The Wicked King (#2) - Holly Black

"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."


I have mixed feeling on this book.



On one hand I adore the character Jude. She is intelligent, feisty, realistic and sassy. She thinks things through and never makes a decision that makes me face palm, which to be honest is a rarity in YA female protagonists. I love her capacity for holding contradictory feelings in balance, for complexly alloyed affections. For stubborn bravery that seems more of a result of chaining her fears and not unhooking their leashes just yet. For bottomless generosity of heart with undertones of naked lust for power and petty, capricious malice. Jude is full of so many wants, too many to prioritize, and they all feel desperate. I would almost say that I liked her more this book than the first one, she seems to have come more into her power and feels more comfortable with her role and power grabbing ways. I also am a sucker for a morally grey protagonist.



I also absolutely adore Holly Black's prescriptions of the Fae, their world, their clothes. As someone raised on stories of the Irish Tuatha De Danaan and every other culture’s old faerie myths, I have a real soft spot for them and love different incarnation and people's interpretations of them. With a stage magician's flair for misdirection, Holly Black weaves a captivating spell with languorously descriptive writing, the atmosphere was so vividly imagined I felt like moss would just start appearing around me, and branches would just grow from any surface I looked at. I love the malicious, inhuman, brutality of Black's Fae.



The political intrigue is fabulous in this book. You won’t know who or what to believe, and you surely won’t know who to trust. All these storylines come together to create something so beautiful. This book was a wild ride from page one to the very last page. Actually, especially the very last page.



Now onto something I was less sure about. I personally quite enjoy Carden's character, not to the depths that others do, but he is certainly very interesting. He seems to be a consummate arse and to be honest he is, but he has a level of depth and complexity that is great to explore. He was never loved, he was abused by his brother and neglected by his parents. The only way to gain any kind of attention was being the worst person in existence.



However, something I am not quite so sure about is the romance. I think I am going to be the unpopular opinion here, but I just find it problematic. Both these characters are deeply broken, manipulative and their interactions display that. While I love books that explore the darker side of human relationships and their consequences, I don't like highly problematic relationships being portrayed as romantic to a younger and impressionable audience.



If you read this book with the awareness that the relationship is not one to model actual relationships on and the behaviours displayed are problematic, then you will have a wonderful read. Through the use of breath-taking set pieces, engaging characters, and a gratifying emotional hook that will keep the pages whirring, ending this second instalment with a spinning sense of history repeating itself and a cliff-hanger that has you reeling.



Age Rating 15+. Some brutal violence, sex scene that weren't graphic but where obvious, extreme humiliation and semi-torture while imprisoned.