The Iron King

Title: The Iron King 
Author: Julie Kagawa 
Pages: 368 (paperback) 
Series: The Iron Fey (#1) 
Summary: 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.

My Thoughts: The short version: Great beginning, mediocre middle, good ending. I do intend to read the rest of the series, though, and recommend this book to those who enjoy faeries, mythology, and other-worldly adventures. The long version: If I had given it a rating from about halfway through the book, I would have given it a 3 out of five, and that's being generous. The unexpected and exciting ending really saved this book for me.

From the first few chapters, I didn't get the feeling like Meghan had much a relationship with anyone at all except Robin/Puck. So when she tries to move heaven and earth to save her brother and return to the family who practically neglected her, it felt a little forced and made her annoyingly hardheaded and ignorant, if you will. Maybe it's because Cassandra Clare's City of Glass is still fresh in my mind with Clary's signature stubbornness, but I'm getting tired of the heroine of so many YA novels being reckless to the point of endangering everyone around her with hardly any permanent life threatening consequences, which would be expected with such behavior.  Everything rights itself or a prince in shining armor comes in at the last moment to save the damsel. Meghan, our main character, would do things that were so illogical that I often couldn't help but scoff at her. 

Another part of this novel that didn't really appeal to me was the sort of insta-romance bit. For me at least, it was predictable and when it finally did happen it was sudden and came from nowhere with a lack of courting from both parties aside from accidentally falling into each other and the occasional lingering eye contact.

But she did have her moments where you would see some character development and the effects of that. And the dialogue was witty and quite believable for a "faerie tale." As for the other characters, Grimalkin was a treat to read about. I loved his parts. His character was pleasantly reminiscent of Alice in Wonderland's Cheshire Cat. Ash and Puck were great, too. When I read the next book of this series, The Iron Daughter, I hope to see much more of them. It wasn't a bad book, it's just that I was expecting so much more from it. This is the first novel I've read that was centered around the world of the fey, so it was kind of an info-dump of mythology for me. But it wasn't too hard to keep up with, and I look forward to reading the rest of this series.

My Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars