The Wicked King by Holly Black

I've been putting off this review because I have a ton of feelings about this book and no idea how to express them, but I'm going to try anyway.

Everyone's basically been obsessed with The Cruel Prince since it came out in January of 2018, so The Wicked King had pretty high expectations to live up to, especially since it's the second book in what I believe is supposed to be a trilogy.

I absolutely loved The Wicked King, and I think it was even better than The Cruel Prince, which I had also rated 5 stars.

The Wicked King picks up a few months after The Cruel Prince left off: Jude is running the kingdom through Cardan, who sits on the throne. She's also trying to find a way to extend her bargain with Cardan to last longer than a year and a day, in order to give Oak time to grow up and be ready to be king. Cardan is spending his nights partying, naturally. Taryn is still the single most self-centered person I've ever seen; she's preparing for her wedding with Locke and is making minimal efforts to reconcile with Jude.

This is seriously the most Slytherin book you'll ever read, what with the unlikable, manipulative characters and the constant political intrigue. But at the same time, I felt like I was given more insight into the main characters and why they act the way they do, which made them a lot more relatable to me.

One thing I didn't understand was whether or not the reader is meant to like Jude. Yeah, she kills some people and makes some questionable decisions and manipulates Cardan throughout the entire book, but, really, what else is she supposed to do? Personally, I think she's just reacting to the situations around her the best she knows how to. After all, she wasn't exactly raised in a happy household.

(HOWEVER, I still hate Taryn; I don't care what she's gone through or how much she loves Locke.)

And you could say the same about Cardan, particularly as you learn more about him and his past. Cardan definitely grew on me; while I hated him in The Cruel Prince, I actually kind of liked him in this book. Cardan had a ton of character development...or maybe Jude was just seeing past the image he put on. That's not to say he's not horrible, because he still kind of is...

But the PLOT TWISTS. And the BETRAYALS. They were constant and freaking amazing. I tend to guess plot twists a lot, but I didn't see any of these coming. Like the mermaids. I didn't expect the mermaids. And the cliffhanger at the end, which I still haven't recovered from.

I'm not sure how the next book, Queen of Nothing, is going to tie up all these loose ends...or give me a satisfying conclusion to the Jude/Cardan...situation.

So I guess I'm just going to go insane until the next book comes out? That's totally fine.