The Queen of Nothing by Holly Black

The Queen of Nothing is the third and final book to The Folk of the Air trilogy and the dark tale of Jude Duarte and her sisters, and their struggle as mortal in a Faerie world. Please note that his review contains spoilers, so don’t continue reading if you haven’t yet read the book or the previous books in the series!

This book has received some mixed reviews, but I honestly do not understand why. I loved this book and thought that it was a perfect finale to the trilogy. It was fast-paced (I finished it in one sitting) and it had action, twists and intrigues that kept you hooked until the very end. I actually think this was the best of all three books in the series, but that might be because I’ve had some mixed feelings about Jude and Cardan’s relationship previously.

Spoiler: The second book ended with Cardan, High King of Elfame, making Jude his Queen, only to exiling her and shoving her back into the human world. Now, even though they started off from a bad place, we eventually got to see them shedding their armor and opening up to each other, showing more affection and softer sides. In my review for the second book, I said that “I can’t see their relationship ever becoming a good one. There will always be this unhealthy undercurrent, a hint of violence and abuse, that you don’t want anyone ever get caught up in.” But I think I have to take that back now. The way the relationship evolved in this third book, with Cardan being vulnerable and admitting his true feelings changed all that.

All in all, this book wrapped up the series in a very satisfying way and made me like the characters even more than I did before. I definitely recommend it and even think that it might be my favorite book of all three in the series.

​Find out more about the book and the author here: Holly Black