Thrash’s sequel to her graphic memoir Honor Girl is more ambitious and experimental than its predecessor, following the author as she struggles through passing eleventh grade, losing her beloved cat inside the walls of her own home, and being haunted by a ghost with mysterious ties to her family. An unusual and arresting Bildungsroman that I gulped down.

I loved this book when I read it, and I loved it just as much, if not more, being read to me.

Leave it to Holly Black to make me have a crush on a troll.

I threw the book down when I read the shameful grammar pun that resolves the entire plot, but I still enjoyed it greatly. Even Roiben, the great whingey emo baby that he is, making stupid plans for other people out of his oh-so-tortured sense of responsibility.

The Cruel Prince is Holly Black doing what she does best, and doing it better than she ever has before. Rather than lingering on the outskirts of Faerie, she dives right into the middle of it, with all the magic and political machinations you could want. Perhaps the most fun aspect of reading this book is trying to decide to whom the title refers; every time I thought I had it pinned down, someone even worse would come along and prove me wrong.

I'm so happy that this is the first in a series.

Something like 3.5 stars. There were a handful of chapters in the middle that felt underdone, rushed, but once that cleared up and the plot gained momentum going into the conclusion, I enjoyed it much more. I think that this is very much a middle book, which is to say a kind of limbo, building on the first, getting things ready for the finale, by its very nature dependent on its own past and tethered to an as-yet unknown future. But I can’t wait to see how Jude handles things next.

No one writes faeries as well as Holly Black, and this standalone showcases her skill and ease with incorporating folklore into a modern setting. I loved the concept of a town with faeries as a tourist attraction; there’s a lot of interesting tension in the way locals perceive their unique town vs. how the tourists perceive it. True to form, the characters are interesting, especially Hazel. There were moments when I wanted more—detail, depth, something—but those moments marred neither my enjoyment nor my rating of this book.

Read for the "book you've read before" category of the Book Riot Read Harder Challenge. This was the first Neil Gaiman novel I ever read, all in one day on Thanksgiving when I was about 15, hiding from relatives. It's indescribably lovely.