{"id":38848,"date":"2021-02-22T00:38:30","date_gmt":"2021-02-22T04:38:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=38848"},"modified":"2021-02-22T00:38:47","modified_gmt":"2021-02-22T04:38:47","slug":"review-of-how-the-king-of-elfhame-learned-to-hate-stories-by-holly-black-illustrated-by-rovina-cai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/?p=38848","title":{"rendered":"Review of How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories, by Holly Black, illustrated by Rovina Cai"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/king_of_elfhame_large.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/king_of_elfhame_large.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"165\" height=\"250\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-38998\" \/><\/a><em>How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories<\/em><\/p>\n<p>by Holly Black<br \/>\nillustrated by Rovina Cai<\/p>\n<p>Little, Brown and Company, 2020.  173 pages.<br \/>\nReview written January 19, 2021, from a library book<br \/>\nStarred Review<\/p>\n<p>Oh, this is marvelous!  It\u2019s an illustrated novella for teens.  And why shouldn\u2019t teens get illustrations in beautifully printed books?<\/p>\n<p>This is for people who have read the author\u2019s <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/cruel_prince.html\">Folk of the Air<\/a><\/em> trilogy.  The book begins after that trilogy ends, with Cardan and Jude making a visit to the mortal world to fight a monster \u2013 but gives us much of the back story of Cardan, King of Elfhame, when he was growing up as a young and out-of-favor prince of faerie.<\/p>\n<p>The book reads like a fairy tale, with an inner story \u2013 the one Cardan learned to hate \u2013 repeated three times, with significant variations.<\/p>\n<p>It also has a confrontation at the end that requires cleverness in order to come out alive.<\/p>\n<p>This is a lovely reading experience for all Holly Black\u2019s fans.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blackholly.com\/\">blackholly.com<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.lbyr.com\/\">lbyr.com<\/a><br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thenovl.com\/\">thenovl.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/exec\/obidos\/ASIN\/0316540889\/sonderbooksco-20\" target=\"outside\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Buy from Amazon.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Find this review on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\">Sonderbooks<\/a> at: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/king_of_elfhame.html\">www.sonderbooks.com\/Teens\/king_of_elfhame.html<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.<\/p>\n<p>Disclaimer:  I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/share\" class=\"twitter-share-button\" data-count=\"none\" data-via=\"Sonderbooks\">Tweet<\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"http:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>What did you think of this book?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories by Holly Black illustrated by Rovina Cai Little, Brown and Company, 2020. 173 pages. Review written January 19, 2021, from a library book Starred Review Oh, this is marvelous! It\u2019s an illustrated novella for teens. And why shouldn\u2019t teens get illustrations in beautifully printed books? This [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,42,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38848","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fantasy","category-starred-review","category-teen-fiction-review"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=38848"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39001,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38848\/revisions\/39001"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=38848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=38848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sonderbooks.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=38848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}