Saturday, January 4, 2014

The Iron Traitor by Julie Kagawa

The Iron Traitor (Call of the Forgotten #2)
Author: Julie Kagawa
Publisher: HarlequinTEEN
Publication Date: Oct 29, 2013
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Review:
One of my biggest pet peeves is when authors spend too much time explaining to you what happened in the last book. This bothered me when I read The Fiery Heart by Richelle Mead. It actually almost ruined the book for me. And this re-capping bothered me again in The Iron Traitor. So much time was spent reminding me what happened in The Lost Prince that I kept wondering when the action was finally going to begin in The Iron Traitor. Then when things finally started to take a turn in the right direction Kagawa leaves us on a terrible cliffhanger.

I don’t think I would have been bothered by all of the reminders if I had better connected with the characters. The second book should make me love the characters even more then the first book did. In the The Lost Prince I was introduced to Ethan, Keirran, Annwyl, and Kenzie. This book should have made me love them. Instead, I found myself getting annoyed with Kenzie constantly butting in; Annwyl playing the fragile flower, and Keirran blindly charging in to situations before thinking. The only person who didn’t get on my nerves was Ethan.

One of the things I loved the most about The Lost Prince was that some of our favorite characters played a role in the story. In this installment Ash, Meagan, Puck, and Grimm do make brief appearances, but they are very brief.

Honestly, in a lot of ways The Iron Traitor was just a space filler to get us to book three. Nothing new really happened in the plot. I think we are meant to have fallen for Annwyl and cared about the relationship between Annwyl and Keirran. Unfortunately, I never found their romance believable. I didn’t understand why these two characters wanted to be together so badly, or why Keirran loved Annwyl so much. She has never really given Keirran a reason to care. I actually wished they would have just let her fade.

Okay, okay, that came out a bit harsh. But honestly, I don’t really care for her as a character. I do hope she grows some kind of a backbone in book 3 though. I also hope we finally get to the mystery of the Lost Fey and their queen.


Despite not really enjoying this installment I will probably continue the series. I am a sucker for The Iron Fey. It was my guilty pleasure and this spin-off series has the general iron fey structure. Although, without the same heart and soul. Hopefully Kagawa can make me love these characters in the next book. I know if a writer can do it, she is more then up to the challenge.   

2 comments:

  1. I've lost the battle to continue on with this series after reading The Lost Prince. Don't get me wrong, I liked it enough but I think I've just about enough of this world.

    Sorry this book didn't turn out as good as you'd hoped. I hope the next one will make up for it, Emily. :)

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  2. I wasn't a fan of The Lost Prince but I did enjoy this one. I was really pissed off about the ending because not only was it a cliffhanger, but we KNEW it would happen.

    Sucks you didn't enjoy this more! Great review :)

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