english review only

audible audiobook

spoilerfree

Summary: Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

My review: I was prepared to be disappointed but I truly love this.

This is such another one of those well loved books that I finally decided to pick up. And I was worried that my luck would run out and I would end up hating the book instead of loving it. The beginning of the book wasn't that promising, to be completely honest.

I get why there was this big time jump in the beginning, but I would have truly loved to see more of the sisters after everything terrible happened, how they handled the new world. I mean we got glimpses of it, but I would have loved a bit more.

There were also moments that made my skin crawl because I just felt really uncomfortable with some scenes and what some of the characters did to my baby Jude. Ugh.

But. While this book has it's problematic moments, I totally realize and am not denying them. This book got me out of a reading slump.

I loved the writing/the narrator for this book. I loved the story. I just love diving into fae worlds. I loved the characters, most of them. Some of them. FINE, I mostly just loved Jude and Vivi. BUT I LOVE THEM A LOT. For all I care, all the men in the book can go to hell. Except for Oak, duh, he is the most adorable.

I can't wait to start the next book.

I enjoy this, at the same time I'm not sure about it. But damn, it's such a fast listen and exactly what I need right now.

This one wasn't for me.  It had been the October pick for my library's Forever YA book club, and I ended up skipping our October meeting because every time I'd try to start the book, I'd nope out, and couldn't even get all the way through the prologue.  But when I checked out the hardcover edition, I'd also placed a hold on the downloadable audio version, and it auto-checked out for me.  I thought, "What the heck," and I put it on my mp3 player.

I did a lot of eye-rolling.  Head-shaking.  When Jude is seven years old, she and her sisters witness the murder of her parents and are abducted into The Land of Faerie by their murderer, who also happens to be the biological father of her half-faerie older sister (Jude has a twin).  This all happens in the prologue, so not spoilage.

We jump ten years for the main part of the book.  Despite having watched him murder her parents. Jude has come to love her Faerie Stepfather (ish) Madoc, who is a general to the high court in Faerie.  Jude and her twin take lessons with "the gentry," and their faerie classmates constantly bully them for being human and mortal.  (And somehow adults are never around to stop the physical abuse.)

Jude quickly becomes an unsympathetic character, as her main drives become obtaining power and position in the royal court.  And we must constantly hear about how superior the beautiful faerie "folk" are, what with their non-human eye colors, pointy, furry ears, horns, magical powers, and immortality.  Except that they can be murdered.  So it's kind of ridiculous when they mock Jude for being mortal.  Also they "can't lie," but still find ways to be deceptive.  We also get treated to the trope of the mean, abusive guy acting that way towards a girl because he's secretly into her.  We need to retire that.

This is already longer than I intended.  I will say that the final 20% of the plot at least had me curious about where the narrative was going, but ultimately I was "meh" at the end, and have no intention of reading the rest of the series.  I just can't care about these petty "folk" and the humans who aspire to be like them.

Soooo I found out yesterday about a fantastic, epic readathon called "The Book Junkie Trials" hosted by Rachel Marie. The idea is pretty simple: you are sorted into a team and then follow a map quest completing prompts to move to the next 'location'. The idea is lovely and I can't wait until next week to fully start!! Head over here to learn about the readathon. They have a drive folder featuring all the maps and the reading tracker you have to use to log in  your finished reads. It's is a very organised event and I'm excited to participate in it!!

I'm proud team #scribe, a team led by Sophiesticated Books, Duchess of Scribes. 

Who are the scribes you might ask?

Scribes are professional chroniclers who write accounts of important or historical events. They follow where the action is. However, they have been known to give rather conflicting accounts of battles, depending upon which side they favour.

ABILITY: The ability to rewrite their tale. Their unique ability is to read a book that wasn’t on their declared TBR.

WEAKNESS As scribes spend so much time documenting their findings, one of their challenges will take MUCH longer than normal. Read a book over 500 pages.

In the first in a new series Holly Black shows just how far one will go to shape a Kingdom.

Jude and Taryn are forced from their home when they are seven, their mother and Step father murdered and they are forced to live with the murderer in the High Court of Faerie. it has been ten years and although they try to keep their heads down, they are always reminded that they are humans in this Fey world. Jude wants nothing more that to belong in this world despite her mortality but there are many fey who despise humans and only see them as slaves. A new ruler is about to be chosen and Jude must see that things go in her favour. The faerie court is one of deception, trickery and bloodshed, Jude needs to learn quickly if she going to survive the change change in rule.

This is the first book that I have read by Black and I really enjoyed the majority of elements, characters that she presented and developed in this book. The world building is extremely well done and beautifully written. I know where this world/reality sit in regards to our own world, as well I did not find the different children of the King confusing and who were all vying for the crown, well except Prince Cardan. You really feel the differences between the two worlds and the struggle that Jude and her twin sister Taryn feel to try to fit in but also keep their heads down as well (Taryn succeeds at this much better than Jude does). The identical twin aspect is also interesting, how two people who are the same on the outside have such different personalities and Black highlights this every chance that she gets, especially in regards to the bullying that the girls suffer.

I personally would classify this book as a fantasy political intrigue, as Jude is doing everything that she can to support a cause that she believes in as well as trying to find her spot and purpose in this Fae world. She begins to learn the art of a spy and the trading of secrets. She is realizing just how valuable her human nature makes her. As with any good spy book this one was much darker than I expected it to be and often there were moments of brutality that once again I did not expect and some of them even come from Jude herself.

Okay I normally post spoiler free reviews but with this book, I feel like i have to say something about the relationship that occurs in this one. So if you are looking to read this book, don't read any further, as what I'm about to write does occur later in the book.

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I feel like this has a really poor relationship between Cardan and Jude. Their relationship at the beginning is one of bullying verging on torment because of what is done to her. And there is an almost rape that occurs that takes things to a whole different level. Yet Cardan supposedly is obsessively in love with her and does all of these bad/rude/embarrassing/dangerous things because of it and Jude accepts this. I mean WHAT? How can this even be a thing. Black is a well known author even though this is the first book I have read by her, these books are rated YA (which I also have issue with but that is probably not the authors doing). Why do books like this and I believe the Twilight series (I've never the series, just basing it on what others have said) promote such unhealthy relationships and make it seem normal and alright? Alright spoilers and rant over.

So will I read the next book in this series? Yes. The ending was really well done and I liked how every other aspect in the book was shaped by Black. I am interested in seeing where relationships are taken what this new world under a new King will look like.

Enjoy!!!