Holly Black’s THE CRUEL PRINCE beautifully blends fantasy and realism

Jude Duarte is a mortal living in Elfhame, a world where all of the inhabitants are beautiful, immortal faeries, and this one is important: not human. Did I mention they were beautiful? In The Cruel Prince by Holly Black, Jude is taken away to Elfhame by Madoc, her sister’s father, after witnessing him murder her parents when she was seven. People in Elfhame despise humans, thinking that they are inferior, mortal beings that do not compare to faeries. Jude will do anything to prove them wrong, to prove Prince Cardan wrong, the youngest and wickedest of the sons of the High King. 

Jude and her sister are tormented by Prince Cardan and his friends any chance they can get and her anger fuels her endeavor to prove herself worthy of living in Elfhame. She begins trying to work her way towards a position of royal power, specifically the position of royal knight of the High King.

The problem is people like Cardan, the high king, even Madoc, her adoptive father, are preying on her weakness, however subtle. A human doesn’t deserve a high royal position, especially a human that has been adopted into such a breathtaking world that they feel she does not deserve. Jude must scheme and trick her way into power; but, as she gets closer to her ambition, she also stumbles upon clues that bring her closer to uncovering a truth behind Elfhame, and who is really ruling the “breathtaking world” they are living in. 

Black does such an amazing job of building up the world so meticulously with every book she publishes in the series (Black is actively publishing books for the series). I appreciate the fact that we spend a lot of time in Jude’s head. She does a lot of soul searching, which is not something many authors write about.

I also appreciate how lost Jude is at times. She is a seventeen-year-old girl that is surrounded by immortal beings who always look flawless. She is a teenager that has to uncover ancient secrets involving not the country or state, but the world she has lived in for the last ten years. She was raised by the man who murdered her parents and then moved her out like nothing had happened. It is ok, even encouraged, to be lost at times when she doesn’t understand the traditions of faeries. When she didn’t even know faeries were real until she was forced to live beside them. 

Black does such a stunning job at immersing her reader in that magnificent world while managing to show how Jude is just human. She gets her period just like any other girl; she has insecurities, and compares herself to the faeries of Elfhame; she has morning hair and morning breath: she is human.

I really enjoyed this book, including the blossoming and destruction of some relationships in it. This is an easy book to introduce a new reader into the fantasy world, seeing as we still get human aspects in it, and overall, it is a very easy, enjoyable read!