Holly Black’s The Cruel Prince trilogy is hugely popular in the YA and BookTok communities, and I finally picked the books up off my shelf and joined in on the fun! 

*this review is spoiler-free*

The Cruel Prince book is a novel full of character building and the introduction of the fantastic world of Elfame, but, as informational as it is, the book is far from boring. The first book’s focus mainly surrounds Jude, as does the rest; however, Holly wants her readers to be accustomed to the character and her personality as much as possible in this book.

The Wicked King does seem to centralize itself more around the story’s plot, containing lots of political issues and further moving across the connections between Jude and other characters. 

The Queen of Nothing, by far the rock that holds everything together in this trilogy, is everything these books needed to make them unforgettable. As we grow up watching movies, witnessing new plots unfold, and re-experiencing old plots, we remember the things that stand out to us. Holly Black’s story contains so many different plot events that it’s impossible to remember them all. Some books or movies will have something like a kidnapping, a murder, a poisoning, etc., but it isn’t too often where you find oh-so-many of these bunched up into such a short amount of writing, making it feel like three books are a whole lifetime. I recommend annotating plot twists and possible foreshadowing moments as one reads this series. Plus, the amount of heartwarming quotes that are in the last book, let alone the others, is astonishing (you have to mark them!). It makes the story so interesting when you find connections between the past and present when you flip to the next page. 

Closing the last book in this trilogy this morning brought that sense of happiness and sorrow that every reader dreads and loves, that feeling that many readers search for when they pick up new books. I will forever wish that I could read this series repeatedly for the first time, experiencing the multitude of plot twists and the warm feeling of the slow-burn romance in The Cruel Prince trilogy.