The Queen of Nothing – Holly Black

The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The Queen of Nothing is the third and final book in Holly Black’s The Folk of the Air series. I started the series with the Cruel Prince, which I enjoyed but was not one of my top few books of the year. Then I read the Wicked King and I fell in love. The author hit her stride by the second book and I was completely engrossed in the world and her characters. I had originally not connected strongly with any of her characters in the first book, but by the second and third books in the series, I loved so many of them. The Queen of Nothing was perhaps even better than the Wicked King – although I thought both of them were fantastic reads and they were some of my favourites for the year. As this is the third book in the series, there may be spoilers for the previous two books.

Jude is a fantastic character because I originally didn’t like her and now I follow her story with rapt attention. What will she do next? Who will she trick, betray, and lie to in order to get what she wants? How will she handle the fallout from the end of the Wicked King? Even more amazingly, Holly made me fall in love with Cardan, a character that I disliked as much as Jude disliked him in the Cruel Prince. He was capricious, cruel, and prone to unkind acts just because he was bored. Over the course of the series we learn that he has had a hard life, although that does not excuse the cruelty it lets you understand why he is the way that he is a little more. But you also learn that he is cunning, funny, and charming in a way that’s not a trick or a ploy, just something that you don’t know until you know him.

I cannot decide if I found the plot of the Wicked King or the Queen of Nothing more compelling, but I was completely engrossed in both. The pacing was good and kept you engaged the entire time, from tense moments in Faerie to battles to the moral world. I began the Queen of Nothing as an audiobook (and the narrator does a fantastic job with this series, I would highly recommend it) but finished it by reading my physical copy. I was so engaged in the story that I picked up the book when I got home and couldn’t go to bed before I finished it that night. The ending was incredibly satisfying and I am happy with how the story played out. I will miss this story and the world immensely, but I hope that we can see more of these characters in the future even in novella form.

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