Without having read any of his novels or short stories, I've now read King's memoir on his craft cover to cover. If his fiction is anything like his nonfiction, I'm gonna have to get over my squeamishness of horror and read one of his less paranormal tales. I didn't have too many expectations when I started reading this apart from a hope that I'd take away at least one helpful tidbit of writing advice or encouragement. What I didn't expect was for King to state nearly right off the bat that nothing in the book would truly be linear. I think that proves to be more of a half truth, since the three main sections of the book deal with comparatively different topics while still managing to keep King's perspective on writing and living the life of a writer at their centers. The first section set me up for an entire book of sparsely connected anecdotes and (sometimes) far fetched stories of adolescence, which I was quickly on board with. Most of what we learn about life and its creative trades is through stories, after all. But then the meat of the book, practically titled On Writing, made it clear for this reader that I would get some clear-cut writing advice and discussions on the craft before reaching the last page. The way this advice is given, though, stands out to me the most. You might expect as prolific and recognizable an author as Stephen King to throw down advice from his throne without much humility or self-awareness. That's a bit harsh, but I was prepared for it nonetheless. But King advertises his advice and tips as what he's found to work for him, and not some sort of one size fits all for every single individual who happens to like writing enough to give it a go and​ pick up this book. Because I was encouraged to take every tidbit with a grain of salt, I was more inclined to actually set them aside for later in the metaphorical toolbox King illustrates masterfully. The advice and tips are also developed with examples, hypotheticals, and anecdotes that make it impossible to forget the entire first section you spent your time reading to get acquainted with King's rejection slips, substance abuse, and financial struggles. The third distinct section tied it all in a bow for me. King gets meta on us, and I appreciated as well as admired the risk. He explains to his readers that in the midst of struggling to finish the very book they're holding, its author nearly died. And even after leaving a very real brush with death in the past, physical pain and healing consumed his future -- and the book still wasn't done. My respect for nonfiction authors increases every time I can sense that they genuinely strove for total honestly in their work. Needless to say, my respect for King increased here without a doubt. And the short prose he uses to detail his gruesome accident and its aftermath had me hooked. As I write forward and onward, I'll keep King's words of wisdom as well as the fun, raw, and witty stories from his life in mind. I'm sure I'll get around to reading one of his novels sooner rather than later.


Some of my favorite quotes from On Writing:

​"...good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky."

"Writing is a lonely job. Having someone who believes in you makes a lot of difference. They don't have to make speeches. Just believing is usually enough."

"Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around."

"...books are a uniquely portable magic."

"At such times I find a book vital. If I have to spend time in purgatory before going to one place or the other, I guess I'll be all right as long as there's a lending library."

"Come to it any way but lightly. Let me say it again: you must not come lightly to the blank page."

"I believe the road to hell is paved with adverbs, and I will shout it from the rooftops." (lol)

"I'm convinced that fear is at the root of most bad writing."

"The object of fiction isn't grammatical correctness but to make the reader welcome and then tell a story ... to make him/her forget, whenever possible, that he/she is reading a story at all."

"Even after a thousand pages we don't want to leave the world the writer has made for us, or the make-believe people who live there."

"If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot. There's no way around these two things that I'm aware of, no shortcut."

"You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you."

"Reading is the creative center of a writer's life."

"If not for heart and imagination, the world of fiction would be a pretty seedy place. It might not even exist at all."

"I think you will find that, if you continue to write fiction, every character you create is partly you."

"If there is any one thing I love about writing more than the rest, it's that sudden flash of insight when you see how everything connects."

"Good fiction always begins with story and progresses to theme; it almost never begins with theme and progresses to story."

"I have written because it fulfilled me ... And if you can do it for joy, you can do it forever."  

*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD*
I don't think there's a single part of this book I didn't like. The fact that it's a bunch of vignettes, shedding more light on the fascinating and endearing character of Cardan, was one of my favorite things. The title of each was just so whimsical and made the tone sustained throughout the entire book feel so traditionally storybook-esque. I think these vignettes build upon the sense of story we get in The Queen of Nothing's prologue. In those few short pages, it's made clear Cardan is deeply misunderstood, and that the abuse he endured in Balekin's household is a result of one pivotal moment. What this book does is get us closer to Cardan's head and heart than we ever could when Jude was the narrator. Here, we see that Cardan decides to fully embrace playing the part of the villain, seeing as it seems like a role he's not only good at, but has been foretold by an illusive prophecy to play. I thought the structure of these vignettes was so purposeful, too. The three that take place after the events of the main trilogy feel like the centerpieces of the collection. The first one sets up another job from Bryern that Jude is willing to take, the second lets us see more of Cardan operating in the mortal world and reminiscing on how far he and Jude have come, and the third proves to readers as well as Cardan that he's capable of being the hero if he really wants to be! And the role Aslog plays in these stories is fascinating as well. She first finds him sleeping in the stables, discarded and unnwanted by his own mother, and begins to tell him the story we see morph and change as they meet again several more times. I adored how the story changed to fit new morals and lessons, of which Cardan always tries to guess before the end of the story and gets wrong. Little (and big) shifts in the plot all make the final telling of the story, this time from Cardan, all the more fulfilling. Because Cardan finds a way to make it about him and Jude! Their romance is unlikely, and I love how even Cardan, on more than one occasion, is like... how did we seriously end up married and in love? The fact that Cardan gets himself out of his own predicament and bluffed about Jude being on her way also made me smile. His realization that he's good with letting Jude do the daring, sometimes unnecessary anti-hero stuff just solidified how much I already loved them as a little couple. As for the rest of the vignettes, I think getting glimpses into how Cardan grew up fills in gaps that were beyond the comprehension of Jude as the main series' narrator. We see how Cardan not only met Nicasia, Princess of the Undersea, in an unlikely fashion, but actually grew to really care for her. He grew up always thinking about how he had to find and make his own power, considering his family treated him as the spare. Even forfeiting the land to live and rule in the sea (which gives him the heeby jeebys) was something he was willing to do to help himself. I just wanted to give him a hug so many times. And again, a round of applause for the writing style. It paints Cardan in such a light where you can't help but revere him just a bit, however much you may pity him as well. The different ways he describes the substance of his heart in relation to Aslog's story really got me. Because he really was made to be a villain in such specific circumstances. Even the incident with the horse Jude recounts, of when Cardan quite literally tries to run over his class drunk, is explained as a result of heartbreak, and very heavy wallowing in drink to soothe it. And knowing that he started this heavy drinking in the first place because of Nicasia's betrayal with Locke, mischievous lover of havoc-creating stories that he is, gives the book's title its meaning. And Cardan's consistent thoughts about Jude, from her uniquely human body to her fierce determination to hate him as much as she can, just makes how Balekin raised him to view humans make that much more sense. This poor Fae prince really had some deep trauma to work through. But so did Jude. They're a match made in some version of heaven. :) But, again, this book is Cardan's spotlight, and it brought me great joy to see the parts of him that even eluded Jude get assigned some meaning or backstory. Little details like Cardan's copy of Alice and Wonderland and the reappearance of characters like Oak and Heather only make this collection even better. I haven't even mentioned the art yet... and I'm not quite sure what else to say other than 'wow.' The art style is magnificent and captures the likeness of all these characters so well. The repeating illustrations of Aslog's story, with their subtle shifts and sometimes abstract interpretations, were some of my favorites. And the one of Jude with her sword under Cardan's chin. Cause c'mon, that entire scene is just great. 
I just know I'm gonna come back and read this later and know I forgot a whole other host of things I wanted to say, because I really could go on and on about this book. I didn't stay up way too late to finish it for lack of anything else to do, after all. I sincerely couldn't put it down and definitely recommend reading it all in one sitting if possible. It just made the reading experience for me, with all the interconnecting pieces, that much more satisfying. :)


Some of my favorite quotes from How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories:

"They are two people who ought to have, by all rights, remained enemies forever. 
He can't believe his good fortune, can't trace the path that got him here."

"Playing the villain was the only thing he'd ever really excelled at."

"'My prince?' The door's wooden face was the picture of distress. 'You're not truly going out like that, are you?'
'My door,' Cardan replied. 'I most certainly am.'
He promptly fell down the front steps."

"'I am nothing,' Cardan said, 'if not dramatic.'"

"'Very well, sir, I shall have it.' Cardan congratulates himself on his skill at passing for human."

"If he gets himself killed like this, she is never going to let him live it down."

"Everyone finds different lessons in stories, I suppose, but here's one. Having a heart is terrible, but you need one anyway."

"'She's forever getting me out of scrapes. Truly, I don't know what I would do without her.'"

"'There is one thing I did like about playing the hero. The only good bit. And that was not having to be terrified for you.'"

*MILD SPOILERS AHEAD*
The Queen of Nothing? More like everything! I always admire a book series that can manage to wrap up everything it started in a satisfying, third-book ending. This series did that for me. And I'm also just so impressed with how the inhuman, fantastical elements of Faerieland and its inhabitants are contrasted by moments of normalcy when glimpses of the mortal world, fish sticks, gummy worms, and pizza are shown. Jude endures as one of the most interesting female leads I've read. Poor girl is heavily traumatized and hasn't had a true moment's rest in far too long. But she's also unflinchingly strong, clever, loyal, and literally becomes the High Queen of Faerieland! Every parallel or full circle moment in this book felt so well-executed too. Take the unforgettable fact that Cardan and Jude are enemies to lovers, for example. When you pick up the first book, you obviously expect a romance to eventually blossom because you know how the YA fantasy genre works. But you don't know how it could possibly happen when you're watching Cardan gladly watch Jude and Taryn nearly drown in a monster-infested river. The murder of the sisters' parents at Madoc's hand is another example. The entire series gives color and shape to the twisted father daughter relationship Jude and Madoc share, and when Jude ends up finally being the one with power over the creature who took her true parents away, she still shows him mercy. That's probably the full circle moment that hit me the hardest. I haven't even mentioned Taryn just casually murdering Locke, but seeing Taryn capable of doing a very Jude-like thing felt so so important for Jude to realize that both of them were raised by a monster, but learned to cope with the consequences in different ways. I adored the hints that Taryn and the Ghost will most likely fall in love; they both deserve it. (Sidenote: If the opportunity to have an identical twin switch hadn't been taken, I would've been sorely disappointed. And Grima Mog rising to lead with Jude at her right hand? Legendary.) One of the other full circle moments that just really got me is small, and happened in a dream of Jude's that only gets a few lines of description. It's near the very end, before she must slay Cardan-turned-serpent, or bridle him to her forever. She dreams of standing before the serpent, saying "I love you," and being eaten whole. And if that isn't a manifestation of what it feels like for Jude to open herself up to the potential love and hurt of other people, especially Cardan in all his unpredictability and power, I don't know what is. Stylistically, I thought the last few chapters were written with the perfect blend of suspense and relief. Just enough time passes for readers to think, hold on, maybe Jude isn't going to find a way to save Cardan. But then, phew! She learns yet again that every Faerie prophecy and riddle should be taken very literally. Oh, and the prologue? It only took me those few pages to gain a true sense of understanding for Cardan and his poor circumstances. He's just a misunderstood little guy, made out to be cruel because of the actions of the people around him who should've shown him love and compassion. It's truly one of the best prologues I think I've ever read that does the kind of work a prologue should do if it's gonna be there in the first place.
Rambling aside, I once again have to say that this book's ending, and the series' ending along with it, was really impressive. It's not a 5-star series for me, but 4-stars from me is pretty high praise. I definitely recommend it, and will be buying a copy of How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories as soon as possible.


Some of my favorite quotes from The Queen of Nothing:

"He looks as surprised as I am that he protected me."

"Yeah, and the next thing we know, the High King is on our doorstep looking ready to tear down the whole apartment complex to find you."

"I feel like a constellation of wounds, held together with string and stubbornness."

"And maybe I ought not to be trusted, but let me say this: I trust you."

"Maybe it isn't the worst thing to want to be loved, even if you're not. Even if it hurts. Maybe being human isn't always being weak."

"By you, I am forever undone."

"'It's you I love,' he says. 'I spent much of my life guarding my heart. I guarded it so well that I could behave as though I didn't have one at all. Even now, it is a shabby, worm-eaten , and scabrous thing. But it is yours.' He walks to the door to the royal chambers, as though to end the conversation. 'You probably guessed as much,' he says. 'But just in case you didn't.'" (like, c'mon, are you kidding me?)