THE IRON KING by Julie Kagawa

(Germany)

The Iron King is the first book in the book series Iron Fey, written by Julie Kagawa. It's about a girl, Meghan Chase, whose brother Ethan is replaced by a changeling and is now, with the help of her friend Rob/Robbie also called Puck, searching for Ethan. During the quest, they meet more allies or whatever one would call it, one of them is Ash, prince of the Winter Court, to whom Megan feels attracted to and soon turned out to be her Romeo, since he is the son of Mab, Queen of the Winder Court and archenemy of her father, King Oberon, making her a half fairie.

When I was reading the book, I could not stop doing it. The plot was conclusive, thrilling and reasonable. There was not a passage which was in any way boring. What I personally liked was that the author brought refreshing ideas and approach along into the story. Also, in a lot of books, authors tend to have a idealistic way of describing the story and this time it's not the case. Of course, this book does have some idealistic points, but it was okay, it was not too overwhelming.

Iron King offers a new version of girl-turned-into-fairy story. Usually the girls would freak at the idea and try to deny everything and that's okay, Meghan is not different, but in some stories it is exaggerated, with the result that the protagonist seems almost stupid.

And this leads to the characters in the story.
Just like the story itself, the character are original and refreshing. They are individual and as mentioned, not as annoying like in other books. They are exhilarating, they are not perfect which makes their personalities more realistic. Meghan, for example, is not what one would call the perfect girl, she is made fun of in school, she blunders just like normal girls.
Even the secondary characters are wonderfully portrayed. I, for my part, also could sympathize with the Queen Titania, the scorned wife of Oberon, who some might know from 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and especially the Grimalkin, the cat, was wonderful. He reminds one of the cat in the Alice in Wonderland.

All in one, I loved the book. Romeo and Juliet in A Midsummer Night's Dream with a hint of Alice in Wonderland. And even though there were not much love scenes, well not enough for my taste, I fell in love with it. On top of that, it totally makes sense to me. The more I read of the story, the more it made sense for the existence of Iron Fairies and in my eyes, it's a message. It tells us of the growing dominance of technology over the creativity and fantasy.