Reviews tagging 'Pregnancy'

The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

41 reviews

_ao_'s review against another edition

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

4.0

I wanted to give up early on, but told myself I'd give it until the end of the first third. It picked up right around 1/3 of the way through, and wound up being better than I had expected. 

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2blueshoes's review against another edition

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

3.0


1. pacing is slow for most of the book, but there is enough complicated intrigue and weird world building to keep you reading. 

2. It does not feel like a story or world that I have read in fantasy before, and that’s hard to do. I enjoyed that. 

3. Romance is basically non-existent in this book, but it does feel like a very long and elaborate set up for future romance in other books maybe? If anything this is really a political intrigue book with a very subtle romance subplot. If that’s your jam, you’re going to love this. 

4. The person I am fairly sure is the future hero is A LITERAL ASSHOLE for 99.9% of the book. Like zero redeeming qualities, not even described as attractive? If you aren’t patient with very long redemptive arcs for characters, or if you can’t tolerate not knowing who the true love interest is, maybe skip this book. 

5. The heroine feels really young and also not particularly moral???  Like she is decidedly not justice-motivated. She seems really immature and self interested at times. This makes for a surprising read if I’m honest and I think we will watch her develop a lot in the books. This book feels a bit like a prequel somehow?

6.
The hero has a tail
and it is unforgivable. Although I guess it has some sort of symbolic meaning in future books, but to me it’s just a step too far. Yuck. 

7. I would have given up on this book entirely if it wasn’t for some really surprising shit that goes down around the chapter 26 mark that had me WTF-ing all over the place. It’s like it suddenly turned into the book I wanted it to be. The last four chapters are, in my opinion, amazing. They had me on the edge of my seat. I hope they reflect what future books will be like. 

Oh, final thought: I think listening as an audiobook kinda made this book worse for me than it was, because the narrator didn’t do distinct voices for the characters, and it made it really confusing. Would recommend reading it as a book.

Lots of content warnings on this one. 

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nonidude's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes

4.25

A good series start! I knew a twist was coming, but didn't have it figured out, so that's fun. :) The violent scenes are done well and explain the situation clearly without being overly grotesque. Excited to see how things progress!

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grommit's review against another edition

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adventurous dark fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

Fantastic politics, cruel people, and sucks you into its world

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20sidedbi's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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noellelovesbooks's review against another edition

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4.5

 Content Warnings: Blood, murder, death, loss of loved ones, abandonment, infidelity, cheating, toxic relationships, toxic friendships, violence, emotional abuse, bullying, physical abuse, kidnapping, slavery, drug abuse, loss of body autonomy, classism, gaslighting, suicide, pregnancy, and attempted murder of children born and unborn.

OMG how do I even start this review. I just finished reading...not even 10 minutes ago and my brain is still processing everything that happened.

This was a recommendation [and book gift] from Roni...I got fomo seeing all her updates when she was reading the series and decided I needed to read it too...and she was awesome enough to gift the trilogy to me 🥰

I've heard a lot of people talk about the trilogy but not really giving any real spoilers away...like literally all I knew before reading was that there was a Jude and a Carden...someone murdered her parents and she was raised in fairy...and that there was an entire page of just her name over and over. Which really...those 3 facts don't make for much info 🤣 Ngl I think I loved that though...I really had no idea what I was getting into.

From the start I sympathized and loved Jude. I had weird feelings of distrust towards certain characters...which ended up being well founded!

Maybe I can formulate my thoughts better soon...but until then I'm going to go marinate my thoughts and probably start book 2 😝 

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n0elle's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5


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giulianalb99's review against another edition

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adventurous tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


⚠️Esta reseña contiene spoilers⚠️

Este libro es fantástico. Ya entiendo el hype que tiene, está totalmente justificado y merecidísimo. 
Me encanta cómo escribe Holly Black, nunca había leído ningún libro de ella y la verdad es que su pluma es increíble y preciosa. El mundo de Faerie es súper original, pero me hubiera gustado saber más acerca de él. Si que es verdad que al principio se me hizo un poco lento y, a veces, me pareció que los capítulos eran demasiado largos, pero se me ha pasado volando y lo he disfrutado un montón. 

Jude (la protagonista) es genial. Me encanta que la autora plasme sus defectos y cómo va evolucionando su personaje a medida que va avanzando el libro, y su relación con Cardan es un enemies to lovers 100% que he amado y que no puedo esperar más a leer cómo va tomando forma su relación. Al principio Cardan no me gustaba tanto por el tema del bullying (ya que es un tema que no puedo apoyar bajo ningún concepto) pero al final van saliendo a la luz varias cosas que te hacen cambiar de parecer. Los demás personajes, en general, me han parecido buenos (menos Taryn obviamente, y Locke🤮), y es súper curiosa la relación que tienen Madoc y Jude teniendo en cuenta su situación extraña.

Poco más tengo que decir al respecto. No puedo esperar más a seguir con esta trilogía y ver cómo los personajes van creciendo/evolucionando y cómo su relación se va creando. 
No le doy 5 estrellas porque creo que el segundo me va a gustar mucho más y porque he sentido que este libro ha sido más bien un “calentamiento” para los que se vienen. 
Si te gusta la fantasía y el romance, tienes que leer este libro sí o sí.



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This book is fantastic. I understand the hype it has, it’s totally justified and well deserved. 
I love how Holly Black writes, I've never read any of her books and the truth is that she writes so beautifully. The world of Faerie is super original, but I would’ve liked to know more about it. Yes, at first it was a bit slow for me and, sometimes, I thought the chapters were too long, but I read it so fast that I didn’t even noticed and I enjoyed it a lot. 

Jude (the mc) is amazing. I love that the author captures her flaws and how her character evolves as the book progresses, and her relationship with Cardan is a 100% enemies to lovers that I loved and I can't wait to read how their relationship evolves. At first I didn't like Cardan so much because of the bullying issue (I cannot support that under any circumstances) but in the end several things come to light that make you change your mind. The other characters, in general, were really good (except Taryn obviously, and Locke🤮), and the relationship between Madoc and Jude is super curious considering their strange situation. 

I have little more to say about it. I can't wait to continue with this trilogy and see how the characters grow/evolve and how their relationship takes shape. I'm not giving it 5 stars because I think I'm going to like the second one much more and because I've felt that this book was more of a "warm-up" for the other books that are coming. 
If you like fantasy and romance, you have to read this book no matter what.





(English is not my first language, if you find any mistakes, please let me know)

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theintrovertsbooks's review against another edition

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dark tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Character
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.5


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elderwoodreads's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? It's complicated
  • Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

An excellent book about fantasy court politics and political intrigue. Our heroine is morally gray, but predominatly because of the impossible choices she is put into. I was hooked from start to finish and plan to bump the sequel up on my TBR. If this book was sold to you as an enemies to lovers romance please know this is very minor in the plot (which personally, I loved).

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