Blurb:
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.
Review:
I'm bunching The Cruel Prince, The Wicked King, and The Queen of Nothing into a single review because they are all of equal quality.
When I got these books for Christmas, I was so excited to read them because "mortal girl lives in faeryland," what's not to love? Alas, these were a massive disappointment. I pushed through and finished this trilogy because I said I would, even though it was painful and disheartening and frustrating. These books appear to be popular with the YA crowd, but honestly, these seem young even for YA. I've read lots of YA with lots more meat to them (and skill in execution) than the Elfhame books.
Every once in a while (like, a couple times per book) I'd find a hint of brilliance. But then it would vanish like a wisp in a bog. In other words, I am not impressed. From beginning to end I was frustrated with the following:
1. Lack of setting/scene development. These books mostly take place in the faerie world, so I was expecting rich, lush detail of places and creatures with which I wouldn't be familiar. Not the case. The opportunity for rich prose was largely wasted. Details rushed, when they were included at all. For example: a prison called the Tower of Forgetting. Boy, it sure is dark in there. But that's all. Another example: the MC rides a toad. She arrives at her destination. That is all. Last example I'll bother with: throughout The Queen of Nothing, there's a lot of build-up to war and battle. That battle ends up taking up--no kidding--a page front and back, and the main character doesn't even take part. The battle is glossed over as background to the MC's thoughts and feelings about a plot point. One of the villains is dispatched in a single sentence. The reader doesn't even have time to digest the action and feel anything about it before it's OVER.
I can't tell you what Faerieland looks like or what it feels like to ride a toad, but I can describe what EVERY character is wearing, down to the stitch, in every scene. By the last few pages of the The Queen of Nothing, I started skipping the clothing descriptions, because by that point the clothes don't matter at all.
2. Lack of connecting tissue between thoughts. The main character reaches conclusions after much thinking, lots of thinking, but her thoughts do not seem to connect in a logical, coherent way. There's a reason it's called "train of thought" -- one thought leads logically to the next. But this is more like "bumper cars of thought." I cannot even count how many question marks I wrote in the margins because I could not follow the character's thought process. I started skipping/skimming the illogical nonsense to reach the next plot point.
What DID I like about these books:
1. a twist that involved a snake.
2. a strong female protagonist who gets herself into trouble and is continually betrayed, but not because she's stupid.
3. a strong cast of complex gray leading characters.
Truly, I was able to read all three of these books within a month because they have so little substance. They are light reads for brains who want an opportunity to zone out and not think much. Unless one cares to puzzle through the main character's thought process, and then one is presented with an endless mystery to keep one chewing for a painfully loooooong time.
Final conclusion: these books were not worth the little time it took to read them. I will not be reading any further Elfhame books or anything else by Holly Black. Ever.
I'm giving this series 2 magic wands of 5:
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