Of course I want to be like them. They're beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. 

They will live forever. 

Jude Duarte was seven years old when she was stolen with her sisters to live in the High Court of Faerie and her parents were murdered. As she grows up surrounded by the luxury and tricks of the fae-folk, she wants nothing more than to hide evidence of her mortality and become one of them. To win a place at the Court, Jude has to immerse herself in the deceptions and bloodshed that come with the high-stake politics in order to prove her worth - even if that means making bargains with those she most despises. 

(linked to Goodreads page)

Formats read: Ebook/Audiobook

addicting plot

I have put this series off for so long but once I started, I could not stop. Holly Black crafts a very addicting story that once you become invested, you just have to keep reading. My favorite has to be The Wicked King simply because the stakes were so high throughout. My qualms that I had with the plot and characters from The Cruel Prince began to be resolved in the sequel and propelled me forward to continue to the finale. 

There are a lot of elements that could have been improved with pacing throughout the overall trilogy, which I think is the general consensus for many people. The Queen of Nothing has a lot of major events happen in a very short amount of pages. As a result, the ending can come off feeling anti-climatic and rushed. Personally, I was too overwhelmed by what was happening to really register that while reading, but looking back I can definitely see where some scenes could use more development.

dimension and depth

When it comes to characters, Holly Black did an incredible job with changing my perspective on the different leads. I did not care for either Jude or Cardan in the first book, frankly, I didn't care for anyone which was a big turnoff since I'm a pretty character-motivated reader. However, when I switched to audio for The Wicked King, I began to enjoy reading from Jude's perspective and observing her character grow and become more fleshed out.

One really interesting element of the cast is how they're all pretty horrible to some extent (minus Oak cause he's innocent and a sweetheart). Each character displays and embodies self-preservation in very interesting ways that usually come to light in the form of pride and ambition. With this comes different lines of morality that are continuously crossed until no character can quite call themselves "good." 

However, this gives each character so much dimension and depth. You don't have to love any of the characters, but at the end you have to admit that they were very interesting people to read about (the main cast as least). As for Jude and Cardan, I still think they're horrible, but at least they're horrible together? 

final thoughts

Needless to say, I do think the audiobooks saved this series for me. The narrator, Caitlin Kelly, did a wonderful job bringing the story to life in a way that got me invested in the plot. This series isn't perfect and I'm actually really interested to finally go around and read some other reviews because of how polarizing people's opinions are. It was definitely a fun reading experience and while not my favorite, I enjoyed following the story from start to finish.

Have you read The Folk of the Air series? Who's your favorite character?