A review by michaela_lubbers
The Iron King, by Julie Kagawa
3.0
Takeaway: no, I would not recommend this. I got sucked into book one bc I got it for free on Kindle and now am invested enough to give book 2 a shot (for free, via the library's Libby app, which is 10/10 do recommend). The concept is captivating and I wish this could be re-written for an adult audience with either a better romance or it removed entirely.
Ugh. So. The world building and description of the Nevernever (the Fey domain) is excellent. The overall plot of "iron fey exist and are taking over and killing Nevernever - it's up to us to save it!" is interesting enough that I'm continuing with the series (though I don't know if I'll finish it).
But this damn love triangle! This book is a decade old and, frankly, it shows. It's the tired, boring set up of old friend vs new exciting broody boy. It's enemies-to-lovers done badly - there's very little chemistry, emo boy doesn't say much of anything, ever, and their "falling in love" period was incredibly short and featured a lot of nothing. The claims that Meghan is in love are absurd and ring very, very deeply of 16 year old. Which she is! But damn. The story is treating that as Truth instead of her thinking/feeling/wondering and it just seems silly to me.
Meghan is an OK main character but feels like Kagawa got overly moralistic when writing her. Puck gets to be grating, occasionally, but overall he's fine. I think I might could like Ash if he got to say more than 3 words, was allowed to have expressions, and wasn't shoehorned into this flat romance. As he is, I sort of hate him.
I also have to critique the ending - the build up was so long and then, bam! Conclusion reached?
**spoilers after this:
Yeah, I'm talking about Meghan killing Machina in 3 pages or whatever it was. She spent as much or more time getting into the damn tower than she does killing him! Maybe he's not really dead and that will make more sense later on but it felt very anticlimactic and rushed. He's barely introduced before he's dead and then Meghan thinks she can just stay away while the Iron Court builds itself back up with a new nasty on the throne? Power vacuums don't make things more stable, hon. Somebody needs to be there overseeing and building it up safely!
Ugh. So. The world building and description of the Nevernever (the Fey domain) is excellent. The overall plot of "iron fey exist and are taking over and killing Nevernever - it's up to us to save it!" is interesting enough that I'm continuing with the series (though I don't know if I'll finish it).
But this damn love triangle! This book is a decade old and, frankly, it shows. It's the tired, boring set up of old friend vs new exciting broody boy. It's enemies-to-lovers done badly - there's very little chemistry, emo boy doesn't say much of anything, ever, and their "falling in love" period was incredibly short and featured a lot of nothing. The claims that Meghan is in love are absurd and ring very, very deeply of 16 year old. Which she is! But damn. The story is treating that as Truth instead of her thinking/feeling/wondering and it just seems silly to me.
Meghan is an OK main character but feels like Kagawa got overly moralistic when writing her. Puck gets to be grating, occasionally, but overall he's fine. I think I might could like Ash if he got to say more than 3 words, was allowed to have expressions, and wasn't shoehorned into this flat romance. As he is, I sort of hate him.
I also have to critique the ending - the build up was so long and then, bam! Conclusion reached?
**spoilers after this:
Yeah, I'm talking about Meghan killing Machina in 3 pages or whatever it was. She spent as much or more time getting into the damn tower than she does killing him! Maybe he's not really dead and that will make more sense later on but it felt very anticlimactic and rushed. He's barely introduced before he's dead and then Meghan thinks she can just stay away while the Iron Court builds itself back up with a new nasty on the throne? Power vacuums don't make things more stable, hon. Somebody needs to be there overseeing and building it up safely!