The Friday 56 (160) & Book Beginnings: Tithe by Holly Black

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Welcome to the realm of very scary faeries! 

Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother's rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms - a struggle that could very well mean her death...

Beginning: "Kaye spun down the worn, gray planks of the boardwalk."

56: "A few hours later they were sitting on the curb outside the Wiz divvying up their loot."

Comments: I'm not currently reading anything, so I thought I would share a few quotes from one of my favorite books by Holly Black: Tithe. Its been a long time since I read Tithe. It might be time for a reread. The beginning comes from chapter 1 instead of the prologue. What are you reading this week?

Review: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Title: The Cruel Prince
Author: Holly Black
Series: The Folk of the Air #1
Source/Format: Borrowed from the Library; Hardcover
More Details: Young Adult; Fantasy
Publisher/Publication Date: Little Brown Books for Young Readers; January 2, 2018

Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble     Book Depository


Synopsis from Goodreads...

Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever. And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe...

Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

I have been a fan of Holly Black’s writing for a number of years. I've always particularly enjoyed her books about fairies including The Spiderwick Chronicles (which I read as a kid), the Modern Faerie Tales, and The Darkest Part of the Forest. So, you can imagine how excited I was for The Cruel Prince.

I enjoyed this book. The plot had me hooked from the very first page. One thing I particularly enjoyed about The Cruel Prince was how it expanded the world already established in other books—like Tithe—and some familiar faces appeared briefly in the story.

The Cruel Prince didn’t necessarily offer anything new in terms of fairies—especially if you’ve read books by this author before. It read like Black’s usual take on fey lore with the fairies being cruel tricksters, and their society dark and atmospheric full of magic, danger, and politics. But that’s what I was expecting and it was done so well. What I didn’t expect was how much I liked the majority of Jude’s perspective. For the most part she was okay. I didn’t necessarily like all the decisions she made, and parts of her personality reminded me a little of Hazel from The Darkest Part of the Forest. At some parts, their goals were kind of similar, particularly in the beginning of The Cruel Prince. That being said, their stories were vastly different. It was also interesting to see the courts from the viewpoint of a human forced to live among the nobility of the fey and what daily life would be like for Jude and her twin.

The prince implied in the title, well…I didn’t like his character for about 50% of the book. The title says it all: he was intentionally cruel to Jude to the point of endangering her life. And that crossed the line. However, the twists with his character were unexpected, and he went through some much needed development in book 2 (part 2). I wasn't exactly sympathetic to his character, but he was tolerable.

Overall, The Cruel Prince was everything I was hoping it would be. The last few chapters were amazing, and I look forward to what Holly Black has in-store for this story.

The Friday 56 (123) & Book Beginnings: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE

Book Beginnings is a weekly meme hosted by Rose City Reader that asks you to share the first sentence (or so) of the book you're reading.

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Of course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever. And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe...

Jude was seven years old when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King. To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences. In doing so, she becomes embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, discovering her own capacity for bloodshed. But as civil war threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

Beginning: "On a drowsy Sunday afternoon, a man in a long dark coat hesitated in front of a house on a tree-lined street."

56: "There is always a moment when it begins to move that I can't help grinning. There is something about the sheer impossibility of it, the magnificence of the woods streaking by and the way the ragwort hooves kick up gravel as they leap up into the air, that gives me an electric rush of pure adrenaline."

Comments: I had high hopes for The Cruel Prince and wasn't disappointed. What are you reading this week? 

Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Title: The Darkest Part of the Forest
Author: Holly Black
Source/Format: Won, Print ARC
More Details: Young Adult, Paranormal 
Publisher/Publication Date: Little Brown Books for Young Readers, January 13, 2015
Goodreads     Amazon     Barnes & Noble     Book Depository

Synopsis from Goodreads...

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for...

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once. At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking. Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

I’m no stranger to Holly Black’s books. I enjoyed her Modern Faerie Tale series and liked the work she did with Tony DiTerlizzi on The Spiderwick Chronicles. Next on my list was The Darkest Part of the Forest.

At first, I had some reservations about how the story would work. The book is a standalone and the hype was tremendous at the time of its release. So, I was expecting a complete story with an ending good enough to be considered satisfying. Thankfully, I got what I was expecting. The story was good, and I did enjoy the book.

Black knows how to write faeries well, and does it in a style that’s shows the grittier, darker nature of the fey while playing off common themes—such as the magic and allergy to iron—while twisting them to suite the story. As with Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside before it, The Darkest Part of the Forest seemed to hold true to some of these themes. The setting of Fairfold complemented the atmosphere of mystery and magic that embroiled the character’s lives.

Hazel and Ben, brother and sister, were right in the middle of the mystery surrounding the glass coffin and the boy who slept within. After all, they had grown up in Fairfold, surrounded by magic and faeries their entire lives. Black showed how the environment had begun to affect them in different ways over time—shaping them into the characters that took center focus in the book.

Amidst the trouble brewing in Fairfold, really, The Darkest Part of the Forest was Hazel and Ben’s story—about their past and their present, and how their decisions were interpreted and the unforeseen consequences for their actions.

The ending was good, and the last several chapters consisted of my favorite parts. That is to say, there were plenty of surprises, and I was pretty happy about that. So, I definitely wasn’t disappointed by The Darkest Part of the Forest.

The Friday 56 (61) The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

The Friday 56 is a weekly meme hosted by Freda's Voice where every Friday you pick a book and turn to page 56 or 56%, and select a sentence or a few, as long as it's not a spoiler. For the full rules, visit the the page HERE


Synopsis from Goodreads...

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for...

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once. At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

"And they did run, the barghest just behind them, weaving between the trees like a leopard."--The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Comments: I'm really excited to read this book because I've been a fan of Holly Black for some time. I've read a lot of her books, so The Darkest Part of the Forest was one I was obviously going to read eventually. What are you reading this week?