The Cruel Prince

Coworker convinced me to read this trilogy so I grabbed the audiobook from the local library, since the wait time was shorter than the text copy. The voice actor got a bit tedious after a while - she always sounds slightly on the verge of being whiny - but I can't hold that against the author. I read a lot of old, traditional fairy lore back as a kid so I'm aware of the dark, sinister side to the old-style fae and this book dived right into embracing that, which was fun. All the stuff about having to wear rowan berries and salt your food and mortals dancing themselves to death, has been kinda left out of more recent sparkles-and-unicorns-and-crystals type magic stuff. So, good to see the author had clearly done at least a little bit of research.

The story itself didn't grab me immediately - it's very Young Adult at the start, teens in school, bullying each other, wanting to be popular, etc. The heroine Jude is a little bit hard to like at times also. However, by the end of the book I did like how much many of the main characters had actually learned and grown, instead of just remaining the same selves they started out as. And there were twists in the plot I definitely didn't expect; instead of going for the short predictable ending the author takes you on unexpected plot turns and I always appreciate that. So, while I still don't extremely embrace the protagonist, I followed up with the rest of the trilogy.