"The Cruel Prince": Review and Playlist

Light spoilers ahead!

First, our leading lady would not care to hear any of this music. She is too focused to do something as trivial as sit and listen to music outside Faerie. On the other hand, Cardan would definitely listen to this playlist, hating that he loved it the entire time. 

I would be lying if I said that I was on board with this book as soon as I read it. I definitely was not. The beginning of this book felt like eating a steak that was just a little too done. I had to chew on it for a minute to get into it. All that said, the end of the book was nothing short of a delight to read, so I will be buying the next book. Let’s dive into the music. Shall we?  

If Jude ever cared to listen to mortal music, I have no doubts that she would be a Florence and the Machine, specifically the Dance Fever album stan. Cassandra had me thinking about Jude specifically concerning her adopted father: Madoc. “Oh, drunken gods of slaughter/You know I've always been your/Favorite daughter”. Madoc murdered her parents when she was seven years old. She saw the slaughter, and at the same time was raised by him. She grows to love him like a father in a twisted I’ll never forget that you actually murdered my parents kind of way. 

Madoc trains Jude throughout her life teaching her what he believes the way the world is or should be. She clings to Madoc’s words, but not to him as a person. When it came time, she was willing to make a move against him that he would not soon forget. This book covers multiple plot points, so I’m just going to jump around. 

As Jude watches the slaughter of the inauguration, the lyrics “Everything I thought I knew is falling out of view/And if I run fast enough, could I break apart/As empires crumble and cathedrals flatten in my heart?” jump out at me. She begins rectifying with the fact that not only is the land she has chosen to call home falling apart, her family is falling apart. Her sister is lying to her, Madoc is found to be lying to her, and she is having to pick up the pieces. Between fight, flight, or freeze, she is FIGHT. 

Going hand in hand, up next from the Dance Fever album, we have King. “But a woman is a changeling, always shifting shape/Just when you think you have it figured out/Something new begins to take” are words that mirror Jude throughout the beginning of the book. Watching Jude rage against her mortality and claw to be in a world that could care less if she lived or died is fascinating. As the book goes on she distances herself from her biological/adopted family falling deeper in step with a family of her choosing: spies. 

The Bomb and Jude fall into an odd almost younger sister/older sister dynamic, while the other spies she works with begin to follow her giving her something she has always craved: power. Jude grows from an observant child into a formidable strategist putting the next High King on the throne of Elfhame. After the world-building is thoroughly underway, the story is nothing short of gripping.

The various characters throughout the book may not be able to rely on Jude, to be honest, but we can trust that she will do anything to become the person she wants to be. Even when she was lightly dating Locke, she knew who she wanted to be. The lyrics, “I need my golden crown of sorrow, my bloody sword to swing/I need my empty halls to echo with grand self-mythology/’Cause I am no mother, I am no bride, I am king” are true for her. She never wanted to just be in court; she wanted to be a fighter. She has a deep hunger to create and destroy maybe from childhood trauma, maybe from being raised by a psychopath, maybe it’s who she was always meant to be. Either way for better or worse, Jude’s dreams do come true. All of this is not without consequence though. She has to work with the one person she would rather be burying in the ground than putting on the throne: Cardan. Their relationship is fraught, shocking, and so beyond fun to read. 

I am choosing to not go into this further. It is so good to read, I wish I could read this aspect of the book for the first time. So, I will leave it at that. 

To round out the playlist, I thought it was fitting to end with a new song by Hozier. “Choose between being a salesman or a soldier/Just let me look a little older/Let me step a little bolder/Choose between being a butcher or a pauper/Honey, I'm taking no orders/I'm gonna be nobody’s soldier” I would believe that Jude would be listening to this song while drinking small amounts of poison to create a safety net for herself if someone were foolish to try to poison her. Even when Carden and the rest of her classmates are attacking her verbally or physically, she refuses to be the weak mortal they believe she is. Cardan on the other hand, would listen to this in his room. He would be lying on his bed, drinking from a flask of wine, and trying to drown out the fact that he is a part of the royal family. Jude and Cardan are two sides of the same coin. Two people trying to run from the life that everyone is telling them they will have: the lives both of them are dreading. Again, their relationship is so fun to read. Is it predictable: yes. Is it predictable in the way you think it will go: no. 

As the months are growing colder, I recommend you pick up this book. If you haven’t read a fantasy book before, or don’t know where to start, this book is a good place. We’ll see how long it takes me to pick up the next book, but I have to know what happens next.  As always this playlist does not have to be listened to in order. Happy listening, and happy Halloween!