3 stars
Holly Black is one of my all time favorite writers. I love her unique fantasy stories and amazing writing style. The Darkest Part of the Forest is one of my absolute favorite books (I have a signed copy NBD) and I enjoyed The Spiderwick Chronicles Box Set and the Magisterium series (The Iron Trial).
However, I find that I get bored by her books that get too caught up in the politics of things likes The Cruel Prince. For me, this one was kind of a mash-up of those extremes.
Much of the book is all about the politics of the kingdom and it really drags on. I still liked the writing, but just was not interested in the story. So much of it just felt like filler. Then about two-thirds of the way in, the plot really picks up. I loved the last 100 pages or so in which everything comes together. The pace was great and I actually wanted to know what happened next. The ending was absolutely perfect. But I think the book suffered a bit by setting things up so slowly that the reader got bored. I didn’t think it would take me that long to finish this, but I just wasn’t motivated to read it at first. Then I got to around page 200 and read the rest in a day.
Overall, it was good, but the pace in the beginning was too slow. Half of the book just felt like filler. That ending though was magnificent.