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A review by carolinemeow
Julie Kagawa: The Iron King #1 : Kagawa, Julie by Julie Kagawa
3.0
First thoughts: this book was cliche.
Seriously, all the cliches in a typical fantasy novel. Gorgeous, icy love interest in a position of power/is otherwise somehow special? Check. Protagonist has some special power and everyone wants her for some reason? Check. Protagonist is related to someone powerful? Check. Love triangle (sorta? I guess? I mean the Puck/Ash/Meghan thing)? Check. Fairies? Yeah, you got it. Never seen that one before.
That aside, they weren't badly written cliches even if I didn't find them well written, either. And I liked the talking cat. The talking cat was fantastic and probably the only character in the entire novel I really cared about had he died. The cover was absolutely gorgeous (GORGEOUS), and I thought Ethan was kind of sweet. Also, Machina/Meghan? Yeah, ship it. I like dark relationships, and I won't pretend the concept didn't fascinate me even if Machina got approximately ten pages onscreen.
Also, the idea of fairies born from technology? That's actually a pretty nice idea, I liked it, and it certainly has me convinced me I wanted more. When my friend told me Meghan was special because she was immune to iron, I was like, "Big deal. So there's exactly one substance in the universe that's deadly to fairies. Color me impressed." But when I read the book, I got why this was important.
I felt the pacing was kind of bad, in some ways - mostly Ash and Meghan's romance. I didn't mind it, because at least it didn't take up all three million pages and by the end Meghan's mind didn't dissolve into "Ethan? Machina? Who are they? Nah, gonna stick in the corner and make out with my love interest.", but really, the pacing was terrible and there was no development.
There was also a lot of characters popping in and out of nowhere, without a lot of explanation, just when they were needed. Like, wow, so convenient. (That's also what we call lazy writing.) Especially when Grimalkin appeared at the end, and never even explained how he got there, to help Meghan and Ash. You could say he was a. . .bit of a deus ex machina.
I probably just failed to use that term properly but if I didn't use it at least once in this review I would have been so disappointed in myself.
So, anyway. I'll probably read the next book, because it interested me enough to do it, but it has a lot of issues I feel like I don't like very much.
Seriously, all the cliches in a typical fantasy novel. Gorgeous, icy love interest in a position of power/is otherwise somehow special? Check. Protagonist has some special power and everyone wants her for some reason? Check. Protagonist is related to someone powerful? Check. Love triangle (sorta? I guess? I mean the Puck/Ash/Meghan thing)? Check. Fairies? Yeah, you got it. Never seen that one before.
That aside, they weren't badly written cliches even if I didn't find them well written, either. And I liked the talking cat. The talking cat was fantastic and probably the only character in the entire novel I really cared about had he died. The cover was absolutely gorgeous (GORGEOUS), and I thought Ethan was kind of sweet. Also, Machina/Meghan? Yeah, ship it. I like dark relationships, and I won't pretend the concept didn't fascinate me even if Machina got approximately ten pages onscreen.
Also, the idea of fairies born from technology? That's actually a pretty nice idea, I liked it, and it certainly has me convinced me I wanted more. When my friend told me Meghan was special because she was immune to iron, I was like, "Big deal. So there's exactly one substance in the universe that's deadly to fairies. Color me impressed." But when I read the book, I got why this was important.
I felt the pacing was kind of bad, in some ways - mostly Ash and Meghan's romance. I didn't mind it, because at least it didn't take up all three million pages and by the end Meghan's mind didn't dissolve into "Ethan? Machina? Who are they? Nah, gonna stick in the corner and make out with my love interest.", but really, the pacing was terrible and there was no development.
There was also a lot of characters popping in and out of nowhere, without a lot of explanation, just when they were needed. Like, wow, so convenient. (That's also what we call lazy writing.) Especially when Grimalkin appeared at the end, and never even explained how he got there, to help Meghan and Ash. You could say he was a. . .bit of a deus ex machina.
I probably just failed to use that term properly but if I didn't use it at least once in this review I would have been so disappointed in myself.
So, anyway. I'll probably read the next book, because it interested me enough to do it, but it has a lot of issues I feel like I don't like very much.