stelladora 's review for:

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

3.0

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This book has a serious case of the "incredible premise but terrible writing" syndrome. I love Fae Books or Fey Books, and the idea of a new race of fey "the Iron Fey" immune to iron, which is deadly to the oldblood, and seemingly created by humans and our obsession with technology is brilliant. However, much of the book feels like the story is written by a middle school student just getting into creative writing. The sentences are choppy and the descriptions are lacking.

My second issue is just that there is too much going on at once.

We've got Meghan Chase discovering that lo and behold the reason she doesn't fit in is because she's a half-breed. She's not fully fey, and she's not fully human. She is the Erlking's (Oberon, King of the Seelie Court) daughter. This means that she is the summer princess. The man she thought was her real father disappeared when she was six. Ok, that alone could have made for an interesting tale, especially when you factor in the addition of Prince Ash, son of Queen Mab of the Unseelie court, since winter and summer may never be together. Plus you've got Puck, yes the Puck or Robin Goodfellow, who is falling for Meghan and has a death grudge going with Ash. But on top of that you've got the Iron Fey, who are by far the most interesting part of the book for me; they've kidnapped her brother to lure her to them.

See what I mean about too much to follow in a short book?

I will give Kagawa credit. She made very effective use of fey mythology, right down to Mab ruling the Unseelie court while Oberon and Titania ruled the Seelie court and the uneasy 'peace' if you could call it that, which keeps the balance of nature.