“If I cannot be better than them, I will become so much worse.”

This was amazing! I immediately got pulled into the story and it felt as if someone threw fairy dust into my face and I got compelled to follow the story ever since. The writing and the world building are so mesmerizing and captivating. You can feel the fae magic pulling you in as well. The world of the faeries is so fascinating, it almost blinds you from remembering how cruel, dark and dangerous it is. Especially if you’re human.

This book starts off with young Vivienne, Taryn and Jude. Right of the bat my heart got smashed because of how they lose their parents and don’t have a clue of what’s going on and why. Viv’s real Father, Madoc, finds her and her mother. Kills her mother and father to take her and her sisters to Elfhame. Here they grow up and it turns out that Vivienne, only fae amongst her sisters, wants nothing rather than to live in the human world to live a human life. While the other sisters, Taryn and Jude try their best to adapt, Viv has made it her mission to hate Madoc for what he has done, and she’s doing a good job with keeping that up.

Taryn and Jude want to make something of their life’s in Elfhame. Taryn by falling in love with a fae male so she can start a family. And Jude wants to win herself a place in the court. But to do that, she has to defy many other fae. Most aren’t a problem. But then there is Prince Cardan.

He’s so cruel, it’s in the title, but I couldn’t even imagine what he would do to creatures who are “less” than him and to humans. Many fae despise humans, but Cardan has rather special hate feelings towards Jude.

Jude

I love Jude so much. In the beginning she tried to be like the fae, tried to fit in but she couldn’t. And they wouldn’t let her. She was just a human girl that they could throw around like a doll, play with as a puppet and degrade whenever they doubted themselves. She endured all that, all of that while being petrified. But from the moment she and her sisters lost their parents and got taken away to grow up into the cruel world of fae, she learned to suppress that fear. The truth was, she could not be like the fae, so she vowed to become someone worse, someone even fae feared.

I am so excited to see Jude grow and put all those who wronged and undermined her down.

Okay so now that my praises and concerns about precious Jude can be cast aside, lets get to Cardan.

Cardan

Oh

Boy

Dark hair…. Coal black eyes…and a smirk. That’s all it takes to capture me and Jude. But the difference is that Cardan HATES Jude (with his own special reasons) Torments her and her sister every single day because he and his group of friends are just a bunch of bullies. And treats everybody else that he sees as “less and weak” with absolute ridiculous cruelty. And that’s what Jude keeps reminding herself of while staring into his beautiful coal black eyes.

Okay he IS cruel. But not in a way you might expect him to be. He’s carelessly cruel because he doesn’t care about things, at least that’s how he behaves. And even if he speaks entitled of himself, the way he treats himself isn’t that far off from how he treats others. He’s constantly being lazy, lazily cruel, and drinks a lot!
You do get to learn about how Cardan became to be this way. And it’s rather cruel and sad to read about. Jude even sees it with her own eyes.
But that still doesn’t make his actions any less unnecessarily cruel.


The cool thing is, Jude might even become somewhat cruel herself and I love that. Her being bossy towards Cardan and kicking his ass is what I’m here for. A female, who is human, who doesn’t let anyone, even high fae, walk over here is so fun and cool to read about. We love a strong female character.

Who we don’t like

is Taryn.

Taryn

I liked her at first and her sister bond with the others was so relatable (I have 2 sisters as well) And I get that you want to find a way to survive amongst cruel fae, but to do what she did…it was very low. That’s all I really want to say about it because I don’t want to spoil anything.

Locke

Locke goes on my list of ‘Characters I want to strangle in 2020’
I was suspicious of Locke right from the beginning. From the start he was so oddly nice towards Jude, that it couldn’t be sincere. He can’t lie with his voice but he can be treacherous with his filthy fae hands.


Vivienne

Vivienne was one of the characters I really loved, amongst her sisters she was the one who acted like a human the most even though she was the only fae. She feels so free. Her love interest is so cute and so normal and refreshing. And I can’t wait to read more about them and their relationship.


Madoc

Madoc was a weird character for me, but in a good way. I found him to be very original and complex. He’s bloodthirsty and does really bad things but on the other hand he really cares for his daughters and wants the best for them. Even when that has to be done by fighting them with a sword. It’s such an odd situation but I can’t help but love him.