The Iron King

The Iron King - Julie Kagawa I've been toying with the star rating for this, but have to give in and drop it from a 3 to a 2.5. It was simply ok and to be honest there was a lot I didn't like at all.

The Iron Fey part of the plot was pretty interesting, and in fact the plot overall could have been good in the hands of another writer. Instead, it was bogged down with over complications, dull characters, a horrible protagonist, bad dialogue and un-needed romance. It says a lot that my favourite characters were Ethan (the four year old brother) and his soft toy rabbit, who hardly had a part other than acting as a catalyst for Meg's adventures.

The rest of the book was a whirlwind through roughly sketched fairy lands, with every kind of fae making an appearance. There were phoukas, goblins, dryads, nyads, sirens, piskies, gremlins, redcaps, faeries, satyrs, changelings, hags, chimeras, cait siths, and god knows what else. I adore fae stories but this literally just felt like "look how many types I can throw into the story!"

I hated the lead character. Meg was whiny and pathetic, then suddenly became "tough" - ie snarky and sarcastic. The horrible romance triangle was just too much and once it became unavoidable I found I skipped through most of the pages. I won't even get started on the dialogue.

There were redeeming features. As I've said, the Iron Fae were an interesting touch.

Actually no, that's all.

Disappointing.

Maybe I'll make that a 1.5 and round it to 2 stars to be nice...