Review: The Iron King (The Iron Fey, #1) by Julie Kagawa

Rating (Out of 5): ~3.5/4

Publisher: Harlequin Teen

Spoilers?: No.

Goodreads Synopsis:

 Meghan Chase has a secret destiny; one she could never have imagined.

Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan's life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school or at home.

When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she's known is about to change.

But she could never have guessed the truth - that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she'll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face; and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.

Review:

I feel a bit misled about this book. I had bought it a while ago, planning to get around to it sometime, and at the last moment decided to take it with me on vacation, in which it ended up being the first book I read while away. It had been sitting on my shelf and I had felt no big inclination to read it, which is a big part to that it’s about fey/fairies, and I’m not a big fan of those. I’m not sure why, I just don’t find them that entertaining or something. I haven’t read all that many, and I’m usually not disappointed when I do read them, though.

Oh, about that misled thing: I think I remember reading somewhere, from some other review but I can’t remember where, that this book had a lot of focus on the romance. The reviewer didn’t seem to prefer that, but that’s what I was looking forward to. So imagine my surprise when there was almost no romance through the majority of the book. Some hint for a bit, but no actual kissing till way into the book. (Now I’m starting to wonder what book they were talking about that I mistook this one for.)

I was a bit disappointed in that and the fact that the writing didn’t really get me. It was a bit long and there was a lot of description and writing, and none of those things are really bad, it just didn’t pull me in as much as I’d have liked it to. I actually wasn’t really even enjoying reading this for quite a bit of the book and felt no qualms about putting the book down even at a supposed exciting part, till over half-way through and it neared the end. That’s when it really got interesting and caught a bit of my interest. Enough to make me want to read the next one, at least.

Um, oh: The Iron King is about Meghan, a normal, fading in the background, teenage girl, until her brother gets replaced by a changeling. That’s when she goes into the fey realm and discovers that her father isn’t who she thought he was, her best friend isn’t who she thought he was even down to his name, and she’s brought deeper into the world of the fey the longer she’s there and the harder she tries to find her brother.

I liked Meghan. She wasn’t particularly tough and she didn’t know what she was doing a lot of the time, but she learned along the way, and she didn’t give up. I did enjoy that. And I liked that she has some talent, some fey thing, and I’m looking forward to her learning more about it. For some reason, I wasn’t expecting her to be a normal teenage girl, and especially one who’s generally dirty and wearing unfashionable clothing. I guess I thought she’d know about the fey or would already be living there? I’m not really sure, and obviously I didn’t read the back. I grew used to it, though. I also really liked her brother, even if she didn’t always treat him the best (not that she treated him bad, she just did actually treat him like a somewhat annoying little brother some of the time); found him adorable and would have liked to see more of him.

I was expecting the triangle right away, since I had heard a small amount about the series, and that usually included talk about Puck and Ash. I liked Puck, for the most part, and even though I usually enjoy his type of character a lot more, I didn’t in this instance. I was all Ash. Not immediately, but I was expecting to be when I realized my feelings for Puck.

I wasn’t disappointed. He’s the bad boy, maybe out to get her, definitely out to get Puck, with a bit of a broken past, unsure of her but moving forward nonetheless. I liked that he had a past in romance, and that he had a past with Puck, and that we got to see him vulnerable and sweet, but also tough and cocky. They seemed to fall in love a little too fast, but I’m not too bothered by it this time, maybe because it was obvious they had a lot of potential to work together really well. I genuinely enjoyed him, and am looking forward to seeing more of him in the next one. And the romance, the physical stuff, when it got closer to the end, I did really enjoy.

I actually did enjoy reading about the different kinds of fey, especially the iron fey, and how the others are going extinct; that was an interesting idea that I hadn’t heard of before, but makes sense.

I’m hoping she will actually talk and maybe form a relationship with her father in the next book, and that I get to learn more about the other fey surrounding them: his wife, who’s evil, Ash’s mother, who also seems pretty evil. And Grimalkin, who was awesome. He’s a cat fey who helps Meghan, and he reminds me a bit of the Cheshire Cat (particularly when she first met him and he slowly faded into existence) and Nico from The Earl and The Fairy.

My rating for this probably would have been lower, if I hadn’t enjoyed the last bit. And now I’m just looking forward to the next one, and am pretty happy that I have a good amount of books to get through in the series.