Review: The Iron King by Julie Kagawa.

Posted May 27, 2010 by Rowena in Reviews | 6 Comments

Main Characters: Meghan Chase, Ash, Puck
Series: The Iron Fae Series, Book 1

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.

I bought this book because I got The Iron Daughter for review and wanted to catch up with the first book before diving into the second book. I’ve been curious about this series because I see a bunch of TEAM ASH and TEAM PUCK buttons scattered across the YA book blogging circuit and I wanted to see which team I would be on.

Well, I finally met both Ash and Puck and I’m seriously torn.

Who do you choose if you’re Meghan? Do you choose the best friend that you’ve known your whole life or do you choose the mysterious stranger who saved your life and who you think you might have a crush on? I have no bleeping clue. If this was real life, it would be no contest, Puck hands down but it’s not real life so how can you not be drawn to Ash?

This is who I pictured as Ash the entire time that I was reading this book:

Is he a cutie patootie or what?

Getting back to my thoughts on the book, it was hard to get into the book at first. I had to get over that beginning hump before I finally got excited about this book. I will give Kagawa credit for writing the hell out of her faerie world. The descriptions in this book were colorful and beautifully written. I had no problem at all picturing everything while I was reading.

One I got over the hump that was the beginning, I couldn’t put this book down. I was happy that I didn’t absolutely hate Meghan since I usually find myself wanting to smack the female lead upside their head from time to time in all the books that I’ve read but that wasn’t the case with Meghan. Everything about her felt real to me. Her reaction to finding out exactly who and what Puck was, her reaction to finding out about her real brother Ethan being taken hostage by some faerie and then watching her reactions to everything that was put in her way as she tried to get her brother back.

I’m not usually a pet person, I don’t have any pets in real life and I’m not a big fan of pets in books but in this book, I adored Grimalkin. I thought he was hilarious and I couldn’t get enough of him. There was a part of the book where he wasn’t a part of the action and I missed him. His sense of humor had me cracking up more than once over the course of the book.

The whole love triangle thing between Puck/Meghan/Ash will definitely have me tuning in for more in the coming books. I thought Puck was too funny and I’m mighty curious to learn more about Ash. I do have to say that right now, I’m much more intrigued by Ash’s character so I’ll be looking forward to more from him in the coming books.

Overall, this book was a great Alice in Wonderland type of reading adventure and I would definitely recommend it to lovers of fantasy. This book was a wonderful set up for the other books to follow and I cannot wait to read more.

Final Grade: B

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