Written by Holly Black
Published by Little, Brown Books
After being pronounced Queen of Faerie and then abruptly exiled by the Wicked King Cardan, Jude finds herself unmoored, the Queen of Nothing. She spends her time with Vivi and Oak, watching reality television, and doing odd jobs, including trying to convince a cannibalistic faerie from hunting her own in the mortal world.
When her twin sister Taryn shows up asking a favour, Jude jumps at the chance to return to the Faerie world, even if it means facing Cardan, who she loves despite his betrayal. When a dark curse is unveiled, Jude must become the first mortal Queen of Faerie and break the curse, or risk upsetting the balance of the whole Faerie world.
I had been hyping about this book for months. I enjoyed The Cruel Prince, but I absolutely loved The Wicked King and after ‘that’ ending, I couldn’t wait to find out how this amazing series was gonna end. Would it be as good as The Wicked King or would it be a disappointment in the end?
At the beginning, I got thrown in the book right away. I hadn’t gotten the time to do a reread, but Holly Black makes you instantly remember the whole story again. And I loved getting to know more about the background of Cardan. He is one of those characters you just can’t figure out if you love or hate him. After the Wicked King I háted him, but he made me fall in love right back again in this book.
The whole story was really good and I really had such a good time going back to this gorgeous world. But the ending did disappoint me a bit. It felt a bit forced and easy. There were so many questions that I felt were still unanswered. One of those were the letters, luckily an amazing person on Instagram gave us a way to read these letters, even though they are only part of the B&N exclusive. You can read the letters here!
I enjoyed it, but it wasn’t the epic conclusion I hoped for. The ending of The Wicked King was so strong, that I was really looking forward to this one, but it felt rushed in my opinion. I love epic battles, but that wasn’t something that we got in this book, even though the situation could have given us just that.
But I have to say something about the hidden message in the cover and what happens to Cardan. I won’t spoil anything, but I loved that so much. Even though we always get small warnings with the cover, I really did not expect this to be the result. I enjoyed it a great deal. But again, the solution to that problem felt a bit too easy again.
I really enjoyed this book and I would have liked it more if it was just a book between. But as a conclusion to such an epic story, it felt a bit too weak. I would have enjoyed a bit more angsty scenes and epic battles. But I enjoyed it and especially the relationship between Cardan and Jude. I do hope there will indeed be another novella, something Holly Black mentioned in a conversation with fans. But otherwise, I am okay with this end, but not totally satisfied.
7,5/10
What is your opinion about this book?
Written by Kim Liggett
Published by Wednesday Books
Girls have magical powers. The power to seduce men and other special traits. Before they turn sixteen, they get send to the woods to live there for a year and lose their magical powers. But before that happens, a few girls get chosen to marry men from the village. Tierney knows she will not be one of them and she is happy with that. She dreams about a world where women have a better life, in a worls where women aren’t allowed to dream. But when it’s time for her Grace Year, everything goes against what’s she had planned from the moment the girls get chosen for marriage. How can Tierney survive in the woods where she has to fear the poachers, who want to sell her skin on the black market, but also the other girls from the Grace Year…?
This book was…mindblowing. I was sold from the very first page. Before I started this book, I was worried that this would yet be another one of those feminist books where all men are evil, but this book wasn’t at all like that. The men from the village don’t know anything else from what they learned their whole life. Yes, there are quite a few evil men, but there also good men, with good intentions, which made this book way more realistic. This book has some major Hunger Games vibes, only this book is so much worse. There were literally scenes where I had to put the book down, because I felt nauseated.
Tierney is one of the best characters I’ve ever read about. A feminist woman in a male focused society is pretty terrible, but Tierney keeps on trying to do the right thing. Even when girls she considered her friends turn on her, she still helps them. She is caring, smart and just amazing. All of her actions were logical, even when you wish she did something else. I wish I could read more books about this girl!
What is a good book without a terrible villain? And boy (or girl), did Kim Liggett create a nasty villain. I haven’t despised a character for this much until Kiersten. Kiersten is a girl who is perfect and has it all, and makes it her live mission to ruin Tierney’s life and many others. Even though you get to know a bit more about her and it isn’t always her fault, you still hate her. I’ll be honest, I don’t wish it often, but throughout the book I seriously was hoping she would die. Whether that happens or not, I will not tell you all, of course 😉
The thing I liked most about this book were the revelations at the end. Throughout the whole book I often got mislead, which is something that doens’t happen to me often. At the end you get answers to questions you didn’t even know you asked. All loose ends are tied up nicely, which made me enjoy the book even more. I even thought about rereading this book, to find out if I could have seen some of the revelations coming, but my TBR didn’t let me, sadly…
What a terrible, heartbreaking, nauseating and gorgeous beauty this book was. I literally can’t wáit to see what Elizabeth Banks is going to do with the movie! I’m already looking forward seeing more of Tierney and have more hateful moments with Kiersten. Oh and the tissues are already waiting to be filled with tears, since there are quite a few cryworthy scenes in this book…
10/10
Written by Kerri Maniscalco
Published by Little, Brown & Company
Audrey Rose Wadsworth is a curious lady. While other girls from her age and heritage are knitting and drinking thee, she’s dissecting corpses in secret. Normally no one would accept this, but her uncle has no choice. With a serial killer on the loose, all help is needed. Together with the smart, but arrogant Thomas Cresswell, they search for the killer. But what if he’s closer than you expected…
I was so hyped to finally start this series. So many people are fan and the blurb sounded amazing. It’s been a long time since I really read a good whodunnit. I’m a Sherlock fan, so it’s pretty hard to find a good one after that. And this one is definitely not it.
There were definitely quite a few things good about this book. I loved the writing, it was gorgeous and really befitting of the story. Audrey was a character I really loved. Beautiful and feminine, but also curious and powerful. I really enjoyed her. Except for any interaction with Thomas Cresswell.
I heard so many stories of people loving him, but he was anything but interesting. Such a typical self centered, arrogant and irritating guy. Even Sherlock himself has more charms than this guy has. And Audrey, powerful woman as she is, had many situations where she almost changed in one of those giggly girls around him. He had a few good scenes, but overall, I really did not like him.
But the thing I was most dissatisfied with, was the culprit. I won’t spoil anything, but for me it was obvious who it was at 10% of the book. There was one culprit everyone was looking at, and it was so obviously that that wasn’t him, that I just wanted to skip all those parts. Which was like, half of the book.
The reasoning of the deeds was pretty interesting, that I did not expect. But there were still so many loose ends. Like, you know why the culprit killed the women, but there was a terrible explanation about why it was so gruesome. It didn’t make any sense.
The writing was so beautiful that I did like to read the book and Audrey is one of those characters I absolutely love. But Thomas? I don’t know at áll why people love him. But oh well, maybe it’s good we all got different tastes 😉. I don’t think I’ll read the second book anytime soon, but I did like the storyline. Let’s hope that the culprit keeps itself hidden a bit more this time.
5/10
