The Iron King

Eine wunderbare Idee sehr gut (bis auf ein paar Kleinigkeiten) umgesetzt!

Second read My reread of this went fine, though I feel like I am a bit too old for this kind of story now. I wanted to reread the whole series because the nostalgia I feel towards these books is unreal, but I think I will take my time with the reread! First read I would have never thought that I like this book as much as I did in the end. Whilst there were a lot of scenes which I have already seen in almost every YA book ever, it didn't disturb me at all when reading this book. At some points I knew what was going to happen, but I nevertheless really enjoyed the story and the characters. Although I didn't connect to any of the characters immediately, I really grew to love some of them by the end of this book. Usually I do not read books about fairies, just because they are my least favorite type of paranormal creature, but I really enjoyed this book and I can't wait to check out the rest of the series! 4.5 / 5 ★

When I first discovered the book I was surprised by the positive feedback on GoodReads and how many of my GoodReads friends had either read it already or on their to-read list. I decided to order the book and was excited when I finally held it in my hands. It started out alright but then it simply went downhill. Granted it improved with the last two chapters but I'm far from impressed. What kept my reading was I simply couldn't bear the thought of having yet another unfinished book on my shelves. Meghan Chase, the main character, is a whiny and childish girl who needs to use her brains more and who desperately needs a backbone. I was constantly annoyed by her and her (re)actions and willed for her to become more likable. She was a bit, by the end of the book. I really wanted to like the story and I don't know if it's the mythology itself or the writing but I simply couldn't get into it. Kawaga painted nice enough pictures but her writing constantly pulled me out of the story, stopped me from getting immersed into it. My frustration with her writing grew more and more with each page, because of her overusage of words such as "leap", "roar" or "murmur". There are alternative for those! Another thing that bothered me was the repetition of events. Something bad happens, Meghan cries, is shocked, surprised, gets angry for no apparent reason etc, then suddenly finds strength only to break down again. I would've wished for some more variety within the book. The only interesting characters to me were Ash and Grimalkin. I would've wished for Ash to be more complex however, to not give in easily in the end. And Grimalkin, though intruiging, became somewhat of a joke since apparently he can't be anything other than bemused, amused or bored. I understand that the dealings of humans and fey might not be of much interest to him but come on! Characters, their emotions and their actions were too inconsistent. Their reactions did not make sense a lot of the time and I grew frustrated with the sudden changes that seemingly came out of nowhere. I very much doubt I will read the sequel(s) of this series. And The Iron King pretty much put me off of reading other faerie stories for a long long time.