Picture it: a young girl taken from her loving home in the mortal lands into the utterly intense and dynamic world of Elfame, a land full of Faeries, where you’re then raised amongst the Fae, who despise mortals. In “The Cruel Prince” by Holly Black, this is protagonist Jude Duarte’s life.

At just age seven, Jude witnesses her parents killed by an ex-lover of her mother’s, Madoc, and is taken along with her two sisters to the world of Elfame, a world like one that Jude had only heard of in fairytales. Jude and her twin sister Taryn, along with her older sister Vivienne, are then raised by Madoc, one of the most powerful and fearful generals to the High Court of Faerie. Jude does not like the arrangement of her being a vulnerable mortal amongst the most powerful and deceitful of faeries, so her whole life she trains and becomes as strategist and cunning as anyone in Elfhame. But this does not change the fact that she is a mortal and is looked upon as such by Cardan Greenbriar, the youngest and most wicked Prince of Elfhame whom Jude attends school with. Cardan then makes it his mission to make Jude’s life a living hell and once he starts to succeed, Jude strives to make a better life for herself. As Jude becomes deeply entwined with the politics and intrigues of the palace, she discovers her capacity for deceit and bloodshed and has to decide just how far she’ll go to save her sisters and the fate of Elfhame. 

The main aspect of this book that led me to have enjoyed it so much is the inability to put it down. I was not able to put it down and had finished this book and its two following novels in the span of one day. This book was addicting; every page felt like there was something new and exciting that I didn’t want to miss. There were moments I couldn’t believe what had just happened and needed to keep turning the page. 

The character dynamics are very well-crafted and didn’t show cliché young adult relationships like the guy falling in love with the girl. Jude and Cardan’s relationship is very complex and sets the next book up for question as to where their relationship will go. The complexity of their relationship goes hand in hand with the complexity of their characters. Both Jude and Cardan are illustrated as multidimensional and come right off the page, as characters should.  

Due to the complexity of the characters, the addictive quality and interesting world, ‘The Cruel Prince” by Holly Black proves itself to be an unforgettable novel!