for Slavery - The Cruel Prince

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The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

147 reviews

cup_cake's review against another edition

adventurous lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

I liked it, it wasn't particularly good but entertaining nonetheless. Its quite easy to breeze through and there are parts that were genuinely funny and intriguing, though the plot twists were easy to figure out and the characters fall flat sometimes.

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deep_sea_fishie's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.75

it has now been a good 8ish months since I read it and have finally gotten around to reviewing it so i'll do the best I can :)

I really liked this book because I found that there was a lot of pretty interesting 'world-building' where we just got to kind of see jude's day to day life without too much BIG changes and wild plot-twists (well compared to the other 2 books especially. Though I kind of found Jude to be another boring mc (though bearable enough). I kind of liked cardan despite his actions, he is a silly (but mean) guy.

Personally i do think that cardan was really cruel in this book (and this doesn't make his actions excusable), after reading the rest of the books (and especialy after delving into how the king of elfhame learned to hate stories, we can see the roots of how he behaves and especialy why he treats jude the way he does. I also found jude's relationship/attitude towards MDOC kind of strange, I can both see where she's coming from with the whole 'he killed my parents' which I think makes perfect sense, but he also raised her for like, well alot longer than her parents did, and it's sort of in him to kill them, as he's a redcap. It's not like idk, an excuse, but Jude also should take into account that Madoc isn't a human, and that it's part of his nature and his race to do shi like that.

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spatterson7's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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noellegrace8's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5

It took me about 25% of the way through to start truly enjoying this book. Because it takes the path of a slow reveal of situations and motivations, the beginning groundwork can be almost frustrating because you don't know why some people are acting the way that they are. Also, for a book with so much death and otherwise adult themes, the characters and the writing style both are a bit juvenile at times. I struggled at first with the incongruency of a lack of contractions in dialogue mixed with colloquialisms like "that sucks," but I eventually got used to it and do recognize that it makes sense given the setting. I also really hate first person present tense because it feels overdramatic and impractical, and this book uses it throughout.

That being said, I really like the main characters. Some of the side characters are a bit flat, but Jude, Cardan, Maddoc, Vivvie, Dain, Taryn, Oriana... none of them are "good" or "bad." They just are. They make decisions, they have instincts and natures that make those decisions difficult. I love the complexity! I also think this book set up a series (trilogy) well, so I'm hoping to like the next two even more! The worldbulding is awesome. Holly Black has created a very interesting mix of "fae" and "mortal," complete with rich history and quirks and physical descriptions.

I don't factor audiobook reader into my overal star rating, but I give Caitlyn Kelly 3.5/5⭐️. Honestly, I think she was part of the reason I struggled to get into this book, but there's no telling for certain. She oftentimes doesn't seem to read with the same cadence that the words on the page suggest. She also has a cheesy tone when voicing male characters and over-acts when it comes to emotional (and even sometimes non-emotional!) scenes.

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