Review: The Iron King

June 26, 2017

Review: The Iron King

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.

GOODREADS // AMAZON

I think a huge part of the book was ruined for me due to the story being told from Meghan's PoV. Okay so she's 16 but I honestly don't remember being extremely stupid at 16. sorry guys, but I just DID NOT like Meghan. She is one HUGE cliched main character ; outcast at high school, sees things others can't, has ONLY ONE friend, has a dysfunctional family... do I honestly need to go on?? Also she makes the most ridiculous decisions ever. More times than not, I wanted to reach into the book and whack her on the head.

Puck I loved! He's basically the comedian and he truly cares about Meghan though for heaven's sake I don't know why. I liked that he was a more realistic character than Meghan. I enjoyed his dialogues so much and I think the story would have been so much more fun and interesting to know from his point of view.

“Oh, we're playing nice now? Shall we have tea first? Brew up a nice pot of kiss-my-ass?”

"Me? Stealing?" Puck flashed a devious grin and popped another fruit into his mouth. "In the house of my ancient enemy? What gave you that idea?" He plucked another fruit and tossed it to me with a wink.”

Ash is again one cliched character. Yes he's hot but he's like the evil villain who is actually a good guy, guy with a troubled past etc etc. I honestly do think I'd have enjoyed his character more when I was younger but part of being a voracious fantasy reader is you've seen all the tiring cliches and can easily recognize them and sorry, but Ash was such a cliche.

Also I couldn't get aboard with the romance at all. Meghan and Ash are enemies, a little while later they're dancing, a little while later they're kissing, a little while later they are vowing to protect each other forever. WUT??!!! Insta love at it's worst! They're nothing to build up to their romance at all, no actual chemistry except maybe hormones? The combination of Insta love and love triangle in this book made wanna hit my head on the wall.

MY FAVORITE CHARACTER WAS THE CAT. Grimalkin is literally the most enjoyable character in all of Nevernever. He is loyal and sassy and quite a fun travel companion. You know what I said about loving the book more if it was from Puck's PoV. Scratch that. Give me a Grim Pov.

“But if the Nevernever dies, won’t you disappear, as well?”

“I am a cat,” Grimalkin replied, as if that explained anything.”

Despite me basically not giving a damn about most characters, I really enjoyed the plot. The world building is wonderful and I love how the fae world is sustained by dreams and stories. All the Midsummer's Night Dream references were wonderful and I liked the twist at the end of the book. When I say I loved the plot, I'm pretending the romance and cliches weren't a part of the plot at all. Kindly cooperate with me.

Nevernever was depicted beautifully by the author and it was nice to see the various kinds of creatures in that world. I also liked how the story ended and it's mostly for the plot that I'm willing to pick up book 2.

Another plus! The writing is quite beautiful. If you can ignore how annoying Meghan sounds, the writing is actually beautiful. The descriptions are wonderful and I loved how Nevernever was depicted. The author also does a good job with action scenes which I truly enjoyed. The writing along with the plot was the reason I could finish the book in 2 days. Had it not been for these two, I'd probably not have finished the book even by the end of the year.