"The Queen of Nothing" by Holly Black

The Queen of Nothing is the third and final book in The Folk of Air trilogy that began with The Cruel Prince. Overall, this was a satisfying conclusion to the story, but my initial thoughts on Holy Black's writing stay the same. The plot is not well fleshed out, it lacks depth and complexity. The world is not well developed, and we do not get a lot of interaction between Cardan and Jude even though theirs is the main romantic story in the book.

In general, the entire enemies to lovers tension is created because Jude misunderstands and fears him. We get the story only from her perspective, and she does not spend much time with Cardan even in book 2 where she is his seneschal. This third book is also disappointingly short (305 pages). I definitely think Black could have done more with the world, given how popular this series has been.

In my reviews of the first two books I mentioned that I did not like Jude. In book 3, she is more likable. I definitely felt that she was less desperate and more sure of herself. I guess becoming Queen helped in that regard too, as she is also acting less power hungry.

My overall rating for this installment is 3 stars. If this is Holly Black's best work, I am not sure I want to read her backlist. This trilogy is extremely over-hyped and underwhelming.

"The Wicked King" by Holly Black

The Wicked King is a sequel to The Cruel Prince, which I reviewed earlier. The story picks up right where the first book ended. This book also is written entirely from Jude's perspective. As such, it is still hard to tell what Cardan's intentions are. On the one hand, there are scenes where he behaves like he really cares about Jude and wants to trust her. But then there is the ending, which I know left a lot of readers wondering.

I still do not like Jude very much. I realize she is supposed to be a morally gray character, she just seems very immature and too power hungry for my taste. With morally gray characters, I usually enjoy sophistication, humor, self-assurance and cunning manipulations. Jude is just too young and inexperienced for that. So she comes off flippant and desperate. I also don't like the way she seems to be willing to sacrifice anything for power. We'll see what book 3 has in store, but at this point, it is hard for me to root for her.

I was glad to see that Cardan is much more present in this book. I was also happy he finally took charge in the end. I have no problem with strong female characters, but when the female lead begins to be inept, I appreciate that someone else can step in and save the day. A closer look at the underworld and the King's powers were also nice additions in this installment. Overall, I enjoyed the second book more then the first. Solid 3 out of 5 stars. Book 3 is coming out tomorrow and I can't wait to read the conclusion.

"The Cruel Prince" by Holly Black

The Cruel Prince is the first book in a highly over-hyped YA fantasy trilogy (the third and final book is scheduled to come out this month). I finally decided to check it out as I prefer to read all the books in a trilogy close together so the information is fresh in my mind.

I must say that I wanted to like this book much more than I actually ended up enjoying it. It did not blow me away in any sense of the word. I think my main problem with The Cruel Prince is that the world is not well developed. We basically get a handful of characters (many of them very young) which does not match up well with the epic proportions of the political machinations they engage in. This flaw is not anything new. Lots of YA books have similar premises. However, I think I was holding the bar a bit higher for The Cruel Prince simply because of all the wonderful reviews that I've seen.

Our main character Jude is a human girl who as a child was carried away into the Faerie world along with her twin sister Taryn and half-sister Vivi. She lives in the house of her mother's first husband who is a powerful general in the High King's army. When we are first introduced to Jude, she is portrayed as a feisty but powerless girl who struggles to survive among the Faerie gentry children she is forced to go to school with. Jude, however, is extremely ambitious and craves control and power. She gets tangled up in court intrigues and ends playing a critical role in the Faerie coup d'etat.

Many of the reviews I read focused heavily on the romance in the book. However, there is close to zero romance in this novel. Prince Cardan certainly occupies Jude's thoughts (mostly as the hateful bully she would love to run through with her sword), but he is barely present in the story until the very last few chapters. In fact, the only reason I gave this book a neutral rating (2.5 stars) is because I ended up really enjoying the plotting and the intrigue in the last quarter of the book. We also finally get a glimpse of chemistry between Jude and Cardan at that point.

So overall, I will continue with the series. But I would really like to see the world built up a bit more. It is just too simplistic and barely populated for my taste. I would prefer to see more magic, more mythology, more complexity to the social structure, and a wider lens on the world as a whole.