Book Summary:

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.

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This review is of book 2 of a 3 part series. Spoilers for the ending of book 1, The Cruel Price, ahead. There are light spoilers for a single event that occurs within the first 100 pages. Please read at your own risk.

Review:

“You’re unwinding yourself like a spool. What happens when there’s no more thread?”

“Then I spin more.”

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If The Cruel Prince left you on the edge of your seat, The Wicked King will leave you desperate for more. Book one concludes after Jude successfully dupes Cardan into being crowned the King of Faerie by the true heir and her younger brother Oak. She managed to swear Cardan into secrecy and to her cause during the final act of the first book:

“I swear myself into your service. I will act as your hand. I will act as your shield. I will act in accordance with your will. Let it be for one year and one day…and not for one minute more.”
—Cardan, The Cruel Prince

During the epilogue, there’s a recurringly ominous question rattling through Jude’s every move; “What have I done?” It’s echoed on each page as she realizes the severity of her actions and the resulting success of her plot. The final line of The Cruel Prince sets up The Wicked King’s severity quite simply with a quote from Cardan once they are alone in the throne room:

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it? What you sacrificed everything for. Go on, it’s all yours.”

—Cardan, The Cruel Prince

The Wicked King begins five months after the aftermath of The Cruel Prince, and these ending quotes from book one are important to consider as the story moves forward. Jude is pulling the strings of power behind the scenes of the shockingly nonchalant King who has a bottomless stomach for wine and merriment. She’s sent her little brother Oak to live with her sister Vivi in the mortal world until he is of age and safe to return to the throne, Madoc both respects her powerplay and despises her for getting one over on him, and she’s continuously searching for her end goal all while Balekin—even in the Tower of Forgetting—threatens their control.

Jude plays her part well, careful of revealing her true control over Cardan while also letting herself get walked on by those around her to prove, after all, she’s just a stupid mortal girl. Yet, as the first half of the book progresses, we see just how much she enjoys this taste of power she’s always craved.

“After all, if the insult to me is pointing out that I am mortal, then this is my riposte: I live here, too, and I know the rules. Perhaps I even know them better than you since you were born into them, but I had to learn. Perhaps I know them better than you because you have greater leeway to break them.”

During a sudden assassination attempt on Cardan, seeds of mistrust and doubt are planted in Jude’s mind when a familiar character tells her “Someone you trust has already betrayed you.” This line is sprinkled throughout the novel in the most perfect places and times of great tension. They come up at the most crucial moments when Jude needs to make decisions that matter, and she questions her relationship between nearly everyone in this story by the end.

He looks up at me with his night-colored eyes, beautiful and terrible all at once, “For a moment,” he says, “I wondered if it wasn’t you shooting bolts at me.”

I make a face at him. “And what made you decide it wasn’t?”

He grins up at me. “They missed.”

Nothing is ever simple when it comes to Cardan and Jude; their tension is palpable and electric, and just when you think you’ve figured out their relationship, the rug is pulled out from underneath you. The character development across this novel had me falling in love all over again, and I genuinely had no idea what was going to happen next. The relationship between Jude and Cardan define the enemies to lovers trope. UGH. If YKYK.

Cardan steps close to me, his gaze devouring. I am not sure I can bear his cutting me down again. Luckily, he seems at a loss for words. “I hate you,” I whisper before he can speak. He tilts my face to his.

“Say it again.”

The slow pace of the first half of the novel was necessary to build up to the whirlwind of the middle/ end of the book. There’s a deeper sense of complexity as alliances are built and broken, and we see time and time again as this world becomes alive with beautiful danger for Jude, especially from her sister’s promised husband, Locke, who seems to be playing his cards incredibly close to his chest. Jude is still and probably will be my favorite FMC, and I’m so excited to see how she handles the aftermath of the ending of this one…cause holy.

Jude is a force to be reckoned with; her fierce determination to carve out her place in Elfhame keeps you rooting for her even as she makes questionable choices. To me, part of what makes her character so compelling is her willingness to make morally grey decisions as she works out her own character’s development. She’s flawed yet cunning, strong, yet seen as weak, and I can’t help but admire her ability to navigate the deadly politics as all odds are stacked against her. Not to mention, Jude is just fundamentally a badass.

“Oh, I’m scared, just not of you. Whoever brought me here–[redacted for spoilers]–has a use for me. I am afraid of what that is, but not of you, an inept torturer who is irrelevant to everyone’s plans.”

I really enjoyed seeing more about Vivi and her relationship with Taryn and Jude. We learn that despite them being close sisters, Vivi has no idea how difficult it was for humans to live in Faerie, and we see this displayed in the lack of caution presented between her and her girlfriend Heather.

I could point out that Taryn seems to be the one making up the story, casting Locke in the role of the protagonist and herself as the romantic interest who disappears when she’s not on the page.

The Wicked King, at its core, highlights the lengths at which people will go during their pursuit power and just how far those who achieve it will go to keep it. How much would you sacrifice for power? What would you sacrifice? Love? Family? Sanity? Freedom? This book holds so many questions, and little answers before the twisty deception at every turn. Holly Black’s writing of betrayal, tension, and deception and the fine line between love and hate makes this novel impossible to put down. If you loved The Cruel Prince, then what are you waiting for?