“Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold on to.”Holly Black! How dare you make me wait a whole year for this only to make me wait another whole year for the next one? With that being said, I loved The Wicked King. If you read my review for The Cruel Prince (Read here if you haven't) than you know I had mixed feelings about the series until close to the end. I had both good and bad feelings for the main characters but after reading this, I need to reevaluate myself. Now for the review!
Here is the synopsis:
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You must be strong enough to strike and strike and strike again without tiring.
The first lesson is to make yourself strong.
After the jaw-dropping revelation that Oak is the heir to Faerie, Jude must keep her younger brother safe. To do so, she has bound the wicked king, Cardan, to her, and made herself the power behind the throne. Navigating the constantly shifting political alliances of Faerie would be difficult enough if Cardan were easy to control. But he does everything in his power to humiliate and undermine her even as his fascination with her remains undiminished.
When it becomes all too clear that someone close to Jude means to betray her, threatening her own life and the lives of everyone she loves, Jude must uncover the traitor and fight her own complicated feelings for Cardan to maintain control as a mortal in a Faerie world.
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First word that comes to mind after finishing this book: BITCH!
I keep thinking back to when I first read The Cruel Prince and how I was completely unaware of just how much this story would change and impact my over time. I wasn't prepared to scream, gasp, and cry over this book. In fact, it’s now safe to assume that no matter what is happening at any given moment in time, the background noise going on in my heart is always love and appreciation for these books.
With a stage magician's flair for misdirection, Holly Black weaves a captivating spell with languorously descriptive writing—the atmosphere was so vividly imagined I felt like moss would just start appearing around me, and branches would just grow from any surface I looked at—breathtaking set pieces, engaging characters, and an emotional plot that will keep the pages changing, ending this second installment with a spinning sense of history repeating itself and a cliffhanger that you might anticipate but only as a vague fear that might not come true if you didn’t think about it too hard....it's okay, I keep forcing myself not to believe how this book ended.
"Why was I cruel to Folk? Why was I awful to you? Because I could be. Because I liked it. Because, for a moment, when I was at my worst, I felt powerful, and most of the time, I felt powerless, despite being a prince and the son of the High King of Faerie."
His mouth curls into a smile. His eyes shine with wicked intent. “Look at them all, your subjects. A shame not a one knows who their true ruler is.”Cardan, Cardan, Cardan. To put it simply: this book is just about a bunch of people having the worst day of their lives...and then there's Cardan, who is having the best day. He spends most of his time lounging carelessly on his throne, his crown standing at an insouciant angle on his messy hair, a cold smile on his face, and a glass of wine in his hand, essentially looking like a dreamy renaissance painting every day. Cardan has spent most of his life being a soldier in a war where the enemy was everyone else. He was only for himself and he sticks to it throughout the beginning of the book. He’d had one secret: he was not truly loved and that it made him cruel. And when the impression that he could earn his family’s love by serving them wore out, and his passion dulled by the long, and disappointment, the last of the armor he imagined his cruelty has given him had been stripped away and what remained was the undiluted, unedited and uncensored version of him.
“If he thought I was bad, I would be worse. If he thought I was cruel, I would be horrifying.”
I love Jude, simple as that. She entered my heart and there is no way out.
I love her capacity for holding contradictory feelings in balance, for complexly alloyed affections, for stubborn bravery that seems more of a result of chaining her fears and not unhooking their leashes just yet, for bottomless generosity of heart with undertones of naked lust for power and petty, capricious malice. Jude is full of so many wants, too many to prioritize, and so sometimes, they all feel desperate. She is a wolf learning the patterns of much bigger wolves. She survived on the jagged edge of a cruel childhood. She let the fear act as a fuse to light her anger. She fought to claim the home that did not deign to claim her. She navigated an enemy court and made it her own. She secured her path to pure unfettered power when she should have been a captive.
Our eyes meet, and something dangerous sparks. He hates you, I remind myself. “Kiss me again,” he says, drunk and foolish. “Kiss me until I am sick of it.”
Once again...BITCH! I loved the growing relationship between Cardan and Jude.
(Spoiler) There is one scene in particular where it could have been a sex scene or not. We'll never know! Then there are some make out scenes that got me bothered!
They’re aware of how much is riding on their ability to maintain this partnership and stay on the same level and not let anyone suspect that there’s daylight between them because a lot of people would not hesitate to take advantage of that. Even when it was tempting for both of them to imagine how they could hurt the other, but only because it reminded them of how fiercely they could fall for each other.
Now the ending is the moment I lost it. I was not expecting this book to end the way it did, either way, I was shocked. I remember my mom bursting into my room after I screamed when I read the 'e' word. Yes, I am calling it the 'E' word. It hurts to think about it. But it sets the tone for what the next book will be about and how things are going to get down. Because...it's about to go down!
Overall, this book gave me the angsty and the chills. I loved every page of it and am impatiently waiting for the third one to come out.
Thanks for reading!
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Buy the Book with the link(s) below!
The Wicked King
Amazon
Barnes and Nobles
The Cruel Prince
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