#Honestly the duality of teen girl: murder and anguish

[slumbering-shadows]

Personally I think the appeal of the Folk Of The Air series (or the cruel prince, whichever you call it) is that the protagonist is just straight up fucked up. Like she's not as outwardly bastardly as darling Kaz Brekker (another groundbreaking protagonist, imo) but Jude Duarte is 12 shades of Horrible and she is mostly unapologetic about it. She's like 17 years old and has a shockingly high body count. She stole a whole ass kingdom. She almost murdered her own sister over a boy. She poisons herself willingly. She watched her parents die in front of her and is more upset that the man who killed them won't take her seriously than the fact that HE KILLED HER PARENTS IN FRONT OF HER. (daaaad you just don't UNDERSTAND). She spent her whole life learning how to read between the lines to avoid shitty faerie bargains and misses a super obvious one because she thinks her boyfriend (husband??) just dumped her so she watches Yuri On Ice with a pint of Ice cream and cries about it. She beat the shit out of a cannibalistic ex General with a rusty metal pipe with such ferocity that said cannibal became one of her most trusted advisors. Everything she does is deeply fucked up and cool and also reeks of the rage that somehow builds up when you are, tragically, a like 17 year old girl. Her twin sister is supposedly so much more calm and collected and well adjusted until one day she shows up in tears like "help I killed my husband that you hate" just straight up stabbed him one day. Because she is also suffering from being a like 17 year old girl. It's so funny. I love these books.