Scan barcode
A review by foolishpsychopomp
Iron Heart by Nina Varela
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.75
Overall I feel very similarly about Iron Heart as I do Crier’s War, it has a lot of potential and interesting ideas but ultimately it feels underdeveloped. Just like the first book I had found it hard to completely connect with the characters on any kind of emotional level.
Though with Iron Heart there are two major points that really hurt this book for me. First there were times when plot just happened off screen that didn’t involved either Crier or Ayla and we just have to deal with hearing about it afterwords. And it’s not that I don’t expect stuff to happen outside of what we as the audience are allowed to see but sometimes it came across as if the author didn’t have the time/room/etc to actually include those parts properly. Second, I was honestly kind of disappointed with the final confrontation. I won’t go into detail but it felt really underwhelming and much too easy. Now I don’t always need a final confrontation to be huge and flashy but I felt like this book was setting up the stakes for something a bit more.
All that being said I did enjoy Iron Heart more out of the two books. I thought both the new and returning characters were more interesting this time around. Same with the actual events in the book. I’d go so far as to say Iron heart is a good bit more memorable than Crier’s War. At the end of the day I think despite it’s shortcomings both of these books are still worth at the very least trying out.
Though with Iron Heart there are two major points that really hurt this book for me. First there were times when plot just happened off screen that didn’t involved either Crier or Ayla and we just have to deal with hearing about it afterwords. And it’s not that I don’t expect stuff to happen outside of what we as the audience are allowed to see but sometimes it came across as if the author didn’t have the time/room/etc to actually include those parts properly. Second, I was honestly kind of disappointed with the final confrontation. I won’t go into detail but it felt really underwhelming and much too easy. Now I don’t always need a final confrontation to be huge and flashy but I felt like this book was setting up the stakes for something a bit more.
All that being said I did enjoy Iron Heart more out of the two books. I thought both the new and returning characters were more interesting this time around. Same with the actual events in the book. I’d go so far as to say Iron heart is a good bit more memorable than Crier’s War. At the end of the day I think despite it’s shortcomings both of these books are still worth at the very least trying out.