The Wicked King by Holly Black

Author: Holly Black

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Date: January 8, 2019

Pages: 336

Format: ARC

My Rating: ⭐⭐

Purchase Links: [Chapters/Indigo] [Amazon]

Goodreads 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.

My Review:

* Thank you Hachette Book Group for sending me an ARC of The Wicked King by Holly Black for an honest review *

Once again I am very underwhelmed. I decided to give Holly Black's work another chance, as I wasn't a huge fan of The Cruel Prince. I am exhausted, reading The Wicked King just drained me. I had to constantly push myself to pick up the book and many times I thought about DNFing it. I just couldn't take the excruciatingly slow pacing. The first two thirds of the book was a lot of build up and not much of anything else. I have to say, while I really enjoyed Holly Blacks world building, there were many subplots and different directions that everything got confusing to keep track of. The last third is where the book finally starts to pick up, but it was not enough to justify my suffering though the book to get there. I invested a lot of time reading this book and the twists were just not worth it. I don't understand the ending and have many, many questions. Now on to the characters. Jude was insufferable! I've never disliked a protagonist as much as her. In The Cruel Prince, Jude's goal is to become powerful so that the Faeries stop looking down at her and so that she can have revenge. Now she has that power, but it looks like she doesn't know anything about it. She's a little girl playing at the grown-ups table. Her thoughts, choices, and actions made me want to pull my hair, yell, and shake her so that she can start thinking properly. So many unfortunate events could have been avoided. Cardan, what a waste; I could see so much potential in his character. The title says it all The Wicked King, but where is he? All I read was a annoyed and bored king with abandonment issues. Now we learn a little bit more about the court of shadows and more of the side characters but honestly I can't remember one thing. They were all still lacking and forgettable, some just stopped showing up in the book, even though it seemed they were essential to the story. The romance... zzzzz... could not care less. I didn't find it to be desirable at all, more like cringe. Other than the beautiful covers there isn't anything for me in these books.

#TheCruelPrince #HollyBlack #TheWickedKing #2star