Boo! Tomato, tomato, tomato!

A few years ago, I tried to pick up this book but dropped it after like 20 pages because I didn't love the first-person narration and how juvenile Jude felt. I kind of shoved into the same pile as ACOTAR, a series I strongly disliked despite so many people loving it.

A few weeks ago, however, I've been looking around for book recommendations based on a couple others I've read and loved, and The Cruel Prince came up a lot. People were talking about it as if it were some masterpiece of intrigue, fantasy and enemies to lovers. People also said they supposedly had a similar problem as me, but that the writing would get better the more the book went on. So I decided to give it ago, despite my previous conviction not to read this book.

Well, it never got better.

The entire book continues to feel incredibly underdeveloped, disjointed and frankly immature. So much of what happens in the beginning of the book feels like it's in need of a lot more exposition and explanation; it really felt like the entirety of it was rushed, and there were a lot of empty spaces between scenes that could have used more explanation. At the same time, the pacing also managed to be really slow? I got about 140 pages in and still barely anything interesting happened.

Yes, Jude got recruited as a spy for the "Shadow Court" (oooo mysterious name for a group of spies), but still, there was absolutely no tension at all.

Jude's entire characterisation felt off. Why is she so okay with Madoc (I have no idea if that's how you actually spell his name, but I don't care enough to check) basically becoming her father when he killed her parents right in front of her eyes? How is that not a household she wants to escape? How is she painting her sister as idiotic for wanting to escape? Their relationship is described as complicated multiple times in the book, but there's never really any follow up to that. It feels like their family dynamic was supposed to be complex and interesting, but it really just felt incredibly shallow. 
I also didn't really understand her desire to become 'powerful' and to prove herself. She just read as very ulikeable and, frankly, unrealistic. The whole thing around the turnament felt so... weird? Most of the scenes are just so, so anticlimactic. It feels like there's never any setup for scenes that are supposed to feel interesting or subversive.

You know how people talk about Cardan and Jude as the epitome of enemies to lovers, the best twisty romance they've ever read? Boy, was I interested to read about their dynamic. I was severely disappointed. He's literally just a high-school bully, and the only thing that adds any type of tension to their relationship is Jude being like "I won't back down, I'll show him who's boss!" Girl, shut up. He may be a temperamental, entitled teenager that clearly has never faced being told no but he is still a faerie prince who rips people's wings off when they don't greet him properly, and you're a human with an overgrown ego. Get over yourself and stop being a little shit.

Naturally, we find out that we're actually supposed to feel sympathy for him because his cruelty is just a result of his family being disappointed in him and abusing him.

Aren't you so sad? Cycle of violence bla bla? Isn't he so dark and charming and alluring? Also he has a tail. Give me a fucking break.

The entire thing feels so juvenile, and it's literally impossible to take the darker/more serious sides of the story seriously when they act like literal children.

I digress, I've decided that there's too many books I'd like to read to waste my time on something I don't like. Even if it supposedly gets better at the second book I'm not putting myself through 200 more pages of high-school bully to lovers.