Children born of fairy stock (The Cruel Prince by Holly Black sync read post)
ikel89 and hopefully cyanshadow, and anyone else who wishes to join us, are embarking on a sync read of Holly Black's The Cruel Prince . Wicked fairies and larcenous teens (probably) and complicated family relationships (almost certainly) galore!
Come join, or if you've already read it, comment along as we progress through the book.
Come join, or if you've already read it, comment along as we progress through the book.
6. it seriously annoys me that for the book that tries to be "everyone is blase bi" and also unscrupulous about who they sleep with the prota is like, "the dude being familiar with severin is mortal and 100% his lackey" like get off your high horse of self-centered torment girl you are annoying :') me :') so much :')
7. the only remotely fun plot thing was the entirety of the royal family being massacred XD less screentime for those idiots in particular, yay! but i'm also supremely unsurprised this ended up with cardin kardashian on the throne, so be prepared for more antagonism and decadence in the next book. (i'd have preferred him and oak on the run and trying to make sense of the human world under vivi's highly unreliable tutelage, along with her either highly dim or highly tolerant gf, while jade can be emo and violent at court with all the rest of the emo and violent brood).
8. dubcon first kiss was cool, and while the whole whiplash from "cruelest bitch on the block" to "i just want to be loved and useless" nerd is a bit hard to buy, i am kinda sorry he has to suffer through book 2 and get more upgrades in asshole. my pt.7 AU, i mourn you.
(pausing here to cook some food, be back with individual comments to your thoughts or idk, maybe more bullet points if there is more to say)
Reply
It's the whole thing with cameos of previously established characters that I dislike: no matter what's the intent behind bringing them bac
OK, I do disagree with this part, though obviously it's a matter of taste, and also of degree in how this is done. As in, the Jace thing in all the subsequent FPH shit is frankly embarrassing, but I do enjoy seeing my favorites pop up -- although I do prefer it when it's through someone's unimpressed eyes. Holly Black's way of doing it is fairly inoffensive, but doesn't do a ton for me beyond just getting to wave "Hi Roiben! Hi Severin!" (And you may or may not remember from Tithe, the Faerie-verse was always kind of the broader universe -- book 2 seems to feature distinct characters, but then some of them intersect with Kaye and Roiben in book 3, and I'm pretty sure Roiben was mentioned in The Darkest Part of the Forest, too, although in passing and not actually on page. And there's even someone from a different series written by one of Holly Black's friends who shows up in a tiny cameo in one of the Tithe books, I just don't remember who -- either the Demon's Lexicon gang or the Mortal Instruments gang...)
what i didnt forsee was dain conveniently dying off and his geas not expliring (seriously, that much OP?)
Yeah, I was surprised by that too, because I was EXPECTING Dain as antagonist, because the geas makes things actually interesting then! And he seemed almost competent compared to all these other clowns...
let's not mention (looks at smudged ink on hand) carmen? kardashian?
Legit LOL
none of the relashionships she had felt remotely meaningful bc there was so much dramatics going on
First of all, agreed on the relationships. I thought there were the seeds of interesting things there -- the SITUATION and the characters make for interesting potnetial between her and Madoc, her and Oak, her and Vivi -- but it all got sidelined for halfbaked plot and twist-borne dramatics.
Also, I forgot to mention it in my write-up, but I think one of the problems I had with this book was the first person present tense. I love first person when done well, and I'm OK with present tense, though I seem to be out of practice -- but it heightened the dramatics here and trapped me in Judes head in a way that didn't contribute to my enjoyment. I think third person past is one of the things that grounds 'Darkest Part of the Forest'. Tithe is the same (sadly, checking on the actual first page disproves my theory that when SRB was talking about an author friend who used "fuck" on the first page to signal that this was YA and not a book for children, like earlier books she'd written, she meant Holly Black and Tithe. Ah well...)
"being a mortal is so emo, this is so sad alexa play greensleeves"
*snerk*
"the dude being familiar with severin is mortal and 100% his lackey" like get off your high horse of self-centered torment girl
This part I actually did find in character because Jude is so obviously hung up on mortal/faerie power imbalance, that I could see her not even considering that Severin would bring a mortal lover to a state function (good for him, though). I mean, it was still ridiculous, but ridiculous in an in-character way.
the entirety of the royal family being massacred XD less screentime for those idiots in particular, yay!
LOL.
(i'd have preferred him and oak on the run and trying to make sense of the human world under vivi's highly unreliable tutelage, along with her either highly dim or highly tolerant gf
NGL this definitely sounds like a more entertaining book than what book 2 is likely to be...
Reply
good examples? and them as not villains. i was thinking about other examples I know and don't dislike and almost all of it is villainous :'D
It's also not really aesthetics that I mind -- I don't have objections against moodring hair per se, or jewel-colored everything -- but it's the characterization that comes with it, the ARBITRARINESS of everything in their behaviour. If you had more faeries like idk, Dain, more Kevin Lannisterous -- more fucking competent is what I'm trying to say -- I would not have minded the descriptions that are downright lifted off the pages I populated as a 13yo :/ They all have an emoji explanation of some theory of anticastles instead of actual personality under all this glitter. All the vampires and werewolves and idk, golem probably even come with a wider range in personalities and internal consistency thereof.
although I do prefer it when it's through someone's unimpressed eyes
UNIMPRESSED is the key word here. It's not happening here, and it didnt happen in Sanderson, and it defo didn't happen in FBH. If you know good examples, do share. When there is "ohhh" feeling to the current prota eye of the beholder, and a very cameo-limited screentime, there is absolutely nothing happening to wash this glamour off the cameo!chara, and they will never get a dramatic development or a significant arc bc then it would be stealing thunder from the protas of the current book. This really limits their role to "kyaa hot" appearances, tbh.
I easily admit my mistake tho if the multiverse here was set up earlier -- paying attention to wb of faerie books is not on my list of priorities.
because the geas makes things actually interesting then! And he seemed almost competent compared to all these other clowns...
At first I actually misremembered the geas condition: i thought it was until his death, but then i looked up and it was the compulsion to stay silent that was until his death. but not the OP-ing geas /eyeroll. Stripping her of that extra power, and even playing it vice versa, would have been neater.
I thought there were the seeds of interesting things there -- the SITUATION and the characters make for interesting potnetial between her and Madoc, her and Oak, her and Vivi -- but it all got sidelined for halfbaked plot and twist-borne dramatics.
it absolutely doesn't matter that she has a twin, by the way. the "threw the crown to the wrong girl" thing, while immensely stupid in itself, is totally not played out in full either -- the sister gives her the crown, doesnt she? so if neither of these two things happened -- twinness for sake of lame mirror metaphors and mistaken identity for one (in numbers: one) instance, literally nothing would have changed. She could have been a fucking brother for all difference it would do to Locke, and it would have at least been gayer XD (imagine: a boy taking the courtier tips from cold мачеха -- isn't it at least NOVEL?)
First person present tense added juvenility and emo, I agree. I sorely want some good 3PPOV now >_>
ASsuming that Jude didn't understand the nature of Severin's relationship with whatisname is in character for her is generous, but okay XD not like it was the biggest offense of the book XD
Reply
I like the Faeries in War for the Oaks a lot -- even the best of them are, like, charming assholes, and they feel nicely alien to me vs the masquerade of acorns and thorns. I seem to fecall also liking the Faeries in Ellen Kushner's Thomas the Rhymer, and Pamela Dean's Tam Lin is a different sub-genre, of course, but I like them, too. Also Seanan McGuire has one single character among her Faeries that actually works for me; I basically keep reading the Toby Daye books for her.
(Also, Dragaerans are technically possibly Elves/Faeries, too, but Brust is doing his own thing with them, so I don't really count them, though they're obviously a favorite.)
What were your villainous examples? Pratchett's Lords and Ladies, I assume, but who else?
UNIMPRESSED is the key word here. It's not happening here, and it didnt happen in Sanderson, and it defo didn't happen in FBH. If you know good examples, do share.
I feel like I *have* encountered this before, but have a hard time coming up with where... I mean, Provenance does this with cultures rather than characters, but I *know* there are actual character examples. I feel like maybe Strugatskie did this stuff, since they have a vast interlocking universe with multiple POVs? But no longer recall specific examples, alas... (Like, I don't remember if you've read Trudno Byt' Bogom, but I think there's another book where a different Progressor POV recalls Rumata flipping out and *spoiler redacted*). Brust does something similar but more convoluted, in that his two sub-series, originally pretty distinct, have now had a full-on crossover episode. (The two sets of protagonists were very mutually unimpressed and continuously at odds.)
She could have been a fucking brother for all difference it would do to Locke, and it would have at least been gayer XD (imagine: a boy taking the courtier tips from cold мачеха -- isn't it at least NOVEL?)
Actually, yeah, I think I would've liked that take on it better, for both of those reasons XP
Reply
The examples i had in mind was Pratchett's Lords & Ladies, as well as chaotic narrative-inevitability powered/powering Fairies from Invisible Library series. While the latter didn't impress me as a whole (dragon pretty boys in this day and age... and a vaguely hinted at threesome that doesn't work as threesome bc it's quite a love triangle) it was a perfectly harmless read. I did like the drama being a world building element there: the faeries, whose strength lie in power of tropes, and pulling people into tropes, were polar opposites of dragons, who were more logic (and nothing else basically, quite boring alternative to Tropes Are Hungry).
Reply
Haha, nope, shan't! First, I want to drag Dragaera into everything, as you know, and second, both comparisons are canonical -- Vlad's grandfather refers to Dragaerans as Elfs and Easterners refer to the Dragaeran Empire as Faerie -- although it is implied that this is just Easterners projecting to the nearest folklore creatures and Dragaerans are not actually/necessarily either.
Actually, everything you just said makes Invisible Library sounds way more intriguing, as I like both tropey Faeries and logical dragons (see: Seraphina). Probably I should bump it up my hypothetical to-read list...
Reply
Leave a comment