Review: The Iron Queen by Julie Kagawa

The Iron Queen (The Iron Fey #3) by Julie Kagawa
Publisher: Mira Ink
Released: 21st October 2011

Rating: 4/5

**This is the third book in the series and therefore the description and my review may contain spoilers for the first and second books**

Goodreads Description:

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.

My thoughts:

This is definitely my favourite of the quadrilogy (I've read them all now) and I'm so glad that I actually decided to read this series! The Iron Queen picks up pretty much where The Iron Daughter left off. Cast out into the human world, Meghan and Ash have an exhilirating yet frightening prospect....freedom. Freedom from the fey world, from their manipulative parents, from the rules that keep them apart...but what do they do now?

When  I finished The Iron Queen I thought, where can they go from here? Surely, we weren't going to have a book full of Ash's first day at school, Ash's first homework assignment, Ash's first shopping trip...and thankfully, we didn't get any of that. If possible, this book was more action packed and full of more twists and turns than the previous two.

I did warm to Meghan slightly in this book, she shouldered more responsibility for herself, learning how to fight rather than just blindly crashing around and relying on others to save her skin. She made some pretty tough calls in this book and ultimately, I think I did end up respecting her...though it took a lot longer to happen than I would have liked. 

The plot of this one was....intense. I liked how they were all dragged, reluctantly, back into the action on the promise of a prize too tempting to forfeit. I loved all the action scenes and dramatic moments and build-up, it all worked really well together to create an enchanting tale.

Again, I struggled with the writing, especially when it came to Puck. Understandably he was feeling a little hurt  in this book, but I got so, so fed up of his dialogue. EVERYTHING was said with a smirk or a sneer or a leer. NOTHING could just be SAID oh no, there needs to be a verb in there too. I think Puck's dialogue really demonstrates what I mentioned about the weaknesses of Julie Kagawa's writing in my review of The Iron Daughter earlier this week. I found myself wishing her editor had had a bit more of a backbone and said "actually, Julie, Puck's already smirked 14 times this chapter, how about we just have him say that line normally, hmm?". It did bug me, and it did pull me out of the story slightly.

The ending though, boy was that ending worth it. I think I pretty much held my breath for most of it. I was pretty sure I knew how it was going to end, but for a while there it seemed to be going in totally the opposite direction to the point where I actually stopped and thought "surely she wont go through with this!" It was very intense and very emotional and I cursed myself for having not bought The Iron Knight before finishing this!

As mentioned at the start, this is my favourite of the series. I liked the level of growth in Meghan, how all the plot strings and characters came together and especially the huge, dramatic and emotion-ridden finale. It would be a 5, if it weren't for my continued niggles about the writing.