Thursday, December 26, 2019

SciFi/Fantasy Book Review: The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black




The Queen of Nothing is the conclusion of Holly Black's YA Fae Fantasy trilogy, The Folk of the Air, which began in 2018's The Cruel Prince (which I reviewed HERE) and was continued in January's The Wicked King (Reviewed Here).  I'm a large fan of Fae Fantasy works, and this trilogy has definitely been up there with the best of them, featuring a mortal teenage girl brought into Faerie in her childhood, seeking to establish a place for herself in this land - and scheming and plotting throughout, facing the most deadly of forces, to try and pull it off.....in spite of her own feelings and the opposition of some of those to whom she was once close.  It's a dark YA tale for sure, and the twists and turns throughout the first two novels were tremendous, to go along with their tremendous lead character.

I have mixed feelings about The Queen of Nothing, because while on one hand it's a really great conclusion for the trilogy's characters, it (especially in its second half) feels like it loses some of the fun scheming and plotting that filled large parts of the first two books.  Instead, the trilogy concludes with what is essentially a dark fairy tale, as everything comes to roost, and it's made even more notable by the fact that this book is the shortest of the trilogy.  That said, this book is pretty good at being a dark fairy tale, with an ending that is really great and I loved for the characters involved.  So if you enjoyed the first two novels, you'll really enjoy this one, although be ready for a little switch of how things go down.

Note: Spoilers for the first two books are impossible to avoid in the below review, so you have been warned:

--------------------------------------------------Plot Summary-------------------------------------------------------
Jude's rise to power had been swift - and baffling to those not in the know in Faerie.  She'd put her hated childhood enemy, the wicked prince Cardan, on the throne of Faerie - and had had him in her power for a year and a day, unable to deny any of her commands.  To outsiders she was somehow the High King's Seneschal, but she was the power behind the throne, to the dismay of her power-hungry stepfather, Madoc.  And, as she and Cardan seemed to be developing feelings for one another, she gave up that power in exchange for his hand and marriage and the title of High Queen of Faerie.  All this as a mortal human girl, with no Fae powers of her own.

And then Cardan exiled her to the mortal world, without revealing her queenship to anyone else.  So Jude has lived with her half-sister in misery, wishing she could somehow return to Faerie and get back at Cardan, Madoc, and all those who have wronged her.

But when Jude's twin sister Taryn, who last seen had betrayed Jude for Madoc, shows up in the Mortal Realm, Jude finally has a way to go back: pretend to be Taryn to save Taryn from being killed for Taryn's murdering her husband Locke.  Yet nearly as soon as Jude returns to Faerie the plan goes wrong, and Jude finds herself once again between Madoc and Cardan and their battle for the throne.

But this time....it's not just the High King's throne on the line, it's Jude's own throne as the High Queen of Elfhame.  And Jude will do anything to grab it once again....or so she thinks, despite her traitorous heart.....
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the final time, The Queen of Nothing takes us back into the head of Jude, our mortal heroine who has schemed, killed, and plotter her way to the top of Faerie only to seemingly lose it all at the end of last book.  And it takes us right back to the world where we left ourselves at the end of the last book - months may have passed, changing the conflict a bit, but all of the players established in the last book are still here, with the world not expanding any further.  This is the conclusion of the story, and so it focuses on wrapping up the world it has already built, with no need to build it out any further.

Which is totally fine by the way, because it's a terrific world, and Jude is still a tremendous heroine to read and root for.  Both a guile hero and one willing to work with her hands - although as a mortal her physical skills are nearly always at a disadvantage that requires trickery to survive direct combat - Jude is a joy to read as she attempts to navigate the world of Faerie once again.  And her feelings towards people - her sisters, her stepfather, Cardan, - are all so really well done, and make her a great complete character for whom I was hoping a happy ending.

The rest of the cast except one character (more below on that) also returns, and they're again excellent, most notably Cardan, who gets more development as the seeming antagonist morphs for good into Jude's love interest (as readers of the 2nd book saw happening there), culminating in a really lovely sex scene - not really descriptive, but a great demonstration of how far the two of them has come.*  The fact that there was a twist behind Cardan's betrayal in the last book won't surprise anyone, and it's clever enough to justify that, and I found it really easy to root for a character who was definitely an awful person to start this series.  It's really well done.

*One minor quibble - the last book featured a scene in which we essentially faded to black after Cardan and Jude undressed together, and it's not clear how far they went together, leading me to believe they had sex.  This scene in this book suggests they did not (they definitely do in this book), which kind of confused me for a bit.  It's a little weird.*

All these characters are great for the most part - I haven't even gone into the others and I won't really here for lack of space - and the plot is generally excellent, if different from the prior books (see below).  The twists all work really well, and the book takes the prophecies and curses it's developed, the characters and their changes, and this interesting world and puts it all together into a finale and ending that might be tying things a bit too nicely with a bow.....but made me happy considering how much I loved the characters.  It may not be as harrowing a book as the prior ones, but it's still great overall.

There are only two negatives I can say about this book.  The first, I mentioned above the jump, whereas the first two books eventually turned upon Jude attempting to scheme - and sometimes juggle a few schemes at the same time - her way to what she wanted, which was incredibly fun to read, that aspect of the series essentially disappears from this book, particularly in the final half.  Oh there's minor scheming going on, but this is no longer a book about Jude trying to scheme her way to what she wants and more of Jude trying to hold herself together as a dark fairy tale, complete with dark prophecies and curses, unfolds.  It's really well done mind you, but in the end it did feel a little dissonant with what I expected from the series.

More of an issue for me was that a major character (Locke) from the prior novels, known for tricks and generally being a self-centered ass in searching and creating what he thinks of as good stories, dies off-page to set up the plot of this book.  It's a weird end for a major character, even if I didn't particularly like him as a character for being way too predictably tropey, especially as it'd have been totally in character for him to fake his death, so I kept expecting him to return.  It bothered me - and I really wish we had another short story from Taryn's point of view to show how all this cam about, like we did to accompany the first book.

So yeah, it may not be as good as its predecessors, but I tore through this book quickly and I think anyone who loved those prior books like I did will do as well here, and they will not find themselves disappointed.  And if Black ever returns to this world, I will be there.
Posted by at

No comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to: Post Comments (Atom)