The Wicked King by Holly Black – Review

Published: January 8, 2019

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Series: The Folk of the Air #2

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy

Pages: 322 (Hardcover)

My Rating: 4.0/5.0

Synopsis:

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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When I reviewed The Cruel Prince last year I had very mixed feelings about it. It was very slow to build up to the “good part” of the plot and probably half of it was Jude and Taryn dealing with being bullied by the gorgeous, otherworldly faerie teens in their class. The latter portion of the book was quite redeeming and took The Cruel Prince from a potential DNF to a decent book. Decent enough that I decided to read The Wicked King (though clearly I wasn’t in a hurry, seeing as how it’s been out for nearly six months).

I’m really pleased with how the story has continued to develop and I was loathe to take out my earbuds and get on with my life when it was over. Cardan is now High King of Faerie though Jude is pulling all the strings since she bound Cardan to her for a year and a day. He of course resents all of this because, as famously said by Jon Snow in nearly every episode of season 8, “I don’t want it”. Jude is basically a ball of constant stress and exhaustion because she is running a kingdom in secret while said kingdom could be on the brink of violence at any moment. Not to mention, Taryn is about to get married to Locke (that giant meddling…. grrr), which has brought about Tension Between the Twins.

I think the story was much improved, though still hasn’t left me with 5 star feelings. It was intense and full of careful maneuvering and a few clumsy, ill thought maneuvers that just made me want to die of secondhand embarrassment or stress. I’m intensely into the complicated relationship that Jude and Cardan maintain – just when it seems like it’s leaning towards if not love, then like, it veers QUICKLY to hate. Talk about emotional whiplash! I like the way the plot is moving and the ending was quite the stunner and I thought my eyebrows may have permanantly become stuck in the “I’m shocked” position.

At this point The Queen of Nothing is pretty high on my TBR and I think I’ll make special space for the audiobook as soon as it comes out in November. That’s right – it’s only FIVE months away now! For those of you who enjoy books in the audio format I would highly recommend this one. The narration was excellent and honestly this format keeps me from skimming ahead and spoiling all the shocking stuff for myself. Can’t have that, now can we?

I would also like to mention that Jude acquires the most dashing and deliciously described wardrobe? I’m pretty sure I need illustrations and will then need the actual items.