The Queen of Nothing

Holly Black, you are the QUEEN of fantasy! The Queen of Nothing is the last book in The Cruel Prince trilogy, aka The Folk Of The Air series, and I would argue it’s probably the best book out of the trilogy. It’s mysterious and intense, but so interesting that you practically fly through the pages. The way the main love interest, Cardan, was written is amazing! He’s truly a well thought out character, with a complex backstory and good character development. In all honesty, I could rave about Cardan for DAYSSS! And if we’re bringing up good characters, I have to do my girl Jude justice. Jude is the main character of the story and probably my favorite female main character EVER. She’s strong and interesting, such a smart character, and possibly one of the reasons I read this book. The way that the story is written in her perspective has me hooked all the time! The romantic dynamic that Jude and Cardan have is legendary, and so well written! A lot of people don’t like the Cruel Prince series because of the fact that they were TRUE enemies to lovers, with arguing and banter and fighting, but I feel like books lack the true enemies to lovers trope that Holly Black delivers so perfectly. Jude and Cardan’s relationship then leads to passion and yearning and some of the best book quotes EVER! Overall, if you’ve read The Cruel Prince book and are wondering if you should get the second and third book, you DEFINITELY should!! As the book series progresses, the story gets way better and their relationship truly comes to blossom. This book is my Roman Empire, and The Queen Of Nothing is truly so good and worth every bit of hype it gets AND MORE!!!

PART I: REVIEW 3.75 Stars "Greetings, Your Majesty, you betraying toad." - Jude I don't know how to even ATTEMPT to write a spoiler-free review for this book but I tried. I don't want to say too much but I also want to tell you every little thing I'm thinking right now after finishing TQoN. Did I like it? Hell yeah, I did. Overall it was great. But 3.75 stars mean that there are still some things I'm not completely satisfied with. Just going to throw a few things out there. ➤ Anticlimactic. And therefore a little disappointing. My expectations were probably too high. In comparison to TCP and TWK, you won't feel such a wide range of emotions anymore. Issues from the previous two books aren't real issues anymore. There were things that got solved too easily and quickly in my opinion and others that took too long. Many answers were also RIGHT THERE for us to grab and when they got resolved all I could think was "Wait, that's it? That easy?" ➤ Enjoyable. The pacing was a thousand times better than in book two. I was immediately sucked into the story and I liked Jude quite a lot in this last installment. Cardan didn't have as many scenes as I would have liked but oddly enough I didn't mind. THAT MUCH. The few that he had were awesome, and I gobbled up everything I could whenever he made an appearance. Cardan puts up a hand. "No, no, enough. It's all too tedious to explain. I declare this meeting at an end." His fingers make a flicking gesture towards the door. "Leave us. I tire of the lot of you." I have a long way to go before I can manage that level of shameless arrogance. ➤ You know how I felt after reading this book? Completely SPENT. So much has happened; you THINK you KNOW in which direction the events are taking you and then you realize you had absolutely no idea. My disappointment with certain things? It was nowhere to be found anymore after finishing. This long, long journey Holly Black took us on just made me feel entirely drained. I can't decide if everything that happened was genius or just plain messy. I know my review sounds very negative but keep in mind that I DID enjoy it. I think I'm even experiencing a book hangover. After finishing, I felt lost somehow. All I've done the first half an hour or so was to mindlessly scroll through social media while contemplating life at the same time haha. It was weird, lol but I was certain, I LIKED THE BOOK. PART II: BOOK TALK, BEST TO BE READ AFTER FINISHING THE BOOK (SPOILER!) * * * — Locke's death. ANTICLIMACTIC. I remember writing a friend, with whom I did a buddy read, that this could be a trick. That Locke's just playing one of his games again and wants to push Jude's story for his own entertainment. Sounds plausible, right? Well, turns out TARYN got the privilege of killing that annoying pest AND WE READERS WEREN'T EVEN THERE TO WITNESS IT AND BATHE IN ITS GLORY. Totally unsatisfying and LAME. It feels a little like we were robbed. — Taryn, another pesky thing/issue that got resolved too quickly. She stirred up so much trouble in TCP and TWK and now what? Everything's fine again? She did nothing to repentant for the things she did in the past. She's pregnant, gets Locke's estate and lives happily ever after? Possibly even with the Ghost? W T H? She was punished for absolutely NOTHING. How can that be? There are soo many bloodthirsty readers out there who wanted retribution. Some suffering, torture. Death? Guess we don't get anything. To be fair, I'm exaggerating right now. I'm not feeling as strongly about this anymore as I did in the beginning, because over the course of this book all my negative feelings towards Jude's enemies just vanished. Locke's and Taryn's bad deeds just faded into the background. All in all, this specific problem left me with very mixed feelings. Though I definitely didn't like it while reading, it feels like in the end, all these things didn't matter anymore. — Madoc. What the heck was that? I was so not impressed with his capitulation and his punishment. — The solutions were all written right there! 1. The cliffhanger from TWK. I felt a little dumb after getting the explanation because it was so easy 🤦‍♀‍ but then knowing THAT (how easy the answers could be) made the solution to Cardan's problem very obvious. Spill blood=kill Cardan, but that didn't mean that my heart didn't stop there for a few seconds when Jude really did take his head off lol. — Why did it take so long for Jude and Cardan to be reunited? I'm so sad. They spend so much time apart and when they finally DID meet again, it wasn't enough. I wanted moore! If Holly Black gave them a little bit more time together, where the focus was only on them, I would have been satisfied with my next point. — I'm not very happy with the turn of events near the end. It was unexpected, you know? I anticipated war or a fight between Madoc and Cardan/Jude. And what did I get? Cardan became a serpent and the whole plot suddenly centered around saving Cardan, and Jude's love for him. The word "desperate" is not a 100% fit but Jude was all about "I can't live without Cardan" and "the only way to have him by my side is to bind him to me, the rest (i.e. Madoc and his army) doesn't matter". After not getting any couple-time for what feels like ages, this sudden turn was... weird. It felt like Holly Black tried to squeeze everything (i.e. romance+enemy issue) into the last few chapters to then, conveniently, tie everything up in a nice little package.

"Plunge a heated sword into oil and any small flaw will turn into a crack. But quenched in blood as you were, none of you broke. You were only hardened." Jude has always claimed throughout the series—through words and actions—that she belongs in Faerie despite being mortal. I think nobody understood just how true that is until The Queen of Nothing. The story opens with Jude still reeling from the pain and betrayal in The Wicked King. She's downtrodden, doesn't know what to do with herself, and wiles away her time taking side jobs from the local fae. It broke my heart with just how unhappy she was. Then Taryn comes to ask for a favor—opening the opportunity to temporarily switch places with her sister. Once Jude gets to Faerie, her inner match lights into a bonfire. "You’ve got to stop acting as though Court politics is some kind of extreme sport and stop chasing the adrenaline high." I can’t believe it’s over. This series, this world, these characters...I do not have the words to express how much happiness they've given me. "Even though I am the queen in exile, I am still the queen. And that means Madoc isn’t just trying to take Cardan’s throne. He’s trying to take mine." Black explores the depth and complexity of relationships and I think that's what truly hooked me throughout the series, but especially in this one. The relationship with Jude and Madoc has always been a complex one: How do you love a father who became your father by killing your own? A father that loves you so very much, but loves power more? Their dynamic, and the war between them, was really what carried the novel—it broke me—and it was something I didn't even know I wanted. "I know I will never do this again. I will never have him behave like this with me again. But for one final night, he’s the father I remember best, the one in whose shadow I have—for better or worse—become what I am." AND "Good-bye, then, daughter," Madoc says. "You would have made a good redcap." Tell me your heart is not breaking! Tell me that is not so tragically beautiful that you don't know whether to cuddle them because they so obviously love each other or beat them over the head because they're obviously breaking each other's hearts! THE FEELS! "To you, I offer honey wine and the hospitality of my table. But to traitors and oath breakers, I offer my queen’s hospitality instead. The hospitality of knives." Jude may be the queen of my heart. She never backs down and never gives up. I want to be her when I grow up. "By you, I am forever undone." Cardan's growth has been my world. From petulant child, to uncertain spy, to gloriously dark and confident king...we now we get to see him be the king of his people’s dreams, but also the king of his own. I don't think there will ever be another character I love so much as him. Black has made me feel altogether way too much from delighting in some of his more cruel moments to swooning in his heartfelt ones. "We have lived in our armor for so long, you and I. And now I am not sure if either of us knows how to remove it." "Is this another riddle?" I ask. "And if I answer it, will you go back to kissing me?" "If that’s what you want." AND "Mortals are fragile," I say. "Not you," he says in a way that sounds a little like a lament. "You never break." Which is ridiculous, as hurt as I am. I feel like a constellation of wounds, held together with string and stubbornness. Still, I like hearing it. I like everything he’s saying all too well. Tell me you are not swooning! Tell me you would not want your dark king to tell you such sweet nothings! But don't worry, he's not all sugar. He still has his spice: "Oh, I don’t know," I say. "Maybe he’d like to hear me scream." "I would," Cardan says, standing. "And perhaps one day I will." Vivi: holy wow that standoff with her father was a long time coming. And when she told him to bring his whole damn army? Oh snap, girl. Oooooooh, snap! I squealed. Loudly. Grima Mog: introduced when Jude fights her in the beginning of the novel, she becomes a favorite of mine halfway through. I love how Jude accidentally picks up such powerful and amazing strays! And when she's promoted to war general? Ahhhh, yisss. "Tell me what I must slay, what I must steal, tell me the riddle I must solve or the hag I must trick. Only tell me the way, and I will do it, no matter the danger, no matter the hardship, no matter the cost." Nicasia: okay, wow. Really didn't see this redemption arc coming but was it a good one. Oak: So help me Black, you better give me a good spin off with him. SO HELP ME. This has been the series of my heart. The true magic with books is the way the written word can make you feel and Black is a master at her craft. Words cannot express just how much. I am not ready to say goodbye, but it was the perfect ending. "To family and Faerieland and pizza and stories and new beginnings and scheming great schemes. I can toast to that." Everyone needs to drop everything on their TBR and read this trilogy.

I wondered at reading previous books of Holly's and not getting into them. But this series has been absolutely brilliant. I have loved the characters, the language, the interaction of them all. The darkness, the story and the ending. It's nice to have a good ending, with all the points sorted out, no questions left unanswered. To those of you who've read the first two books, read on and fall into a new book and make new friends. Highly recommended.

Amazing book, absolutely loved it. A little pricy but I guess that’s the way of the world these days… :’(

Snabbt och smidigt

The Queen of Nothing is the last and best of the three books. The full series is very gripping but this last one is amazing, I couldn't put it down! I've put 4 stars to the precedent books just to say that I've loved the writing, loved the story and the characters but they are sometimes hard to imagine because it's so out of our world. Also, even though I'm bilingual, reading it in English while I don't know the specific Fairy vocabulary and which is what is a bit difficult, but that's on me. I wanted to read the book in original version and I think I would have lost a little something by reading it in French. I think the books miss a bit of description, I'm not asking for Tolkien style because I way prefer action to anything else, but I like to be helped in my imagination especially on this kind of story. Overall I really enjoyed the series and will get more of Holly Black's books! Thank you very much for sharing this world with us :)

Buen estado, muy atractivo y con una historia bastante interesante