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

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.

i've written a blog post about it on Wix. If you want to check it out, its called PagePro! :)

3.6 I went into this with mixed feelings. I had heard some good and bad things that had me hesitant to read this, but I was pleasantly surprised at how invested I became in the story. Jude is great and badass. I liked her growth into accepting the world around her and figuring out how to manipulate it. The twist had me gasping even though I had kind of guessed what was going to happen.

I got a lot of strong recommendations for this book, but as with any book I read, I went in with the only expectation of having an enjoyable experience and maybe feel a few feels. And it was enjoyable, fun, not too heavy, a few reasonable YA tropes and themes. Its biggest strength is that it’s super easy to read, and the world-building is creative. You’ll be fine and have fun as long as you don’t go in looking for substance and deep themes.

So, this book is a book that I have seen everyone rave about for a very long time… it took me a lot to so much as finish this book, and I love a fantasy! I just, ultimately, found it slow and rather boring. Nothing happens, for a solid 200 pages, and even then it happens awfully slowly. There was no character I was attached too, no bit of the plot that I was really interested in until the VERY end, all there really was, was me forcing myself to finish I book I had no interest in… Unfortunate but true.