YA Fantasy
| This is the second installment in Holly Black’s ‘Folk of the Air’ series about a mortal girl living in Faerie and carving a space for herself in the Faerie court. Jude is now working as the spy for Cardan, the new Faerie king, whom she keeps under her control through an oath he was coerced to make in her name. This second installment in the series keeps all the good things that made the first book so good, such as the world-building. There are also new lows Jude has to steep to in hopes of keeping up with the Fae’s deadly and humiliating games, which makes for interesting situations. ‘The Wicked King’ also manages to add even more dimensionality to the main characters, particularly Cardan, the Fae King, who has by now become my favorite character in the series. Usually the second book in a series isn’t as good as the first, but in my estimation, ‘The Wicked King’ is even better than ‘The Cruel Prince’, namely because Cardan is now powerful, and for all the cruelty and wickedness he’s supposed to have, it is pretty obvious that between him and Jude, he is the most moral of the two, even if he has to pretend otherwise. I am eagerly awaiting the third installment in this series, ‘The Queen of Nothing’, which should come out soon, and am pleased to say that I have no clue what will happen next… Which is exactly how a good series is supposed to feel. |
The Literary Bend 