Book Review | The Wicked King by Holly Black

The Wicked King by Holly Black
Series: The Folk of the Air #2
on January 8, 2019
Genres: Young Adult Fiction / Action & Adventure / General, Young Adult Fiction / Fantasy / General, Young Adult Fiction / Social Themes / Bullying
Pages: 336
Format: Paperback

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 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.

ISBN: 9780316310338

I’m not sure if I ever would’ve read this series if it wasn’t for the fact that I accidentally bought the first book twice. Last year, a group of my friends and I did a book exchange were you get a book each month and an extra one in your birthday month. We exchanged them all in December. Anyways, the person I had wanted The Cruel Prince, which I bought from BookOutlet. Forgetting I had bought it from BookOutlet, two weeks later I bought a second copy from my local bookstore. I kept the used one from BookOutlet and gave my friend the “newer” copy from the bookstore.

I read the first one during December when I was off from work. It was definitely enjoyable, and I breezed through it in one day. While I bought the second one right away, it wasn’t until this past week that I finally read it.

I’m still super impressed with Black’s writing, which did surprise me. I tried to read Tithe back in middle or high school and couldn’t get through it. That may have been because it was her first novel, I don’t know. The Wicked King as well as The Cruel Prince are such well-written and atmospheric novels that I can’t help but take a minute to come back to the real world.

My love for Jude knows no bounds and I will be taking no notes on this!! Everyone else in the novels truly annoys me that I just want to crawl into the book and slap them. Yes, Cardan is the romantic interest, and he had a horrible childhood but that doesn’t give him the right to treat people the way he does. I know Jude and Cardan end up together (probably) but I’m just not a fan of the romance. As for Jude’s sisters, they are pieces of work. Taryn wants to go along to get along, which is fine, I get that. But the minute she lets Locke lead her sister on, I was done with her. There’s nothing anyone could do that would make me turn my back on my sister. Her attitude didn’t much change in the second book. Vivi didn’t register much to me in The Cruel Prince, whereas in this one, I wanted to slap her for her ignorance and disregard to people she supposedly loves. Like I get telling someone about Faerie and that you’re not human can be scary, but taking away their memories or changing their eyesight is not the way to go about it.

That ending! Ugh, I definitely will be reading The Queen of Nothing as soon as possible. I’m pretty good at guessing the endings of books, but this one I didn’t see coming, just like Jude. I’m excited to see what happens and how all of this is resolved.