IMPORTANT INFO AND DISCLAIMER : This is a novella with many intertwining stories including a resemblance to a story line that takes place after the ending of the original trilogy (Queen of Nothing) and so please keep in mind that there are spoilers and thus you should not read this or the book without having read the trilogy first.
This book was a nice surprise, personally, I really enjoyed the trilogy and I was super happy to not only get more of this world, but also insight on Cardan as a character as well as beautiful illustrations. This is a really short read written in a somewhat big font and so it wasn't time consuming at all to pick this up and read it. It was a one sitting type of read and perfect timing wise for me as I am currently in a very busy time in my studies (with finals and such).
We get to meet a lot of new characters in this series, we also get to see Cardan grow from a child to whom he is now as a King and see him try/attempt at acting as a savior/hero to people. I loved how the author, Holly Black, managed to make little moments in his childhood and people he met influence the overall novella and how he is. I love the causation and effect aspect of it. Her writing as usual is really enjoyable and gives you a wonderful insight of the mind and thought process of her characters. I enjoyed how consistently good it was, while it was not as amazing as her trilogy or what I hoped for when I heard there was going to be a novella, I was pleasantly surprised by how much we learn and feel for how short the novella actually is.
I don't often read novellas, the main reason for that is that I am a bigger fan of long novels as I love character driven stories or political stories in a fantasy world which just naturally comes with a lot of world building and thus makes for bigger books. Was this my favorite novel ever, no. Unfortunately when I start to think about it a lot I can see a lot of holes in the story (in the aspect of how things concluded to instances where it felt like scenes or something was missing) that could've been solved with a bigger novella. Also in the present time aspect of the stories I just wanted more from Jude and Cardan, I felt like this was a missed opportunity in a lot of ways to add little scenes of their life together.
Overall a good novella, but did not quite hit the mark for me, or at least not fully.
3.5/5 stars
Bookarina
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