Rue Silver's mother has disappeared . . . and her father has been arrested, suspected of killing her. But it's not as straightforward as that. Because Rue is a faerie, like her mother was. And her father didn't kill her mother -- instead, he broke a promise to Rue's faerie king grandfather, which caused Rue's mother to be flung back to the faerie world. Now Rue must go to save her -- and must also defeat a dark faerie that threatens our very mortal world.
Holly Black is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of over thirty fantasy novels for kids and teens. She has been a finalist for an Eisner Award and the Lodestar Award, and the recipient of the Mythopoeic Award, a Nebula, and a Newbery Honor. Her books have been translated into 32 languages worldwide and adapted for film. She currently lives in New England with her husband and son in a house with a secret library.
Okay so The Cruel Prince NEEDS to be a graphic novel!!
I’m new to graphic novels but I turned to them while in a huge reading slump and I’m glad I did.
I found this little gem randomly at my library, excitedly snatching a Holly Black something, I didn’t care what as long as it was Holly Black, off the shelf. And now I’m kicking myself for not also grabbing books 2 and 3 as well!
I loved it. I couldn’t stop thinking about The Folk of The Air series as a graphic novel edition (like The Mortal instruments!). And how amazing it would be to have basically a book full of gorgeous fan art!
➡️typowe dla Black wróżki, elfy i wróże wyciągnięte z folkloru, więc mroczne, niepokojące i zdecydowanie nieludzkie ➡️czarno-białe sceny i dość oldschoolową kreskę, która sprawia wyglada jak witch po drugiej stronie lustra ➡️nastolatków, którzy wyglądają jak dorośli ➡️satysfakcjonującą historię… ➡️…przedstawioną w niezwykle chaotyczny i niezbyt szczegółowy sposób
Rue's mother has always been a little different. She talks to plants, hangs out naked in the yard and seems ageless. Rue knows her mother is not like other parents. But then, one day when her mom disappears, Rue begins to see strange things- creatures with horns in the coffee shop, a winged girl hanging out in the high school hallway- and she realizes that she's different too.
Where has her mother gone and is Rue going crazy?
"You know how sometimes, when you glance at something out of the corner of your eye, it looks different for a moment? Well, sometimes when I look straight at a thing, it looks weird too. And those moments are stretching wider and wider." pg 5.
I enjoyed the faerie lore in this graphic novel: "If an older mortal is beautiful or good at riddles, we might take them, but we always leave something behind in exchange. Sometimes we glamour wood to take on their appearance or we abandon a faerie in their place." pg 36.
This book deals with surprisingly dark themes so I wouldn't let my tween read it. The story contains (non-explicit) drug use, rape and kidnapping. It should be ok for most mature teens.
The artwork is pretty. The people aren't depicted like normal every day people (especially the faeries) but, for the most part, I don't think the artist over-sexualized the women. That's one of my pet peeves with graphic novels: when they depict females as ridiculously proportioned pin ups. But, like I said, this one isn't over-the-top.
The faeries are quite creepy too: "Let me tell you a story. ... Long ago, mortals called us the fair folk, the people of peace, the good neighbors. They called us these things not because we were fair or peaceful or good, but because they feared us. As they should. As they will again." pg 77
Recommended for readers who like dark fairy tales and fans of Holly Black.
My experience with reading Holly Black has been mixed. My first foray into her work was with the Modern Faerie Tale series - I sadly wasn't terribly fond of them. In grad school, I devoured her Curse Worker trilogy on audio and absolutely loved it. Unfortunately, my reading experience with The Good Neighbors was more akin to when I first read her.
The first problem is the tired and cliché plot. Readers follow Rue, a girl who's always been able to see strange and mysterious things. Her father is accused of murder after her mother dissapears under mysterious circumstances and one of his college students is found dead. Rue is convinced that her father is innocent, so she begins looking for answers: who exactly is her mother? If her father didn't murder the college student, then how did she die? The answers will lead her into discovering a much larger world hiding in plain sight.
Sound familiar? That's because this type of story has been done sooo many times. Sadly, Black's take here didn't anything new or exciting. Also, it's pretty obvious that this was Black's first foray into writing for comics. The dialogue is stilted and unnatural, and the pacing was awful - things happen very quickly, but not in a good way.
The art was a mixed bag for me too. The way Naifeh tries faces is pseudo-realistic, and when it worked, it *worked* and looked great, but when it didn't hurt the mark, it looked very Uncanny Valley. I also wasn't a fan of the B+W look - it made the art look muddy.
The ending redeemed things a bit and I was intrigued by some of the revelations it brought, but ultimately, I don't think I'll be picking up volume 2. I do, however, plan on picking up other works by Holly Black. Hopefully when I do I'll find some of that magic I discovered with her Curse Workers trilogy.
U mnie chyba na pierwszym miejscu będą na zawsze widnieć smoki i syreny. Mają w sobie ten mistyczny i niezwykły urok (no i jestem od dziecka fanką pierwszej części filmu Ostatni Smok oraz Sindbada, więc wszystko mówi samo przez siebie♥️).
Jednakże elfy również od zawsze były bliskie mojego sercu, dlatego też, gdy usłyszałam, że @wydawnictwojaguar planuje wydać powieść graficzną z tym motywem od Holly Black, postanowiłam sięgnąć po tę pozycję.
Jednakże niestety nie zaiskrzyło pomiędzy nami. I tak zaraz usłyszę główny argument — no bo narzekasz na Okrutnego księcia, to oczywiste, że będziesz nastawiona negatywnie.
Tylko w tym cały problem — chciałam dać szansę autorce i historiom, które napisała, bo to, że jedna książka mi się nie spodobała jakoś wybitnie, nie znaczy, że z każdą tak będzie, zważywszy, że nie należy do uniwersum Okrutnego księcia.
Matka Rue zawsze była trochę inna. Znała mowę roślin, często sprawiała wrażenie bycia gdzieś poza czasem, doskonale czuła się na łonie natury i… często pozbywała się ubrań, by nie krępowały jej ruchów. Rue podskórnie czuje, że jej mama różni się od typowych rodziców, aż pewnego dnia, gdy kobieta znika, jej córka zaczyna widzieć dziwne rzeczy – w kawiarni spoglądają na nią istoty nie z tego świata, a skrzydlata dziewczyna jak gdyby nigdy nic przechadza się po korytarzu szkoły średniej! Do Rue powoli zaczyna docierać, że ona także jest inna, zupełnie jak jej mama… W tym samym czasie ojciec dziewczyny zostaje aresztowany pod zarzutem morderstwa!
Jeśli chodzi o kreskę komiksu, jest bardzo specyficzny, mroczny i klimatyczny. Jednakże fabuła, która zostaje tu opowiedziana, niestety nie porwała mnie. Od początku wiadomo, że dziewczyna nie jest stuprocentową śmiertelniczką, a historia wydaje się płytka i prostolinijna. Nasza bohaterka wydaje się trochę za bardzo nijaka, którą niby obchodzi, co się dzieje z jej matką, ale nie szuka jej i nic nie robi, bo uważa, że kiedyś wróci. Dodatkowo bardzo szybko nauczyła się używać swoich umiejętności, choć nigdy ich nie używała, co w sumie jest dla mnie wręcz nielogiczne. choć końcówka historii była o wiele bardziej intrygująca, to jednak nie wiem, czy będę kontynuować swoją przygodę z tą serią. Mam bardzo mieszane uczucia, choć czytałam tę pozycję w styczniu. Możliwe, że do tego czasu trochę zmienię zdanie i będę bardziej zainteresowana, by poznać ciąg dalszy losów Rue.
Jednakże to nie zmienia faktu, że moja ocena pierwszego tomu to 3/5 🌟
Why can't finding out you're half faery ever be a good thing? This angst fuelled yarn starts depressingly with a disappearance and a murder charge. It pretty much just gets progressively darker with little to no character development. The illustrations aren't good enough to save it. Its pretty and awful.
Zacznijmy od plusów – będzie szybciej 🙃 Podoba mi się kreska, ostra, poszarpana, pełna cieni, twarze przypominające naturalne krzywizny i proporcje zróżnicowanych twarzy ludzkich i mimiki, a nie ładniutkie, delikatne, gładziutkie, jak teraz wszędzie, gdzie wszyscy wyglądają podobnie. Jednak fabuła... No nic się tu kupy nie trzymało. Bohaterka i jej ziomeczeki są irytujący od pierwszych stron. Dialogi – mega sztuczne, nie wiadomo, kto o czym gada, co wie, o co mu w ogóle chodzi. Sama akcja jest porywana, poszczególne sceny po prostu się od czapy zaczynają i w ten sam sposób kończą. Nie ma tu żadnej ciągłości, żadnego związku przyczynowo-skutkowego, dzieją się rzeczy, ale nie wiadomo dlaczego, wszystko szybko i bez większego ładu i składu, często też kompletnie bez sensu. No nie, nie.
This story is somewhat interesting though unoriginal, and it jumps around and tries to pack in WAY too much for a graphic novel. Artwork was ugly and inconsistent to the point where the main character remarks "that's the boy from the coffee shop" and I thought, "really?" and flipped back and they sort of look the same. The main character's face changes so often and gives such ugly expressions that it pulled me out of the story. I'm sorry, but I want nice artwork when I'm reading a graphic novel otherwise I'd just, you know, read a novel.
Will continue since I've got the next two out from the library, but so far not all that impressed. I think this would've made a better novella.
A teenage girl finds out she is part Faery. Sound familiar? That's because it has occurred in scores of YA fantasies, including earlier works by this same author. As a story, this is fine, but all the elements were too familiar to me from previous reading. Turning it into a graphic novel is a somewhat novel approach, but I wasn't that impressed by the execution of the artwork. The drawing style suits the story, but the many of the characters looked too much the same, and too old for high school.
Also -- and this is a totally nerdy objection -- I was kind of irked by how they brought in the story of Bridget Cleary. I'm sure they just picked this case because it is well documented in studies that are easily available, but to me that makes it all the more lazy. There are many other cases of people killed as changelings, why pick the one which is most ambiguous about the people involved actually believing that the victim was a fairy? Look: the standard historical and sociological understand of "changelings" is that poor people could not take care of mentally or physically handicapped children, or other family members who couldn't work (senile grandparents, crazy uncles, whomever) and so they killed them. For understandable psychological reasons, no one wants to admit to themselves that they are killing their child, so they convince themselves it is not their own baby but a wicked copy left by supernatural creatures. Probably many individuals managed to believe that the baby really was a fairy. One of the reasons the Cleary case is so studied is that it was much more questionable, even at the time, whether the husband actually thought his wife had been stolen or whether he was using an opportunity to kill her because they had been having marital problems. Bridget was an independent young woman who had more education and a better job than the rest of her family and community. She didn't have children and she didn't listen to her husband. It is far more likely that the people around her were acting to "put her in her place" or punish her for trying to better herself than that they actually believed she was a fairy. Also, whatever the motives of her husband, it was a horrible tragedy in which a young woman was burned to death by her loved ones; I don't think it is appropriate to casually reduce this event to evidence for fairies in a fantasy novel. And lastly, there are multiple photographs of everyone involved in the crime, so the artist could have taken five minutes to look them up instead of making up younger and hipper appearances for historical people.
Bardzo mnie zaskoczyła ta historia. Być może momentami fabuła wyskoczyła za szybko i pewne luki fabularne można dostrzec, aczkolwiek i tak byłem dość mocno zaangażowany i zaciekawiony rozwojem fabuły. Bardzo fajna czarno-biała kreska, idealnie wkomponowuje się w całą historię. Jest mrocznie i to czuć od początku. Niby historia o elfach, ale pewna groza i horror wisi w powietrzu i to dodatkowo mnie przyciąga.
This was a decent enough read although I think I personally have aged out of Black's particular style of teenage scumbag meets faerie world story lines. If my library had the next volume I would probably check it out but I definitely didn't like it enough to buy the rest of the series. Still, if you are really into her Modern Faerie Tales series I think this will be right up your alley.
This book is not that good to be honest, a lot of stuff does not make any sense and got me confused . Well is her dad is a killer?? Is she crazy and her mom is?? I don’t recommend you to read this book because it like you in a maze and you can’t get out of it.
Rue Silver's mother has just disappeared, her father has been arrested under suspicion of killing one of his graduate students. Things get worse when Rue starts seeing things that shouldn't be there -- strange people with animal heads and vines that cover whole buildings overnight. You see, Rue's mother is a faerie, and Rue's father broke a promise that he made to the faerie king, who is ready to take revenge for this slight out on the entire human race.
Writer Holly Black already has a strong following with her work on The Spiderwick Chronicles and Tithe, and the world she creates here -- in which hip, sexy humans mingle with magic and ancient elves -- will probably have wide appeal for teens. Additionally, the mysterious disappearances that drive the story promise their share of intrigue and suspense.
It's too bad, then, that this book just isn't any good. The characters are flat and under-developed, the dialog is stilted, and the terrible threat that the bad faeries supposedly pose to the human race is never revealed. The main character pulls insight into her magical new reality out of thin air, and relationships between characters go totally unexplained. Worst of all it seems that Black has no idea how comics work as a story-telling medium, and with no sense of pacing or purpose the story clunks along until it... ends. The book sports some moody and evocative black-and-white art by Ted Naifeh, but without a good story to back it up, it feels like an afterthought.
If you've got teen readers in your library that are dying for more Holly Black, then by all means pick this up. However, there are much better fantasy comics out there and I'd advise pushing your patrons toward something -- anything -- else instead.
Nie obrażając miłośników powieści graficznych czy komiksów, ale CO TO BYŁO ZA GÓWNO... Cena jak z kosmosu, a treść tak nijaka, że czuję się obrażona na 100 żyć wstecz i jeszcze 200 przyszłych. Po pierwsze: myślałam, że grafika będzie w kolorze i to było pierwsze, co mnie uderzyło. Nie uznałam jednak tego za wadę, ponieważ jest to pewnie zamysł twórców. Po drugie: te suche dialogi... matko święta... i strasznie chaotyczne. Po trzecie: niezbyt dobra kreska, czasem rysunki były naprawdę kiepskie. Po czwarte: wydarzenia urywające się w połowie "akcji". Przestałam cokolwiek ogarniać. Wiem, że to nie moja bajka, ale liczyłam na adekwatny do swojej wartości smaczek dla fanów Okrutnego księcia i całego uniwersum, a dostałam mało zrozumiałą grafikę, która pozostawiła jeszcze więcej pytań niż odpowiedzi. Może jakby to było grubsze, bardziej wyraziste, sensowniejsze, to nie czułabym takiego żalu. Dla mnie to coś zrobione "na kolanie", żeby zarobić pieniądze (nie piję w żaden sposób do Jaguara). Zresztą Black to się musiała strasznie napracować przy tych dialogach, czułam się jeszcze bardziej zniesmaczona niż przy "Sercu Trolla". Może jeśli ktoś się zna na komiksach i powieściach graficznych, to będzie zadowolony, ale jeśli ktoś sięga pierwszy raz, to nie polecam. Pieniądze totalnie wyrzucone w błoto. Fuj!
While this was interesting storyline, but this was just to short for my tastes. I didn't care much for the artist either, his lines were to sharp and shading to dark. It's one of the main reasons I don't hold with buying Graphic Novels or comics. They're over priced and/or to short. So how was I finally able to read this? Local Library of course. Now though I'm wondering if they even have the next two volumes. I don't recommend unless you have all three volumes; if you do then knock yourself out!
To be honest at the beginning of this story I was not fond of it. Even though I know Ted Naifeh is capable of incredible art, the art in the book just looked ugly to me (at one point I figured this was just to unnerve the reader as the story went from confused teen to something darker.) Still...between some of these faces, at least one moment when I thought one of Rue's friends hands was getting large like he was ready for a Foo Fighter video (upper left panel on page 31 where his hand seems larger than those twig arms should be able to support), and for some reason one of her friends has a very similar if not identical style of hair to Rue's father when he was younger which came off as weird but also speaks of a lack of originality at points in the book like when she keeps returning to the same dress she wore at the beginning of the book.
All in all the story is not bad but sometimes it feels rushed at certain points and jarring at others when the scenes might shift suddenly just so we the readers don't know what Rue may or may not know by the end of the volume. If you can get past this kind of narrative short cut and can tolerate or even enjoy the artwork (at least the characters are expressive so that is a plus) then there is an interesting story here though for once I wish it was in non-graphic form instead.
Mam wrażenie, że ta książka była bardzo mało konkretna i...taka od niechcenia?
Nie wiem trochę mi się to nie kleiło. Bohaterowie mnie w ogóle nie interesowali, ale na szczęście na tym minusy się kończą.
🧚🏻♀️🧌🧝🏻♂️
Klimat tej historii był bardzo jesienny, mroczny, natura grała dużą rolę, a magię było czuć bardzo wyraźnie. Podobało mi się, że elfy, były czasami widoczne w tle, bylo też kilka motywów, które sprawiały, że miałam wrażenie jakbym czytała baśń.
🥀🍂🌿
Poszukam kolejnych tomów, ale jeśli ich nie znajdę to nie będzie mi szkoda.
Ughhh I just adore Holly Black 😍 Not gonna lie though, I was a bit skeptical about this book before reading it since I’m usually not a big graphic novel reader, but it turns out that Holly Black + graphic novel = super immersive world and very enjoyable story. All the qualities I love about her as an author translate very well into this format.
Da die Elfenkrone Reihe von Holly Black zu meinen Lieblingsreihen zählt dachte ich mal ich probier was neues von ihr aus. Düstere Stimmung, geheimnisvolle und gefährliche Feen, ich mochte es ganz gern für zwischendurch🖤