This is a pivotal short story that completely immersed me, captivated me, and reinforced that this is my favorite series of all-time. Not only did it make me appreciate The Cruel Prince more, it also made me emotional because of all the foreshadowing for The Wicked King. And I don’t even have words to express how amazing it feels to be back in this world. No one weaves words and magic like Holly Black. Beautiful, not despite her suffering, but because of it.” But then a prince rides up and sees the girl and finds her beautiful. Girls without hands, without eyes, without the power of speech, without any power at all. Girls who wander through deserts or sleep in ashes or make homes for transformed brothers in the woods.

Girls who crush nettles until their hands bleed.

“Fairy tales are full of girls who wait, who endure, who suffer. If you liked this review or found it useful and are feeling generous, please consider supporting me on ko-fi! (4 stars for Cardan for being the only woke person in this entire book) “And the worst part is that you believe otherwise.”

“You’re awful.” He said it as though he was delighted. If you think you’re entitled to Jude’s understanding and forgiveness for not only betraying her but worst, being an accomplice in the pain and humiliation she’s been made to endure, all in order to earn the flimsy approval and affection of some crusty dude who’s treated you like shit and used you as a sponge that he can fill with his drama and ego and squeeze out when he pleases, then I hate to break it to you but you’re actually just an asshole! He disarms people with the candy shell charm that’s hiding the thing lurking beneath it, coaxing them into feeding him their most hidden secrets and most guarded desires and giving him something new and shiny to play with.īut I genuinely can’t tell you if his manipulations of Taryn are so deep she can’t even notice it lining her every seam, or if he glimpsed the fleeting slices and the jagged pieces-glittering and sharp and hungry-obfuscated beneath Taryn’s exterior and saw something he recognized.īecause two are playing at this treacherous game. To him, Taryn was a blank canvas and he poured into her, filling her empty spaces so completely she didn’t even realize she’s become the wrong shape. That Locke is a curse in every language in which it is spoken and the guileful spinner of this dreadful web everyone is tangled in, carefully orchestrated so that he’s at the center of it all. This novella, which was kind of a letter written from Taryn to Jude, only reinforced the conviction I’ve settled into after reading The Cruel prince: Actual footage of me reading Taryn’s half-baked justifications:

The cruel prince series in order