Iron King (Iron Fey, #1)

by Julie Kagawa

[ladygrey]

Plenty of books borrow from existing stories and characters (though it feels like fairy stories do it more than most). I never really love it because it feels like lazy storytelling to me; even when authors acknowledge what they're doing and try to give it reason and purpose. But the first half of this one felt especially derivative of A Midsummer Night's Dream and Alice in Wonderland.

About half way through it settled into a space that was interesting and had good character dynamics and a stronger narrative thread when Ash and Meghan and Puck and Grim were working together. But then that was all fractured and the story was over run with the inevitable effect of technology on faery (which admittedly was a impetus for the story) and its peril.

The world [a:Julie Kagawa|2995873|Julie Kagawa|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1257816454p2/2995873.jpg] described was beautiful and unique and interesting, but her language didn't evoke it strongly and wasn't particularly enthralling.

Mostly it was some interesting ideas and some almost interesting characters in an unoriginal framework. There was definitely something here that never quite worked out. Good theory, poor execution.