Category:
YA fantasy
Series:
Iron Fey #4; Call of the Forgotten #1
Publisher:
Harlequin Teen, 2012
Book
Source: Publisher’s review copy
through Netgalley
First, a confession. I hadn’t read the first Iron Fey trilogy when
I started The Lost Prince. (Well,
actually, I had started The Iron King a
while earlier, but had to return it to the library before I finished it.) So I “cheated” and read the end of the third
book. I wanted to have at least some
idea what was going on before delving into The
Lost Prince.
It’s a good thing I did. The
Lost Prince was enjoyable overall, but it does assume at least some
familiarity with the world and characters of the original Iron Fey trilogy.
Ethan Chase is Meghan’s younger brother
– the little brother she rescued from Faerie before she left the mortal world
forever. Now Ethan is seventeen. Angry
at Meghan for abandoning him and determined to protect his family and avoid the
disruptive and heartless fey, Ethan keeps everyone at a distance. He’s prickly, sullen, and surly, with a
bad-boy reputation which is only partly unearned. (That fire at his old school was really the
fault of the fey.)
But then Ethan discovers that the fey
and half-breeds in our world are disappearing.
And that whatever is taking them is after him, too. When he and a popular school journalist are
threatened by these ghostly fey at a martial arts tournament, there’s only one
place to turn for help -- Ethan’s sister
Meghan. The Iron Queen.
What
works: Kagawa’s world has the same
creepy, neither-safe-nor-predictable fascination of Alice’s Wonderland – not
the Lewis Carroll version so much as the movie starring Johnny Depp. Kagawa’s fairies and fey are capricious and
often powerful, and their interests rarely coincide with those of mortals. Ethan is fully mortal, but unlike most of us
he can see the fey – which makes him more a target for their mischief than
ordinary humans. Kenzie, the pretty
school reporter who befriends Ethan against his will, is an engaging and plucky
heroine with well-hidden troubles of her own.
The growing attraction between them is well-written, and Ethan’s
knight-errant tendencies are the most admirable thing about him. An unexpected (to me) third character,
Kierran, is intriguing… and I really
appreciated that Kagawa didn’t turn the trio into the semi-obligatory love
triangle. The plot is well-constructed and the writing is both descriptive and
taut; Kagawa kept me reading and left me wanting to find out what happens next.
What
I didn’t like: For about the first third of the book, Ethan
really annoyed me. I understand why he is
so angry and keeps everyone at arms’ length, but apart from his unwilling
compassion toward a half-fey boy and his protectiveness toward Kenzie, I didn’t
find him very sympathetic as a character at first.. His half-belligerent, half-resentful
attitude grated on my nerves. (Perhaps it’s just because I’m so far from my own
teen years, but even when I was teen, I was never attracted to the sullen,
angry type.) At one point, I was so put
off by him that I almost stopped reading.
Fortunately, once Ethan and Kenzie enter
the Nevernever, he slowly becomes more likeable. You begin to see his softer side, and he lets
go of some of his prickliness.
Eventually, I began to enjoy the book, turning the pages with increasing
eagerness. By the end, I was hooked and
wanting more.
Rating:
3 ½ stars
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