The Iron King

The Iron King (Iron Fey Book #1)
Julie Kagawa

I think I am the only person in existence that did not like this book. All I see are rave reviews everywhere for it. I didn’t even finish it. I know some people said I only had about 100 pages left to go and I should stick it through, but I honestly could NOT.

I started this book ages ago and forced myself to go past the 100 page mark thinking I could at least read this and add it to my Debut Author Challenge list. But I had to put it down at page 176 (even though goodreads said I was up to 207 when I did. I must have mistyped). It sad, collecting dust, for a good 3  4 months on my cedar chest in the living room. I picked it up this week thinking I would try to finish it because it will go in a pile of books I am donating to my University’s Education library next week. I thought, why not finish it and I will find closure and can give it away with no guilt.

No dice. I can’t stomach the characters in this book one bit. One of the first status updates I wrote on Goodreads when I first started the book was “I swear if Robbie calls Meghan ‘Princess’ one more time I’m throwing this book out the window!” I think of all the characters Puck was the worst. I thought both “love interests” were complete morons and so unlikeable I have no clue why Meghan was so torn. Move on with your life, girl! Find someone who isn’t an irritating idiot! Meghan herself wasn’t all that bad, but she didn’t POP! for me, she was just flat.

I wanted to like Grimalkin the cat, I did. But he was way too Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland for me. There was nothing that screamed different or original about him.

The dialogue drove me crazy and the plot was completely unoriginal. I am tired of characters finding out they are the children of the most powerful whatever or the king or queen and blah, blah, blah. I have read way too many stories with this plot line and quite frankly I am over it. Sadly there was nothing else in this book to distract me enough from that part. At least if I could have liked the characters or something I could have probably finished the book.

As it was, the more I read the more angry I got at the story, the characters and when Puck returned to the pages I knew I couldn’t go on. Down went the book for the final time.

I am trying to think of what has made everyone but me love this book and I can’t think of a thing. I have read much better written books with stupid love triangles and paranormal aspects, but this one just wasn’t my cup of tea. I wanted to try and write a well-thought out review to explain why I didn’t like it but I’m not doing very well on that front. I don’t think the book was all that poorly written but nothing in the story clicked for me in a positive way. Nothing. I’m kind of bummed about that because I had been looking forward to the book since I first heard of it.

Oh, well. You can’t love everything you read, right?

What I did love about this book? The cover! I think the cover is beautiful and I have seen the cover for the second book as well and love it just as much. I wish what was after the cover was as stunning in my mind.