The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air, 1)

Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️/5 Format: Paperback This one was a rough one to rate... I truly wanted to give it a 3 at first but then I find myself wanting to know what happens next to some of the characters and thought a 4... drawing me to read book two....Bravo lol. Plot was okay. Definitely alot of interesting characters and their personalities and back stories kind of threw me off. Especially the unlikely "allies". Some things you shouldn't overlook or accept in my opinion but to each their own. Not alot of romance and spice but a decent fantasy. Looking forward to seeing if the 2nd book with bring what I felt was missing from this one. #hollyblack #fantasy #fiction #bookworm #booktok #bookstagram #realityescapeartist777

Recap: a human girl gets bullied by fairytale characters for 75% of the book until something finally happens, then she bullies them into doing her bidding.
I hope book 2 is better….

4.5 ⭐️
I would probably had rated this book higher if it wasn’t because everyone says the next tok are better! I’ll be back to update

worth the hype

I absolutely loved this book and it was easily a 5⭐️ for me. So I see the hype! It is a blend between urban fantasy and high fantasy. So if you are looking for a romantasy, this is not it. However, this could possibly change with later books though. I would say, this is more of a dark political urban fantasy with a romance subplot. I did enjoy that the romance wasn’t at the forefront and got thrown into some crazy annoying romance. This book had some pretty dark deaths and acts of violence, I had to wonder why this was even classified as YA when it reads like an adult book

Like a 7.5/8 for me~ I feel like if you are into the politics within fantasy worlds then you'd enjoy this one. The romance is very slow and I'd argue it is almost not really there in this book. They hate that they like one another. But I could feel the tension between them from the moment he was introduced. I also usually dont care for enemies to lovers much, bully trope on top of that is usually a miss for me. But I found that theirs was done better purely for the sake that it felt like rivals more than enemies and that hit different for me. I actually enjoyed the politics in this...felt good when I guessed things coming up and then end up being right about them. I actually find that I like our two main characters for the most part. The rest of the characters range from okay to some of my favorites and I find myself understanding their roles, although I heavily dislike Taryn and wish I could find anything redeemable about her character. I saw that there is a 1.5 book meant to show Taryn's POV...part of me wants to read it in hopes it'll help me feel a little better about her. Overall, this first book does its job and makes me want to read the rest. Mainly because I want to see how their relationship unfolds. But also because I enjoy the politics. This was also one my first introductions to a fantasy book. I have plenty on my TBR but I just never sat down to read them.