The Queen of Nothing (Folk of the Air, #3)

by Holly Black

GOODREADS BEST FANTASY YA 2020. The intoxicating and bloodthirsty finale to the New York Times bestselling The Cruel Prince, nominated for the CARNEGIE MEDAL, and New York Times bestseller The Wicked King, Best YA Fantasy in the Goodreads Choice Awards 2019.

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, watching reality television, and doing odd jobs, including squaring up to a cannibalistic faerie.

When her twin sister Taryn shows up asking a favour, 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 break the curse, or risk upsetting the balance of the whole Faerie world.

• ISBN10: 1471407586
• ISBN13: 9781471407581
• Publish Date: 19 November 2019
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Hot Key Books
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 320
• Language: English

Reviews

[Witty and Sarcastic Bookclub]

**Spoilers for books The Cruel Prince and The Wicked King below**


Here’s the thing: I’ve read several other books by Holly Black. My son and I read the middle-grade Magisterium series that she co-authored with Cassandra Clare. We both loved it. I’m bummed to say that this book just didn’t butter my biscuit. Not to say that Holly Black can’t write: she’s a very talented writer. I just didn’t care for what she did with this book.

That being said, she did make a few choices that showed her writing chops. I think the best way to write this particular review is to list the things I liked, followed by the things I didn’t. Spoiler-free for this book, but it does have spoilers for the first two books in the trilogy. Here we go:

Things I liked:

-I liked the wickedness and capriciousness of Faerie. Faeries in lore tend to range between mischievous and downright nasty, so this sat well with me.
– I enjoyed the riddles and prophecies that needed to be puzzled through. It was fun trying to figure them out before the characters did.
-The nasty critter that showed up was pretty stinking cool (that’s all I’m saying, so as not to spoil anything).

Things that didn’t work for me:

-The mush, gush, and angst. Zoinks! It became very tiresome very quickly.
– Locke is my favorite character ( I know, he’s a jerk. But he’s an interesting jerk), and I wanted to see more of him in the series, not less.
– In many places, the dialogue was so bad it was ridiculous. It tended to descend into absolute obnoxiousness any time Jude and Cardan spoke together. If they were separate, it wasn’t too bad. Again, this goes back to the mush and the gush. It just became too much for me.
– There was a lot of time spent on describing different outfits and hairstyles. I mean, a lot. And since my idea of dressing up means wearing a skirt with ye random nerdy t-shirt, I got bored long before the descriptions stopped.

I’m assuming it’s obvious at this point that this book was not one I loved. However, I’m pretty sure I’m in the minority on this one.

Have you read it? What did you think?

https://wittyandsarcasticbookclub.home.blog/2020/01/10/the-queen-of-nothing-by-holly-black/

[leahrosereads]

Fantastic ending to the trilogy! I finally got what most everyone seemed to get in Book 1. Really loved these characters by the end, especially Jude. I feel like I've been hard on her, but just look at that growth!

Carden and Oak may have stolen the show here! I just really liked every single time they were on page.

[thepunktheory]

Full review on my blog!

I loved it. I loved it all the way through.
After devouring the first two books I couldn't wait to find out how the story would end.
Just read my reviews for The Cruel Prince and The Wicked King and you'll know exactly how much I enjoyed those novels.
Let me get this straight: The Queen of Nothing is by no means flawless. There actually is something I have to criticize but we'll get to that in a moment.
First of all, I was excited that we got to return to Faerie. What Holly Black did in terms of world building is wonderful and magical.
Furthermore, Jude is one of my all-time favorite characters, so any book about her can only make me happy.
The dynamic between her and Cardan is absolutely transfixing and I was really curious as to how things would play out in the final book.

Anyway, here's the one thing that irked me: is everybody in Faerie a little daft? We all know by now how important (and how literal) words/promises and prophecies are. How is it possible that nobody figures out the answers to the riddles? To be honest as reader you will pick up pretty fast were Black is going with this. I didn't mind all that much though. Even though some aspects of the plot were a bit obvious the book is very well written and intriguing.

[Stephanie]

Ssssssssssnake.

[whisperingchapters]

I really enjoyed this one a lot. The ending was too quick for my liking, but it was still enjoyable.

[liz089]

Woow.. that was a perfect ending !!! LOVED IT !!
This whole series is great, love the characters, they go through a lot of character development and are all precious in their own way. The Faerieland is very creepy, eerie setting.
The plot is interesting and filled with plottwists. Love that I don't know what is going to happen, it keeps me guessing what their next move is going to be, awesome !! Even getting towards the ending, I was really afraid what was going to happen and really wanted them to get what they wanted. I was really invested and finished the book the same day !
Also, she shows how a series do not need to be 600/800 pages per book to make it great.
Holly Black has become one of my favourite authors, can't wait to see what she is going to come up with next !!

[Djilan]

I was so happy when this book arrived! I was looking forward to it all year!
The last 2 months I haven't read much, just wasn't into it, but this book I devoured. Once I started it was very hard to put away every night.

I was really happy with this third part of the story and how it ended. The only reason I didn't give 5 stars is that I think in some parts I missed a bit of depth to the story compared to the first two books and some of the tension. So, I would have loved a few pages more to read ;)

But still, I really loved the whole trilogy! I'm sure I will be re-reading it in the future!

[Emma (SCR)]

This review was originally posted on Star Crossed Reviews So I was late to the party for this series and I only read the first book at the end of last year just before the second book came out in January 2019. I have been so so excited about this third book and when the publication was brought forward I was beyond stoked!

I'm going, to be honest, and say I did not love this as much as the first two. I won't spoil it for those that haven't read it yet but the 'black moment' I did not get it! I know others loved it but then there are some out there like me who just did not understand.

I thought the whole story was rushed. The audio is 9 hours and I think the written version is about 300 pages or so. I expected so much more for the ending of this story.

Holly's usual writing style was there but I realised I was over halfway through and quite honestly nothing had really happened. I am so so disappointed with the ending but it wouldn't put me off reading more of Holly's work in the future because I know her writing can be so much more.

[Laurie]

Review posted on https://lauriesbookshelf.com
On November 19, the final installment of the "the folk of the air" series by Holly Black was released. The queen of nothing was supposed to release in January 2020, but we got lucky and got it two months earlier. I immediately started this book, did I like it as much as I had hoped for? Note: this review contains spoilers for both The cruel prince and The wicked king.











After reading The wicked King with its huge cliffhanger, my expectations for The queen of nothing were really high. I loved this book, but I have some issues with it still. The writing was good, so was the world building. However, Some things could have been more exciting, mindblowing, nervewrecking and most off all wrapped up better.



At the start of The queen of nothing, Jude is in exile in the mortal world. Not long after that, something happened and we meet Grima Mog. Grima Mog will play a very important role later in the book. After that, something else happened and Jude is back in Faerie again. However, things fall a little flat from there.



The story turns kind of predictable and moreover, kind of shallow. There are a few battles to fight, but they seem very easy and quick. I mean, people win so quickly and where are the victims? Deaths? In this book there is a twist that seems stolen from a very famous fairytale and I am wondering where Holly Black's creativity has disappeared. Furthermore, what about character development? It felt all a little rushed. Cardan talks about letters written to Jude while she was in the mortal world, but those letters are briefly mentioned and therefore it feels kind of weird that Cardan turns from hater to lover real real quick. I heard those letters are printed in the Barnes & Noble exclusive edition, but this way, most readers don't get to read them. For these readers - including myself - this character development is poorly excecuted because those missing letters play a very crucial role in the story and in the relationship between Cardan and Jude. And then there was something else. What happened to one character who did something completely criminal? They seem to get away with it? Hmmmmmmmm. You see why The queen of nothing was quite underwhelming and not a 5 star read right?



When the end of the story came near, it felt all so poorly excecuted as well. The battle was superfast, just a few pages. Furthermore, the end seemed all positive and lovely, but for me it was a poor wrap-up, done way too quickly. I wished for more, I needed more, the story deserved more. For me, The wicked king is the best book in the entire series and a second book being a favorite is very rare. I loved the world of this series, but the finale could have been much mor explosive.







Have you read any book in this series yet?
This review was originally posted on Laurie's Bookshelf

[lauriesbookshelf]

Review posted on https://lauriesbookshelf.com
On November 19, the final installment of the "the folk of the air" series by Holly Black was released. The queen of nothing was supposed to release in January 2020, but we got lucky and got it two months earlier. I immediately started this book, did I like it as much as I had hoped for? Note: this review contains spoilers for both The cruel prince and The wicked king.











After reading The wicked King with its huge cliffhanger, my expectations for The queen of nothing were really high. I loved this book, but I have some issues with it still. The writing was good, so was the world building. However, Some things could have been more exciting, mindblowing, nervewrecking and most off all wrapped up better.



At the start of The queen of nothing, Jude is in exile in the mortal world. Not long after that, something happened and we meet Grima Mog. Grima Mog will play a very important role later in the book. After that, something else happened and Jude is back in Faerie again. However, things fall a little flat from there.



The story turns kind of predictable and moreover, kind of shallow. There are a few battles to fight, but they seem very easy and quick. I mean, people win so quickly and where are the victims? Deaths? In this book there is a twist that seems stolen from a very famous fairytale and I am wondering where Holly Black's creativity has disappeared. Furthermore, what about character development? It felt all a little rushed. Cardan talks about letters written to Jude while she was in the mortal world, but those letters are briefly mentioned and therefore it feels kind of weird that Cardan turns from hater to lover real real quick. I heard those letters are printed in the Barnes & Noble exclusive edition, but this way, most readers don't get to read them. For these readers - including myself - this character development is poorly excecuted because those missing letters play a very crucial role in the story and in the relationship between Cardan and Jude. And then there was something else. What happened to one character who did something completely criminal? They seem to get away with it? Hmmmmmmmm. You see why The queen of nothing was quite underwhelming and not a 5 star read right?



When the end of the story came near, it felt all so poorly excecuted as well. The battle was superfast, just a few pages. Furthermore, the end seemed all positive and lovely, but for me it was a poor wrap-up, done way too quickly. I wished for more, I needed more, the story deserved more. For me, The wicked king is the best book in the entire series and a second book being a favorite is very rare. I loved the world of this series, but the finale could have been much mor explosive.







Have you read any book in this series yet?
This review was originally posted on Laurie's Bookshelf