When The Cruel Prince came out I had moved on from simply just reading every single young adult book that was published. I used to literally read everything I could get my hands on, but when this book came out I was more selective about what I was reading. When this book came out it didn’t appeal to me, but now I’m going to give it a go, not gonna lie primarily because I can get the audiobook through my library and I need an audiobook to listen to.
So I’m going to make reading this book a little bit of an experiment, I’m going to see if I should delve more deeply into the young adult fantasy genre. In the past two years, I haven’t read a young adult fantasy that hasn’t been a continuation of a series. The only exception is Ink by Alice Broadway and the main reason I read that was because I was trying to read all of the physical books I owned.
So we’re going to see how I feel about this book and see if I should get back into young adult fantasy. If it is successful the other two books in the series are available through my library so we’ll see how this goes. On with the experiment.
If you don’t know, The Cruel Prince follows a girl called Jude who’s sister is the daughter of a fairy so she and her siblings are taken to live in the fairy realm. It is about her attempts to be accepted and have power in the fairy world that doesn’t want to accept her. She also is fighting against, the cruel prince Carden, get it, who I think is going to be the love interest, cause of course he is.
First things first, I have to talk about the audio narration. In general, it’s not bad, I have definitely listened to audiobooks that were narrated worse… but I just can’t get other the voices the narrator does for the male characters. Like it was really bad, it would probably be equal to me trying to do a male voice, and there’s a reason I do not narrate audiences. You could tell she was trying to deepen her voice, and because most of the male characters are kings, princes and authority figures she tries to make her voice traditionally masculine. I’ve listened to many an audiobook and I have never had a problem with the voices an actor does, so this really got to me: for the first 2 hours of the audiobook, this was my main thoughts about the book. I would not recommend the audiobook because of how distracting this element is.
The main character’s personality is something that I really enjoyed. I liked that she wanted power – so many stories follow characters thrust into power they don’t want – I loved her Slytherin energy. Although she does tell us she wants the power a lot. I think that it something that was shown enough that it didn’t need to be told to us… repeatedly. This might just have been an element needed for a slightly younger audience, so I don’t know if this is something I can be made about, but it was so noticeable.
Other characters I did not enjoy that much. The relationships between the sisters annoyed me, as I think that it was often presented in a way that suggests that women hate other women. Also, one of the sisters was definitely introduced just so they could have diversity points – it wasn’t very well developed. However, the parent-child relationships throughout the book were great. I love a good complex relationship.
Going into the book I knew there was some hype about the relationship, but I didn’t really see the build-up for it in this book. From what I knew about the book I expected more romance – or like an actual romance storyline. I wouldn’t be opposed to the romance happening, but it still felt a bit forced in this book.
To be honest, the beginning of the book I found a bit slow. The typical high school style drama in this fantasy setting was something that I didn’t love. However, I did find that the plot turned around throughout the book. I really enjoyed the spy narrative that started to happen. This was an unexpected narrative shift that I really enjoyed, although I do think it could have come about sooner in the book. The beginning felt a bit disconnected from the rest of the book. Also, what is it with young adult fantasy and shadows, do authors know that they don’t have to use the word shadow in the name of something – the Shadow Court genuinely made me laugh. The court politics element of the novel made me actually excited to read the book.
The ending I really enjoyed for the court politics and backstabbing moments. However, the title of the second book in the series really gave away what was going to happen – I definitely wouldn’t have called it that, even though the titles do have a continued theme. Perhaps this says something about how quickly we are expected to read young adult fantasy books. I am not someone to often read a book when it comes out and I think we shouldn’t feel pressure to do so.
For whatever reason, this is one of the most in-depth reviews I have ever done. At first, I did not think I would continue with the series, however now I think I will. While it is not a perfect book, I did enjoy it. However, I probably wouldn’t continue with the series if I did not have access to the audiobooks through my library app. This book definitely made me want to read more fantasy again, so I am very happy about that.
Words and Dragons 