Published: 02 January 2018 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover, 370 pages, English

“Every day that I don't beg Cardan for forgiveness over a feud he started is a day I win.”

★★★ (3.7 / 5) The opening scene and overall premise of The Cruel Prince is grim yet mystifying. Our narrator Jude can be irritating and a bit unrelatable at times, but her ambition is captivating. There is magic and mystery, tension and resolve, puzzle pieces and plot twists. I can't wait to get my hands on the sequel to see how the story continues.

summary.

If you've read the book, you can skip this section. Jude is a teenage girl living with her twin sister and older Faerie sister Vivi in Faerieland. They all live happily under the roof of the man who killed her mother and father (out in the regular world) ten years ago, plus his new wife and her toddler son Oak.

While Vivi fights for a way to return to a normal human life, Jude and her twin Taryn look for every opportunity to make themselves belong in this new world. But like Cinderella's stepsisters and the glass slipper, there is pain, bloodshed, and sacrifice at every turn as Jude tries to warp herself into the only version of her that a world of monsters can accept.

“They want me to be afraid. I know that...What they don't realize is this: Yes, they frighten me, but I have always been scared, since the day I got here. I was raised by the man who murdered my parents, reared in a land of monsters. I live with that fear, let it settle into my bones, and ignore it.”

!! WARNING !! There are spoilers ahead!

bound and broken.

Let's start with the not so great parts, shall we? Maybe it's just because I haven't experienced trauma like these girls have (or known someone with a similar trauma), but I for the life of me could not figure out why Jude wants so badly to stay in Faerieland! She seems willing to cut away every part of her that's human and good in order to earn acceptance from the monsters who stole her away and torture her without a second thought.

She becomes a spy for Prince Dain, a captor for Prince Cardan, and attempts to become a knight for the throne—all for a community and a kingdom she hardly knows (and that hates her). Everything about it just screams Stockholm syndrome to me, and it was frustrating with every choice she made.

fiercer than fae.

While Jude's main motivations and interests troubled me a great deal, she is a warrior through and through—and one I am definitely willing to follow into a sequel. Here are just a few of the fierce actions she takes throughout the novel:

• Insists to the man who killed her parents that she should become a knight

• Steadily ingests poisons and toxic substances to build her own immunities

• Refuses to kiss Cardan's ass—sorry, butt—when he nearly has her killed (in the river, with the fruit, the list goes on...)

• Basically has a casual relationship with Locke while spying and training are her highest priorities

• ​Challenges her own twin sister to a sword fight / duel and holds nothing back

• Straight-up kills a dude, hides him under her bed for a day, and buries him in the backyard when everyone's sleeping

• Leads Dain's spy crew and makes them wait for her to make every decision

final thoughts.

I just want to mention that I am not in love with Cardan. The quote "he's flint, you're tinder" from this book keeps floating around the #bookstagram world like they have a love to be envied, and I do not understand this. He is terrible—abused and a bit misunderstood, sure—but there's no doubt he's a bully with a self-entitled attitude and a cruel humor.

I am not really looking forward to this romance blooming, but since Jude is becoming nearly as cruel as him, maybe they'll deserve each other in the end. (Maybe that's the point?) I don't know...It's been months since I read this, and I'm still processing it.