Review: The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
Title: The Iron King
Author: Julie Kagawa
Pages: 363
Genre: YA Fantasy
Rating: A
Challenge: The 2010 Young Adult Reading Challenge
Synopsis: (from back of the book) Meghan Chase has a secret destiny-one she could never have imagined…
Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan's life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school…or at home.
When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she's known is about to change.
But she could never have guessed the truth-that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she'll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face…and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.
Review: I haven't had much lucky lately with good YA fantasy so I stayed away from it until I found The Iron King. It sounded interesting, I had heard good things about it and I loved the cover. I knew it was a romance and I hoped it wouldn't be one of those books that had a lacklustre plot and a potentially annoying relationship between two teenagers. I wasn't disappointed.
I was surprised to find that the book was quite the adventure story. There was action, a bit of mystery and it was all complemented by the romance. The romance aspect of it wasn't as prevalent as I thought but it fit into the main story and completed it nicely. Something I thought was very interesting was that Kagawa uses faeries from A Midsummer's Night Dream by Shakespeare (Oberon, Titania, etc) and at first I wasn't sure about this because I was worried the author would fall back on already-known characters. Kagawa created one of the best faerie worlds I have read (up there with my other favorite, Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr). I don't want to give too much away but I have to say I thought her plot and world building was clever and executed very well.
One of my favorite characters of this book was Grimalkin the cait sith. What a treat he was. I felt that every time he was there he stole the scene. His bemusement and snarky comments were a delight and he just added to the overall magical feeling of this book. Meghan was a good lead female, spunky, smart but also a realistic teen-aged girl with doubts about herself. She grows over the course of the story and I was very happy with her
In the end I thought this book had a good message to it; how we all start to lose our belief in things that used to be important to us and how those changes as society progresses. I really enjoyed this book and I highly recommend this. The book concludes with a wide opening for the sequel, The Iron Daughter which comes out in August 2010. Can't wait! A
Currently Reading: The Naming by Alison Croggon