The Wicked King Review (More like the Wicked Author!)

"Power is much easier to acquire than it is to hold onto."

I am LIVID. How dare Holly Black do this to me? I was happy. We were all happy! Cardan and Jude were happy!

The Wicked King really dove into Cardan's character development. Something I really appreciate about Holly Black's novels is that she doesn't jump around in POVs. It makes the story potentially very confusing and far less nail biting when the reader knows everything at once. I really like that Cardan was allowed to be his own dynamic person in this novel. He was able to grow and scheme and we readers didn't know about it at all.

Jude was also allowed a few interesting surprises in this book. She was taken into the undersea by surprise. We had no idea that *spoilers* the Ghost was going to betray her, of all people. I didn't much care about this betrayal in the face of the other huge plot twist at the end of the book, but I can bet you Ghost comes back to haunt! (Pun intended)

Major Spoilers from here on out!

What was that ending? Cardan proposing to Jude made me squeal like a teenage girl reading Twilight for the first time. I mean, it was out of the blue, but what a better way to dive into their feelings for each other? I'm swooning.

But no we can't have a happy ending in the second book of the trilogy, that'd be way too easy. Cardan really didn't have a great reason to betray Jude. I thought we had moved past the whole vow of obedience thing. He made this whole speil about trusting her only to find it was Taryn, how they could do this together, and since Cardan trusted Jude, Jude trusted him in turn only to get it thrown back into her face. This is not how you keep a woman, Cardan!

Jude is obviously going to have her downfall in the next book. She reminds me of the main character from The Young Elites by Marie Lu, who turns into the villain in the story (but perhaps comes back, I need to reread the series since I didn't finish it). Jude's ambition is too much, she's getting careless. She thinks she knows everything about everything, when characters like Madoc or even Locke have been alive for far longer than her and have trained longer than her. She needs to take a step back and reevaluate her situation and come up with a better plan. And for God's sake, just be with Cardan! I am hoping he had an idea when he exiled her to the mortal world. Cardan's big thing was that Balekin not be killed, but dude, he tried to kill you and your new wife! Did you want her to lay down and die?

Okay, I have to go finish this series. See you tomorrow!

Peace, love, and good books,

Lexi

#YAfiction #TheWickedKing #TheWickedKingReview #YAFantasy #books #bookreview #trilogy