Reviews with content warning for Death - Ironside

“Ironside” features the return of the faerie changeling Kaye from “Tithe,” this time with an impossible quest to prove her love to the new Unseelie King, Roiben.

Although I read “Tithe” in high school and loved it (it’s the first teen books I remember reading), I never read “Ironside” because I thought I knew how the quest was going to end. I was right, in a way, but I’m glad to have read it anyway.

Content Warnings

chasesys's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous dark mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.25

Content Warnings

beckyyreadss's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous challenging dark mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

I wanted to read this book because my goal for last year was to discover more authors. Holly Black is adored on Booktok but I didn’t want to jump into her most popular work. I decided to start at the beginning and read the first book in this series. I enjoyed this first book, I struggled with the second book and the third book.

This book follows Kaye, who we got to know in the first book. She is a pixie and she has declared herself to her lover Roiben on the day of his coronation. So he is forced to send her on a seemingly impossible quest. Now Kaye is forbidden to see or speak to him unless she can find the one thing she knows doesn’t exist – a faerie who can tell a lie. Kaye is miserable and convinced that she belongs nowhere in this world, so she decides to reveal the truth to her mother – that she is a changeling left in place of a human child. Her mother’s shock reaction sends Kaye back to the Faerie realm in search of her human counterpart in a bid to return her to Ironside. Once again, Kay finds herself a pawn in the games of the Seelie Court. Queen Silarial wants Roiben’s throne and she will use any means necessary to get it.

The first book follows Kaye and Roiben, the second book follows Luis and Dave, and the third book mixes them. After how brutal the first two books were, this book just didn’t do it for me. It was a little weak compared to the other two. I would have loved to have seen a battle between brother and sister, but it just sort of fizzle out. I would have loved a new set of characters for this book. This book kept going on about some big battle and then the battle was done in one chapter, I just wanted more. This book just have been cut down by about 10% due to the repeating of stuff we already knew about in the first and second book.

Overall, I really enjoyed this series and I would love to read more of Holly Black’s work and will plan to.

Content Warnings

mmefish's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

The flavor of that blood stayed with him through the long years of his service. […] But by then he could no longer remember whose blood it was, only that he had grown used to the taste.

I liked this, despite the fact that (like someone else has mentioned) whiteness is a standard in this book and skin colour is only mentioned when the person isn’t white. But my enjoyment came from the characters Holly Black created (I actually worried about Corny this time) and, of course, the faeries. I hope miss Black writes another book featuring them in the future.

Edit: she is, she is writing another book! 😭

Content Warnings