Reviews

The Iron King: El rey de hierro by Julie Kagawa

ohhellokelli's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? No
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

faemooni's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny hopeful mysterious relaxing sad tense medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? A mix
  • Strong character development? Yes
  • Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

revanchist's review against another edition

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3.0

In the overall sense, The Iron King is ok to good. Some characters and scenes are just too clichпїЅпїЅd for my taste, so the story got awfully predictable at times. Cold=dangerous beauty, talking animal guide, bestfriend turned second priority, powerful but dormant magical powers, heroine imprisoned by malevolent creatures, This Extremely Powerful Weapon and I'm Going To Give It To You trope, Tragic Guy, etc. You get the point. Nonetheless, I still recommend this for everyone who loves light fantasy/adventuring and stuff. It's not that amazing to keep me at the edge of my seat, but it kept my interest enough to finish it.

I rolles my eyes at the first few chapters. Bitch cheerleader, the jock, the happy-go-lucky bestfriend, the humilation--ugh. All that high school drama shit. Good thing I never had to endure that again.
Meghan.. well, Meghan Chase, our heroine, is a special person. A little like a Mary Sue to be honest. She's powerful, blah blah. Plus, the whole world relies on her. If she failseryone dies. It's true, they literally said that. Also constantly rescued by guys. I know she's no warrior but I still doubt her chances of surviving this tale. Which leads me to the number of coincidences here. If there's no Ash, or Puck, or Grimalkin (who's the best written character in this book hands down), she'd be dead. Whatever. I still found some scenes unbelievable, but if you ignore them you'll be fine.
Then there's Ash, the beautiful ice prince.. guy. I don't know why is there a need for romance. Meghan always fall or stumble so there's him catching/helping her. Honestly, I didn't feel a thing about them. Poor Puck.

The concept of the Summer/Winter Fey plus the Iron Fey on the other side is wonderful. The Iron fey were made from "science-y dreams" of mortals, in contrast to the fantasy ones. Just imagine a fairyland, but instead of fairies there's technology. I'd imagine a cooler, cleaner sci-fi/steampunk setting for the Iron fey but I guess evil must be always dirty and ugly-looking. Oh well. The bad guy is.. well.. the bad guy. The Iron King. Not that remarkable. The whole story focused on Meghan rescuing her brother. The Iron King wanted her to come to him because she can touch iron and so she can be her weapon/queen. That's it, really. We all guessed that already early on, okay.

The writing is ok, but it misses sometimes. Some of the scenes and places were described without the epicness and wonder we all wanted to read about. I never felt tension, or slight nervousness. The heroine's thoughts were also kinda generic. This guy just poured his heart out to her so she said "I'm sorry" and felt a little bad. She never thought about it again. Okay. Hmm. She just wanted to rescue her brother, you guys....

If you think about it, all fantasy stories are all clichпїЅпїЅd. In here though, it's even more obvious. If you want fresh, complex fantasy adventures, this might not be for you. The only thing in here that's quite original is the different fey.

As I said, The Iron King is good, but don't expect too much. The chances of you encountering a story like this before is very high.

shhhshesreading's review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? No
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? Yes
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

lucija0's review against another edition

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1.0

Meghan is so stupid it hurts. Also instalove with someone hundreds of years old. Who for reasons unknown to me instantly likes her back. I had to relisten to almost every part of this book because I just turned off my brain due to boredom.

nizharu's review against another edition

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3.0

I expected something worse, much worse, but it really was ok, and even managed to surprise me, I didn't expect to find a intelligent protagonist, nor references to WtA/MtA, though I supposed that it reference the one that WtA/MtA based those on, the movie Labyrinth, but really, that was literally descriptions of "The Scar" and "Atrocity Reaml", only lacking the torture porn and body/sexual horror so, yeah, it surprised me like a lot.
I didexpect a triangle but in this book there's no triangle either, you cannot have a triangle without an hypothenuse so, it was really surprising too.

As a first book it wasnt that bad, I would have preffered it if it was an standalone, but as a debut novel and the first in a saga, isn't bad, though it have its faults, I didn't see any plotholes that other says this novel has, I didn't saw them so if it got them, they're very insustancial.
Also, the language is very juvenile as the character acts like the teenager she is, also all the novel is saw through her eyes, and that's is very well done too.
For people on its age category, is a very good read!
Lets see how the author worse overtime in the next volume.

hanland's review against another edition

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3.0

Entertaining and frustrating. I started this book because I love the movie Labyrinth and honestly this book is practically a fan fiction of that movie, mixed with twilight, and add a dash of Lord of the Rings. If you’ve read the first book, you’ve read the whole series. All the books have the same plot points and basically the same conflict resolution. I will admit that I blazed through reading these though because they were like carbs and sugar: not good quality but highly addictive.

aliciawalton's review against another edition

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5.0

I thought this was a good story line. I liked all the fae and different aspects of the story. I like the characters and can not wait to read the next book. I enjoyed the characters and the dynamics of Ash and Puck with the added bonus of Grim. Cute story with action.

_amarie_'s review against another edition

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adventurous medium-paced

3.75

magfiquista13's review against another edition

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adventurous lighthearted relaxing fast-paced
  • Plot- or character-driven? Plot
  • Strong character development? It's complicated
  • Loveable characters? Yes
  • Diverse cast of characters? No
  • Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0