Book Review: The Iron King

TITLE: The Iron King
Book 1 in the Iron Fey series
AUTHOR: Julie Kagawa
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: Faeries, fantasy
PREMISE: Meghan Chase's brother is replaced by a changling and everything she thought she knew about her life changes and she goes after him into the world of the fairies...
MY REVIEW: I want to get one major qualm I had with this series out of the way first: it is not an original idea. This plot device is very similar to pretty much every other faery book out right now (in fact this reminded me a bit of Faerie Path in the beginning...thankfully it's much better written). If Tithe and Labyrinth crossed over and fused and added a bit of Spirited Away into it the result would be this book. So...original it is not. Plus Meghan's character could use some fleshing out because she had slight Mary Sue tendancies but I'm hoping that's just because there's going to be character development later on.
Other than those two things...I enjoyed this a lot. The writing itself is pretty good for a first novel. Kagawa's descriptions are very vivid without crossing that over-the-top flowery line that makes me cringe. Her view of faery land is not overly unique but I love the setting she puts them in and the idea of how the Iron Fey got created...makes total sense to me.
Then there's the humor, I chuckled quite a bit through this, which is something that doesn't happen often in faery books, most are pretty serious. While there were serious things happening, it was balanced out by fun character interaction. I loved Puck and the Cat. Those two made this book for me. I also was intrigued by the promise of more plot coming our way at the end.
So to sum it up, the book isn't terribly original but it's pretty enjoyable anyway. Kagawa is a promising writer and I think this series has a lot of potential and look forward to more. Iron Daughter is out now for those that wish to read the sequel.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of Tithe, fans of Labyrinth, faery fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five faery wings

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