Review: The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa

The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

My name is Meghan Chase.
I thought it was over. That my time with the fey, the impossible choices I had to make, the sacrifices of those I loved, was behind me. But a storm is approaching, an army of Iron fey that will drag me back, kicking and screaming. Drag me away from the banished prince who's sworn to stand by my side. Drag me into the core of conflict so powerful, I'm not sure anyone can survive it.

This time, there will be no turning back.

I cry at everything, and when I say everything, I mean everything. When I read the reviews for The Iron Queen, it was on shelves such as “cried my eyes out” and “made me cry”, so I was really expecting a tear-jerker ending. I can see why others cried at the ending, but, shockingly, I didn’t cry. I did tear up during the epilogue, but that’s it. More often than not, I was actually smiling during the ending, which makes me feel like there’s something wrong with me. That doesn’t mean the ending of The Iron Queen isn’t sad, because I suppose it is. It’s just not as sad as I thought it would be, based on everyone saying they cried.

Despite that, the Iron Queen was extremely awesome, and so much better than its predecessor, The Iron Daughter. Meghan grew a lot as a character from The Iron Daughter to The Iron Queen, and I actually really liked her. She took responsibility for her actions and wasn’t anywhere near as whiny as she was in The Iron Daughter. As well as liking Meghan a lot more in this book as opposed to The Iron Daughter, I also really liked Ash more in The Iron Queen. Throughout the first book, and the first half of the second book, I didn’t like Ash too much. Then Kagawa gave his character more depth with the backstory of Ariella, and I liked him a lot more. My like for him only grew from the middle of the second book on, and I can say with total honesty that Meghan and Ash are perfect for each other. If you would have asked me if I thought that when reading The Iron Daughter, I would’ve laughed in your face, but they truly make a really good couple, and that shows in this book. That still doesn’t mean I’m on Team Ash, though.

As usual, I loved Puck and his wit and sarcasm in this book. My only complaint is that there wasn’t really a lot of his wit and sarcasm, and that he really was serious throughout most of the book. Of course, I also love Grimalkin for the same reasons I love Puck, but he wasn’t in the book much, and when he was in the book, he wasn’t as sarcastic or witty as he was in the other two books. That was a bit of a disappointment, but it didn’t phase my rating of The Iron Queen at all, because the other characters were awesome. (Come on, how cute was Razor?) I was hoping there would be some growth in Oberon and Meghan’s relationship, but I do like how Meghan is trying to make her relationship with Paul grow.

As well as the awesome characters, Kagawa’s writing is, like usual, breathtakingly beautiful. I loved the way she described the Nevernever slowly fading into the hands of the Iron Realm, and let me tell you, this lady knows how to write a fight scene.

Now, if you excuse me, I’m going to go start reading The Iron Knight.

*happy dance*