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A review by shaun_trinh
How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black
3.0
Overall rating is a 3.5
Here I am again to write my review for another Holly Black book.
Going into this book you need to know what the book is meant to be, a novella. Don't expect super in-depth, full-fledged story and character arcs from it because that's not what the book is intended to offer. It's supposed to be a light-hearted story that gives an extra layer and increased understanding to Cardan's character, and a glimpse to where he is as a person post, The Queen of Nothing.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. The illustrations were absolutely amazing and had a great art style. I thought the story with Aslog was a nice over-arching theme to follow and I liked how Cardan shows his character growth through a story of his own. Though Aslog's conclusion in the story didn't feel complete, but abruptly frozen after Cardan escaped, just as she was turned to stone. I did also enjoy the snippets of Cardan and Jude being together, as well as him being in the mortal world. It was endearing
With all of that said, I do have mixed feelings about the flashback stories. While they all chronologically all made sense and Cardan's thought process made sense; to me most of the flashbacks that didn't include Aslog's stories felt like they were hanging on to relevance by a strand. Now they do all have some semblance of reason to be mentioned, it just feels too loose. The scenes with Cardan and his brother make sense to be there with the mini-story that's being weaved of cruelty, change, and controlling ones story. But when we get to the flashback scenes that focus on Cardan and Jude, they just seem to be there for the sake of giving them page time. Which I love, I would love to have another novella more committed to the two of them together in the same format or something else, but with the story of this book presented their flashback scenes held very little relevance. Now the scenes with Nicastia, Locke, and Valerian do have more reason to be mentioned in the story, but it feels like their scenes account to nothing really meaningful that we didn't either already know or could infer. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed them, but as I kept reading I was wondering how these scenes actually fit into Cardan's character with the stories he's being told.
So to recap my overall thoughts, loved Cardan, loved Aslog and their stories, loved all of the illustrations, liked all of the flash back scenes with Cardan's perspective, though I just wish they were written into the overall plot of this Novella better. I don't regret my purchase at all, I'm always happy to read more of these characters and this universe, and I hope Holly Black comes back to this series to give them even more spotlight.
Here I am again to write my review for another Holly Black book.
Going into this book you need to know what the book is meant to be, a novella. Don't expect super in-depth, full-fledged story and character arcs from it because that's not what the book is intended to offer. It's supposed to be a light-hearted story that gives an extra layer and increased understanding to Cardan's character, and a glimpse to where he is as a person post, The Queen of Nothing.
Overall, I enjoyed this book. The illustrations were absolutely amazing and had a great art style. I thought the story with Aslog was a nice over-arching theme to follow and I liked how Cardan shows his character growth through a story of his own. Though Aslog's conclusion in the story didn't feel complete, but abruptly frozen after Cardan escaped, just as she was turned to stone. I did also enjoy the snippets of Cardan and Jude being together, as well as him being in the mortal world. It was endearing
With all of that said, I do have mixed feelings about the flashback stories. While they all chronologically all made sense and Cardan's thought process made sense; to me most of the flashbacks that didn't include Aslog's stories felt like they were hanging on to relevance by a strand. Now they do all have some semblance of reason to be mentioned, it just feels too loose. The scenes with Cardan and his brother make sense to be there with the mini-story that's being weaved of cruelty, change, and controlling ones story. But when we get to the flashback scenes that focus on Cardan and Jude, they just seem to be there for the sake of giving them page time. Which I love, I would love to have another novella more committed to the two of them together in the same format or something else, but with the story of this book presented their flashback scenes held very little relevance. Now the scenes with Nicastia, Locke, and Valerian do have more reason to be mentioned in the story, but it feels like their scenes account to nothing really meaningful that we didn't either already know or could infer. Don't get me wrong I enjoyed them, but as I kept reading I was wondering how these scenes actually fit into Cardan's character with the stories he's being told.
So to recap my overall thoughts, loved Cardan, loved Aslog and their stories, loved all of the illustrations, liked all of the flash back scenes with Cardan's perspective, though I just wish they were written into the overall plot of this Novella better. I don't regret my purchase at all, I'm always happy to read more of these characters and this universe, and I hope Holly Black comes back to this series to give them even more spotlight.