Life of Bry

Holy shit.

Pardon me, but The Wicked King by Holly Black deserves it. I loved this book, guys. For all my wishy-washy feelings on The Cruel Prince, its sequel stole my heart by ripping it straight out of my chest.

I’m still going to wait to finish the series before I write a deep analysis, but here’s some thoughts I had while reading.

But first a synopsis: After out-scheming her father and stealing the crown, Jude Duarte is faced with a task much harder than taking power: keeping it. Cardan is on the throne and Jude is his puppet master while Oak is safe in the mortal world, but ruling Elfhame is more than just securing a crown and political tensions rise with royalty beneath the sea.

And a non-spoilery review: The Wicked King is an intricately laid trap of a story. A scheme full of schemes that throws readers for loops just as they settle into the ride. Jude and Cardan’s complicated relationship is messy and annoying in the most fun way, the political and moral hoops Jude must leap through are compelling, and the plot is so exquisitely detailed without needing unnecessary distractions to move it forward. It’s a beautiful balance between character work — as Cardan becomes more human and Jude tries to strip her humanity away — and hard, well-thought out plot work that creates a maze to easily get lost in without ever wanting to escape. 

Finally my rating: I’m still running a major high from this book, but I’m giving it a perfect 5 pockets full of salt out of 5 … which makes it my first 5-star read (that wasn’t a classic) that I’ve read in 2023 🥳

Now time for some thoughts …

• TWK reminded me so much of the Six of Crows duology solely because of the effort put into plotting the details. Schemes require such good writing to be executed well, and Black did it perfectly by making sure every detail related back to the story. Black did this with simplicity. She didn’t add unnecessary subplots to run readers in circles to deviate attention away from what’s actually happening. No, Jude is much too attentive of a narrator, and she’s our only narrator. The blacksmith, the queen of the sea, Balekin, Cardan’s mother, etc. all could have had really involved individual subplots, but Black made the right choice by weaving them into the bigger picture of this fight for the crown and power. They are pieces of the puzzle rather than framed photos on a gallery wall. Perfection.
• Speaking of Jude as a narrator, I truly fell in love with her in this book. I love that her paranoia of being human and at a disadvantage almost makes her an unreliable narrator. It’s made her bad at reading people and judging character. The story relies on that trait, too. She knows strategy, but she sucks at people which allows things to slip by … like how Cardan exiled her because he cares about her and wants her away before she can get hurt further or how he tried to get her to go home during the revel to avoid her being named the queen of mirth. But I digress … mostly because I’m making assumptions and y’know what happens when you assume.
• Going along with that, however, is how Holly Black supported this character trait so well for Jude. She can’t be trusting and she can’t let her guard down. The Ghost betrayed her. Taryn posed as her to help Madoc plot against her. Locke tried to kill her the eve of his wedding. Cardan earned her trust and used it against her. She is consistently being betrayed by those she trusted most even with all the precautions. She has every right to be the way she is. Not only that, as a human in Faerie there are deeper consequences for not being constantly guarded, which we see with Heather (which also serves as a wake up call to Vivi about the dangers … or should’ve been.)
• Staying on the Jude train because did I mention I love her? It was really interesting to see her shed some of the humanity/morality she had in TCP. She even mentions it at one point when she and the Ghost are putting the humans used for the tunnels to bed — five months ago she wouldn’t have allowed that to happen and now she’s orchestrating it. She even throws her childhood stuffed animals in the fire as a way of burning away the person she never got to be and accepting who she has become. The morality that comes from mortality is what set her apart from all the fae she considered monsters prior to her ascent to power. She only sought the crown to protect her little brother when Madoc looked to use his own son to claim power for blood and Balekin slaughtered nearly his entire family to try his hand at the throne. Yet she keeps this part of her closed off, out of fear that it’s a vulnerability rather than a strength. And that secrecy is what strains already tough relationships because she’s unwilling to give an inch in rightful fear they’ll take a mile. 
• Jude is painfully human despite it all, and that’s why I love her. Her faults are her humanity on her sleeve that she can’t burn or kill off or fight or forget. Her stubbornness, her constant panic, her tenacity. She is human, and that is both her greatest advantage and biggest weakness.
• Onto Cardan … I was extremely neutral about him in Book No. 1. I kinda adore him now, too. We get to see more of his personality in TWK and more of his backstory. He calls out Jude and the Bomb for running straight to murder any time there’s a slight inconvenience, and it’s proof behind his statement that he’s only ever been cruel to gain the attention of a father who wanted to forget him and a brother who only accepted him for his atrocities. It added some depth to him, and I love that Jude is so oblivious that Cardan gets to sort of mold his own character with his actions rather than letting the reader rely solely on Jude’s flighty perception. His making a bad bargain with the sea to get Jude back was major in showing his loyalty to her, and I was in tears when he explained he fell for Taryn pretending to be Jude because he wanted Jude to know he trusted her without needing to be commanded. Plus, at the end when he starts using his full king powers … I like a motivated, ambitious Cardan. He’s smarter than he’s led on, and I can’t wait to see what he can do as a free King.
• One thing I like about how Black handled Cardan is she never tried to fully excuse his past actions or write them off as moot. I don’t believe in tying real-life morality to fiction. Let shitty characters be shitty. However, I hate when a character is a clear douche canoe and yet the story paints them in a good light to the point it doesn’t make sense or erases the character building surrounding their “immoralities”. For example, Rhysand in A Court of Thorns and Roses. He starts out a super shitty guy that’s doing some good guy shit. However, he still assaults Feyre under the mountain and does terrible things to others. But as the story progresses he becomes nothing but intrinsically good with no true regard or accountability for what he’s done despite his shittiness being a huge part of his character (that I loved!). Sarah J. Maas tried so hard to make Rhysand perfect that it backfired. Cardan is different in that nobody tries to paint him in a better light, not even himself. His shittiness defines him; he reflects on it; he learns from it. Jude does not forget it.

• Jude and Cardan are mirrors made of different materials reflecting back each other’s images — one of gold and one of stainless steel. Cardan was born into power yet given none of it, even as High King. And Jude was born powerless, made even more powerless upon arriving in Faerie and became desperate for it. There’s a pain in knowing the world sees you as inadequate even with a title, yet they want to believe there’s safety in the idea of having power. Together they’re equal parts terrified and terrifying.  
• When Cardan asks Jude to say she hates him and she keeps saying it as they tip the scales romantically, I lost my shit. Hate being the emotion Cardan can understand best and the one Jude is the most comfortable reciprocating. Out of fear the other won’t feel the same and they’ll be left powerless. Because of the familiarity they have with hate and how it’s expected of them. The vulnerability that comes from love that they aren’t willing to feel. To love and let yourself be loved is to expose your true self and nothing is more terrifying when you’ve been hidden for so long, when trust can be a weapon against you. So you use hate as a shield and speak it into existence to cover up the parts of yourself you can’t make sense of. That you don’t want to make sense of. I hate you because I don’t know what to do with love. … “I hate you so much that sometimes I can’t think of anything else.”
• But also Cardan is so infatuated and stupidly in love with Jude, and she is so bad at social cues man. He’s dripping in rizz. When she says she’s difficult to charm and Cardan says, “I could’ve told my brother that,” it’s because it’s the truth and this boy has been trying to charm her romantically for so fucking long and she rightfully thinks he just wants to fuck with her. Like I’m sorry Cardan but being a psychopath to a girl for a decade does not help you rizz her up when you’re starting to catch real feels you can’t ignore. 
• “Sweet Jude, you’re my dearest punishment” … murder me. “Kill him before he makes you love him.” … or just bury me alive. “Kiss me until I am sick of it.” … y’know what, I’ll dig my own grave.
• The twists were so good! I was expecting for Taryn to do the switcheroo eventually to help Madoc, and I guessed that the queen of the sea would take Balekin instead of Oak and then kidnap Jude. However, Locke trying to kill Jude? The Ghost turning on the Court of Shadows? Cardan asking Jude to marry him and then sending her away? Shook me to my very core. I love when a book surprises me, and the narrative didn’t rely on one twist to catch readers off guard. You have to be on your toes as much as Jude.
• I don’t like Vivi at all. I understand her place in the story and I even like the concept of her wanting this normal life. But she’s dumb in a careless way that makes me worry for Oak’s safety. She’s very selfish in wanting this mortal life but still mingle with magic, especially when it comes to Heather. I just want to fight her.
• I feel nothing about Taryn. She seems like a coward, but I’m going to guess that she’s scheming on her own somehow. Maybe she’ll foil whatever Madoc is trying to do? That’s all.
• The tension between Madoc and Jude is another high point for me. I loved that push and pull of, “I love you, you’re family, but I still can’t trust you.” More than that, a part of Jude is still a little girl seeking Madoc’s praise. She thinks of him constantly while putting together her schemes or when she’s in a fight. There’s still affection and appreciation for what he’s taught her. Yet, she doesn’t tell him that their end goals are nearly the same — to put Oak on the throne — even though it’s for different reasons and by different means. She wants to do it on her own to prove herself, to prove she belongs in this world where she’s not supposed to fit. It nearly gets her killed time and time again. I just … yes. I loved that constant dilemma of Madoc haunting Jude almost as a mentor, a father, a challenge, an opponent. Another mirror for Jude to look into, face her own reflection and spot the differences … if there are any.
• A prediction before I pick up Queen of Nothing, Jude can pardon herself and go back to Elfhame at any time. She’s the Queen because she’s married to Cardan, doesn’t that mean she’s the crown? I think Cardan did this knowing Jude would figure it out eventually and come home to him. She just needs to stop moping around and eating frozen fish sticks (which is such a great callback to the very beginning of the series).