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A review by romantasyandtea
The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black
5.0
Okay, I want to make one thing clear as I sit here laughing at my own ridiculousness; in relation to the series as a whole, this book is not 5 stars. It's more like 4.5. However, on its own, it's actually a lot of fun and has a lot of elements that I really enjoyed. Spoilers ahead:
Things I loved:
- Jude's intelligence. I love how smart she is, how witty, how her mind's always working on what to do next, how to get it done, how to keep going. Just like in The Wicked King, I believe she's the one running things because I SEE her doing it all. I see the intelligence, I see the rationality. She's definitely not a hero, and I wouldn't ever want to be her friend, but I have to admire her cleverness and the ambition that fuels it.
- Cardan. He will be on both my "loved" list and "didn't love" list. I really loved him in this book. Finally, he was the kind of love interest I'd been waiting for, the kind I'd wanted to see in earlier books. He was swoon-worthy, he was protective, I got so giddy reading about him and my heart hammered with every passage. I'm only sorry it took this long to get him, but wow, he truly was someone worth loving.
- Grima Mog. Okay. This is weird, but why did I end up loving the cannibalistic faerie? She just really stepped up as a loyal, true Grand General, and I was glad to have her on our side by the end.
- Fand. What a cutie.
- Taryn and Vivi. In THIS book. More on them below.
- The Court of Shadows. I just love them all, and am very pleased with what ended up happening.
- The ending. Oh my god, I didn't realize how badly I needed to see Cardan in the mortal world until he was there! He was such a cutie, and I just - I loved him. I loved him so much.
Things I didn't love:
- I know this series is urban fantasy, but it might as well be high fantasy for the single fact that Jude and her sisters had spent their entire lives with the faeries and know next to nothing about the mortal world. Why do the Fae keep referencing modern mentions of their stories if they demean mortals and their ways so much? How do they know what mortals think of them or their methods? It got very jarring for me.
- Look. I loved Taryn and Vivi in this book, BUT I have to actively try to forget everything they'd done in previous books. How insensitive Vivi had been, and how downright awful and traitorous Taryn had been. I didn't mind Vivi that much, but I wanted Taryn dead before I started reading. She finally grows a conscience and a heart when her husband isn't around anymore? So if he was still alive, she still would've betrayed her own twin and hurt her just to please him? I'm glad she changed and all, but the change seemed to come out of nowhere. She was just suddenly a different person, and it felt a little unearned. She hadn't changed her ways or shown much remorse at all in previous books, but now she's just the good sister again? Like I'd said earlier, if you take into consideration the series as a whole, the change is very sudden. But I rated this book alone, and the fact that she'd been good for almost the entirety of it.
- The same applies to Cardan and Jude. They had a great relationship in this book, but it also seemed to come out of nowhere because there wasn't much lead up to it. Cardan's sudden change of heart at the end of the previous book seemed sudden. Yes, he'd almost lost Jude, but that doesn't automatically erase all the horrible stuff he'd done to her as a mortal. I'm at least very glad that they addressed that Jude had no reason to trust him or his feelings for her. I was really worried we would just be expected to forgive him because he'd had a bad childhood, but they at least acknowledged that his actions couldn't just be forgotten with some pretty words, that he had to earn our hearts. And he very much did, in my case.
- My biggest pet peeve with this book is the motivation. In that, there isn't a remotely good one for Jude wanting to stay in Faerieland. The Fae, for the entirety of the series, are nothing short of vile, murderous monsters. Even when Jude was the one getting things done, even when her intelligence was apparent and beyond anyone else's, they all detested her. I kid you not, until the very last two or three chapters, I was hoping she would just ask Cardan to glamour her into forgetting the Fae, forgetting her life there, and returning her to the mortal world so she could thrive there instead where she would at least be acknowledged for her strengths. She keeps going on about how it was her home and that's why she wanted to stay, but everyone there is just awful and have posed a threat to her for the entirety of her life. There's nothing remotely whimsical, magical, or pleasant about this place, save for maybe Cardan by the end. People who grow up in the barracks don't want to stay in the barracks, so it was very hard to root for her to stay there for almost the entire series when it was clearly such a poisonous place to live.
I'm making it sound like I didn't enjoy the book - I did. I really did love it, I finished it in the span of a day. I'm glad I read this series, and I'm even gladder that I've officially completed this series.
Things I loved:
- Jude's intelligence. I love how smart she is, how witty, how her mind's always working on what to do next, how to get it done, how to keep going. Just like in The Wicked King, I believe she's the one running things because I SEE her doing it all. I see the intelligence, I see the rationality. She's definitely not a hero, and I wouldn't ever want to be her friend, but I have to admire her cleverness and the ambition that fuels it.
- Cardan. He will be on both my "loved" list and "didn't love" list. I really loved him in this book. Finally, he was the kind of love interest I'd been waiting for, the kind I'd wanted to see in earlier books. He was swoon-worthy, he was protective, I got so giddy reading about him and my heart hammered with every passage. I'm only sorry it took this long to get him, but wow, he truly was someone worth loving.
- Grima Mog. Okay. This is weird, but why did I end up loving the cannibalistic faerie? She just really stepped up as a loyal, true Grand General, and I was glad to have her on our side by the end.
- Fand. What a cutie.
- Taryn and Vivi. In THIS book. More on them below.
- The Court of Shadows. I just love them all, and am very pleased with what ended up happening.
- The ending. Oh my god, I didn't realize how badly I needed to see Cardan in the mortal world until he was there! He was such a cutie, and I just - I loved him. I loved him so much.
Things I didn't love:
- I know this series is urban fantasy, but it might as well be high fantasy for the single fact that Jude and her sisters had spent their entire lives with the faeries and know next to nothing about the mortal world. Why do the Fae keep referencing modern mentions of their stories if they demean mortals and their ways so much? How do they know what mortals think of them or their methods? It got very jarring for me.
- Look. I loved Taryn and Vivi in this book, BUT I have to actively try to forget everything they'd done in previous books. How insensitive Vivi had been, and how downright awful and traitorous Taryn had been. I didn't mind Vivi that much, but I wanted Taryn dead before I started reading. She finally grows a conscience and a heart when her husband isn't around anymore? So if he was still alive, she still would've betrayed her own twin and hurt her just to please him? I'm glad she changed and all, but the change seemed to come out of nowhere. She was just suddenly a different person, and it felt a little unearned. She hadn't changed her ways or shown much remorse at all in previous books, but now she's just the good sister again? Like I'd said earlier, if you take into consideration the series as a whole, the change is very sudden. But I rated this book alone, and the fact that she'd been good for almost the entirety of it.
- The same applies to Cardan and Jude. They had a great relationship in this book, but it also seemed to come out of nowhere because there wasn't much lead up to it. Cardan's sudden change of heart at the end of the previous book seemed sudden. Yes, he'd almost lost Jude, but that doesn't automatically erase all the horrible stuff he'd done to her as a mortal. I'm at least very glad that they addressed that Jude had no reason to trust him or his feelings for her. I was really worried we would just be expected to forgive him because he'd had a bad childhood, but they at least acknowledged that his actions couldn't just be forgotten with some pretty words, that he had to earn our hearts. And he very much did, in my case.
- My biggest pet peeve with this book is the motivation. In that, there isn't a remotely good one for Jude wanting to stay in Faerieland. The Fae, for the entirety of the series, are nothing short of vile, murderous monsters. Even when Jude was the one getting things done, even when her intelligence was apparent and beyond anyone else's, they all detested her. I kid you not, until the very last two or three chapters, I was hoping she would just ask Cardan to glamour her into forgetting the Fae, forgetting her life there, and returning her to the mortal world so she could thrive there instead where she would at least be acknowledged for her strengths. She keeps going on about how it was her home and that's why she wanted to stay, but everyone there is just awful and have posed a threat to her for the entirety of her life. There's nothing remotely whimsical, magical, or pleasant about this place, save for maybe Cardan by the end. People who grow up in the barracks don't want to stay in the barracks, so it was very hard to root for her to stay there for almost the entire series when it was clearly such a poisonous place to live.
I'm making it sound like I didn't enjoy the book - I did. I really did love it, I finished it in the span of a day. I'm glad I read this series, and I'm even gladder that I've officially completed this series.