How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black, Illustrated by Rovina Cai
From 2018-2019, YA Fantasy Author Holly Black released the Folk of the Air trilogy, beginning with 2018's "The Cruel Prince" and continuing with 2019's "The Wicked King" and "The Queen of Nothing." It was a trilogy I loved a lot (my review of book 1, The Cruel Prince can be found here), featuring a human girl Jude taken into Faerie by her Fae stepfather and fighting for her right to have a place in Faerie, despite the Fae World's cruel treatment of humans. Featuring Jude scheming, fighting, and well occasional romancing from beginning to end, it was a trilogy whose individual installments might never have been the greatest, but as a whole trilogy, it worked really well and was highly enjoyable as a dark YA tale.
This novella is essentially both a sequel to the trilogy - the framing device leads to a story that follows the trilogy - and a recasting of events in the trilogy from the perspective of a different character: Cardan, former prince of Faerie. To say anything more about it above the jump would risk spoiling the trilogy, but what I will say is that this novella is a really cute revisiting of this world which will make fans of the trilogy very happy and will be absolutely pointless to read for anyone who skipped out on the novels.
SPOILERS for the trilogy's ending after the jump - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED:
Quick Plot Summary: Cardan, now High King of Elfhame, was once a miserable soul, a prince cast off by his royal family, suffering from their cruel treatment of him, and who took refuge in cruelty to try and pretend that none of it really bothered him. But now, as he accompanies his Queen to the human world to help her with a quest, he thinks about those events in the past and how they changed his perspective on his life....and how the events of his past might come back once more to affect his future.
Thoughts: This novella (sorry I'm not typing out the full name) is a really fun sequel novella to the trilogy for fans who wanted to see more of this world. The novella features really nice illustrations, but for me, the best part was to see this world from Cardan's own point of view, as he recaps his own perspective on the events of him growing up, some of which we saw in the trilogy, some of which we didn't. As you would imagine for this novella, the parts of his retelling that are all new and feature a brand new character eventually tie-in to the framing device, which features Cardan accompanying Jude on a quest to the human world to deal with a dangerous rogue Fae.
Again there's little to say here honestly, other than I loved this world in the trilogy and that as a person who fell in love with Cardan after three books, seeing his perspective on the past few events is both heartbreaking and clarifying, and then seeing how he has changed through it all is immensely satisfying. It's an excellent follow up to the trilogy, and I'm glad I got a chance to read it.
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