"The Iron King" by Julie Kagawa

From Goodreads: "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."

200 pages into this book I found myself growing more and more frustrated with it because I didn't find it to be a unique Fey story whatsoever. I personally felt as if it followed the same storyline of Lesley Livingston's "Wondrous Strange"  novel. Girl finds out that not only is she a Fey, but she is daughter of the Summer King, befriends Puck, goes through the Great Hunt, and whatnot, and I was quite disappointed with it because I had heard such good things about it in the blogosphere world...

But then... Right when I was going to express this irritation out loud (my poor parents who always hear me grumbling/ complaining about books), 2 words jumped off the page at me- Iron Fey, and I literally did a double take. I am not going to pretend to know everything about the world of Fey, but I have read my fair share of stories that involve Fey (Lesley Livingston, Melissa Marr, Holly Black, Aprilynne Pike, etc.) so I do have a basic idea of how this world works, and Iron Fey? Iron Fey? IRON FEY? I have never come across these Fey ever, so obviously I was captivated and for me, the plot finally found that unique plot line that I had been looking for.

But even though the unique plot line finally emerged, I do think that overall the book, for me personally, still couldn't save itself. What really threw me off what the flatness of the characters. I don't feel like they were near as developed as they could have been. For instance, what do we really know about Ash? He is a Winter Prince, he is good looking, and he has mad fighting skills. Okay.... Well what else about him? Well not much. Or what about Puck? He, as a character, also threw me off quite a bit- right when I was really starting to like Robbie his true identity was revealed and I think that he became a completely different person. I think that hands down the most memorable/ best characters of the book were Grimalkin and Iron Horse (that's right- Iron Horse... IRON HORSE WHO IS MADE OF IRON AND CAN BREATHE FIRE OUT OF HIS NOSE AND TALKS LIKE THIS... ;) ).

All in all, this initially is not the most unique Fey novel ever- though it does get more unique with time. The main characters are not the most developed characters of all time, but the secondary characters almost make up for them. If you do like Fey novels I do think that you will like this, but it might just not be your most favourite Fey novel ever.

Rating: 7/10