Review--The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black

Special edition: Barnes & Noble Exclusive Edition features an alternate jacket and contains letters from Cardan.

After being pronounced Queen of Faerie and then abruptly exiled by the Wicked King Cardan, Jude finds herself unmoored, the queen of nothing. She spends her time with Vivi and Oak, watches her fair share of reality television, and does the odd job or two, including trying to convince a cannibalistic faerie from hunting her own in the mortal world.

When her twin sister Taryn shows up asking of a favor, Jude jumps at the chance to return to the Faerie world, even if it means facing Cardan, who she loves despite his betrayal.

When a dark curse is unveiled, Jude must become the first mortal Queen of Faerie and uncover how to break the curse, or risk upsetting the balance of the whole Faerie world.

Holly Black brings her bestselling series, The Folk of the Air, to a close with the highly anticipated The Queen of Nothing! I wasn't sure what to expect with this one after all the shocks, betrayals, and surprises of The Wicked King. I was essentially unprepared for the magnitude of awesomeness that was about to occur! Needless to say that Holly ends this series with a bang!

We pick things up shortly where they left off, six months later. Jude is still living with her sister Vivi and Oak, as things with Vivi and Heather have turned a little south. Jude is getting by with doing odd jobs for other faeries living on the humanside of the world and is startled when one night after a job she finds her sister, Taryn, waiting at home. Taryn, who betrayed her. Taryn, who now needs her help. Taryn is being questioned in the untimely death of another faerie. She will be put under a geas to tell a truthful testimony and since that presents a problem for her...she needs Jude to go in her place.

Jude has been itching to get back to faerie for some time now. Mostly to confront Cardan and understand why he put her under that ridiculous exile. But of course things never go quite as planned and we learn that there was more to Jude's exile. Jude is soon "rescued" by her father Madoc, who assumes she's Taryn and is whisking her away to safety. There's plans to dethrone Cardan from the crown and take over himself and he wants Taryn aka Jude to help.

This story was mind-blowing!! I will be the first to admit that I did not see these early twists coming! Though I do remember wondering at Cardan's choice in words of her exile and why she was submitting to it, but I'll just push that vagueness aside. It should come as no surprise at all that Cardan knew it was Jude from the getgo, I mean, she is his wife! And just when we're close to getting answers from his, daddy dearest, Madoc sets his "rescue" plan into action. So it was quite flabbergasting to have to wait on that explanation as well! Lol.

I feel like every time I came close to hating Cardan, he does or says something that had me changing my mind! I swear there's a reason why I will never trust a member of the fae! While they cannot lie, they have mastered the art of misdirection! They are cunning and devious and I think that's part of Cardan's appeal in some sense. Yes, he was dreadful in the beginning, but I feel like he's come a long way. There were reasons for some of his actions--some I say.

This was definitely yet another installment that had me turning the pages as fast as I could read! Thankfully I took use of vacation days to do it AND see Holly Black the night after it released! I was over halfway through reading at that point and just wow! I have to say that Holly did a truly remarkable job with ending this one! AND there were teases for the possibility of more to come from this world. Holly might have even personally hinted at this as well because OMG THAT LOOK!!! If you read it, you know the ones I mean!

The romance in this one was yet again, spot on! I kind of love that Cardan and Jude had that love/hate relationship going on. It was complicated and convoluted at the start, but it's turned into something more over the course of the series. And if you haven't already, I would HIGHLY recommend getting the B&N edition of this one too, for the cover alone if anything, but also because there's added bonus content of letters Cardan wrote to Jude during her exile and they are mentioned in the beginning of the story when Cardan outs Jude for being Jude! Lol.

By this point, I'm sure there's thousands of reviews for The Queen of Nothing out there already and there's little more I can add to what's likely being said! If you made it through the first two books of the trilogy, you pretty much have to give the grand finale a go around because after all those cliffhangers, you have to see how it all ends, it will shock and amaze you!

The Queen of Nothing was yet another amazing read from the highly talented Holly Black! I will now be eagerly awaiting for news of her next release! Oh the possibilities...



Overall Rating 5/5 stars