How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories Book Review

From Goodreads: An irresistible return to the captivating world of Elfhame.

Once upon a time, there was a boy with a wicked tongue.

Before he was a cruel prince or a wicked king, he was a faerie child with a heart of stone . Revealing a deeper look into the dramatic life of Elfhame’s enigmatic high king, Cardan, his tale includes delicious details of life before The Cruel Prince, an adventure beyond The Queen of Nothing, and familiar moments from The Folk of the Air trilogy, told wholly from Cardan’s perspective.

This new installment in the Folk of the Air series is a return to the heart-racing romance, danger, humor, and drama that enchanted readers everywhere. Each chapter is paired with lavish and luminous full-color art, making this the perfect collector’s item to be enjoyed by both new audiences and old.

I wanted to start by thanking my wonderful and bookish friend, Layla, for sending this novel my way! Layla is a fantastic bookstagrammer, and if you have a moment, you should totally go and check her content over at @readablelife !

God, do I love a good Holly Black novel. She writes such detailed and well-researched fairy tales and fantasy, and it just always manages to resonate so well with traditional folk tales and things. So the idea of a short story collection based on her Folk of the Air series, sounded like perfection!

It’s quite a short collection, only around 200 pages or so. The illustrations for each story are straight up gorgeous, and honestly the physical copy of the book might be worth it just for that. It reminded me a lot of my childhood Brothers Grimm book. The art works wonderfully with the themes and styles of the tales, and it just ties the whole collection together perfectly!

You can also read the stories without knowledge of the original trilogy too, which was nice. I have read them (and reviewed them!) but I’ve recently been re-reading a lot for upcoming series, and I wasn’t in the mood to go back through the whole trilogy for the collection. No worries! It’s perfectly readable without a re-read, or without having read the original series. How the King… does have some spoilers for the trilogy though, so if you feel like this is up your alley, I would advise leaving it til last.

The stories were quite short, but I loved that there were little threads that tied them all together. And it just felt very fairy tale-esque. The writing style, the format, the pictures, everything worked together here. It’s not the most thought-provoking or amazing book that I’ve ever read, but admittedly I’m not a huge fan of short story collections, and this one was a lot kinder on me than some others have been. It was nice to check back in with familiar characters, and to have some updates on their lives after the series, and some extra backstory for what they were like prior to the trilogy too!

Overall, I’m giving How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was a cute read, and I loved how closely the collection mirrored traditional fairy story collections. It was a fun and easy read, and I appreciated that it was easy to pick up in spite of not re-reading the trilogy in recent memory. Admittedly, short stories are not always my cup of tea, but this one was a cute read. If you like fairy tales, especially ones with a touch of darkness and wit, this one is for you!

Has anyone else read this book or plans to? What do you think about it? Let me know by joining in the discussion in the comments section down below! <3