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'The Iron King' by Julie Kagawa
So, I have this horrible addiction to YA paranormal romance, specifically of the 'urban faerie' subgenre. It's like brain candy. When done well, it's like it's a genre specifically invented with me in mind. When done poorly, I stomp around in disgust, flinging insults.
For the uninitiated into this unrelentingly soap-operatic and alternately dark-and-shiny set of fictitious worlds, I will note that Holly Black's 'Tithe' series sets the bar for awesome, and the Bordertown anthologies and novels set the bar for 'outcasts will identify with these situations'.
Right now, I've blown through all the Holly Black, Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Pamela Dean, Melissa Marr, Cassandra Clare, Maggie Steifvater, Seanan McGuire, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Becca Fitzpatrick, Lesley Livingston, Janni Lee Simner, Aprilynne Pike, Cyn Balog, Herbie Brennan, AND OF COURSE the Sharyn November anthologies, and the Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling ones, and NATURALLY all the more grown-up good stuff like Jim Butcher and John C. Wright and Mike Carey and John Connolly and etc etc etc...
...so while I'm waiting for my favorites to churn out new books, I'm fishing through whatever the hell's available in Amazon's kindle store. I discovered Julie Kagawa! She is more or less on par with Melissa Marr and Aprilynne Pike. IE, engaging while you're reading it, good for escapism, entertaining, lots of regurgitated mythology and Shakespeare and new and old World of Darkness tropes, but not amazing. I was cheerily reading through and gobbling it all up because there *are* relatively new takes on some old ideas in there--
--and then I finished the first book and started on Winter Passage, which is the novella between The Iron King and The Iron Daughter.
And I realized what irritated me about the heroine, Meghan Chase:
The part I dislike about all these stories is how dumb the 'clever' girls are. 'Gee, I'm the half-human daughter of Oberon. Titania wants me dead. Mab wants to use me as leverage against the Summer Court. But... I totally fell in love with Mab's youngest son, who's vowed to take me to her, and he totally fell in love with me too. He accepted a bargain with me, wherein I'd go with him willingly if he helped rescue my baby brother from the third-party bad guys, and every time I save his life after he tells me to run, he falls more in love. But... he can turn his emotions off!! and he told me not to trust him!! BUT I TRUST HIM. Except that when he does exactly what he said he was going to do and hides his love for me under that icy emotionless face, I'm afraid that all that love and all that saving-his-mortal-enemies-for-my-benefit and all that wonder in his face is a MANIPULATIVE LIE to get me to TRUST HIM!!!! D:'
Dumb chick.
Just ONCE I would like to see a modern faerie romance where the protagonist raised-as-a-human girl outmanuevers the incredibly adept and douchey Byronic beautiful antiheroic faerie prince through cleverness instead of luck.
Oh wait.
I did.
It was awesome, and called 'Ironside', and it's by Holly Black. :|
YOU HEAR THAT, TEEN PARANORMAL ROMANCE WRITERS? WRITE MORE AWESOME STUFF, LIKE HOLLY BLACK.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Gina DC, Continuity Cop
(and admittedly not your target demographic)
For the uninitiated into this unrelentingly soap-operatic and alternately dark-and-shiny set of fictitious worlds, I will note that Holly Black's 'Tithe' series sets the bar for awesome, and the Bordertown anthologies and novels set the bar for 'outcasts will identify with these situations'.
Right now, I've blown through all the Holly Black, Emma Bull, Will Shetterly, Pamela Dean, Melissa Marr, Cassandra Clare, Maggie Steifvater, Seanan McGuire, Charles de Lint, Neil Gaiman, Becca Fitzpatrick, Lesley Livingston, Janni Lee Simner, Aprilynne Pike, Cyn Balog, Herbie Brennan, AND OF COURSE the Sharyn November anthologies, and the Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling ones, and NATURALLY all the more grown-up good stuff like Jim Butcher and John C. Wright and Mike Carey and John Connolly and etc etc etc...
...so while I'm waiting for my favorites to churn out new books, I'm fishing through whatever the hell's available in Amazon's kindle store. I discovered Julie Kagawa! She is more or less on par with Melissa Marr and Aprilynne Pike. IE, engaging while you're reading it, good for escapism, entertaining, lots of regurgitated mythology and Shakespeare and new and old World of Darkness tropes, but not amazing. I was cheerily reading through and gobbling it all up because there *are* relatively new takes on some old ideas in there--
--and then I finished the first book and started on Winter Passage, which is the novella between The Iron King and The Iron Daughter.
And I realized what irritated me about the heroine, Meghan Chase:
The part I dislike about all these stories is how dumb the 'clever' girls are. 'Gee, I'm the half-human daughter of Oberon. Titania wants me dead. Mab wants to use me as leverage against the Summer Court. But... I totally fell in love with Mab's youngest son, who's vowed to take me to her, and he totally fell in love with me too. He accepted a bargain with me, wherein I'd go with him willingly if he helped rescue my baby brother from the third-party bad guys, and every time I save his life after he tells me to run, he falls more in love. But... he can turn his emotions off!! and he told me not to trust him!! BUT I TRUST HIM. Except that when he does exactly what he said he was going to do and hides his love for me under that icy emotionless face, I'm afraid that all that love and all that saving-his-mortal-enemies-for-my-benefit and all that wonder in his face is a MANIPULATIVE LIE to get me to TRUST HIM!!!! D:'
Dumb chick.
Just ONCE I would like to see a modern faerie romance where the protagonist raised-as-a-human girl outmanuevers the incredibly adept and douchey Byronic beautiful antiheroic faerie prince through cleverness instead of luck.
Oh wait.
I did.
It was awesome, and called 'Ironside', and it's by Holly Black. :|
YOU HEAR THAT, TEEN PARANORMAL ROMANCE WRITERS? WRITE MORE AWESOME STUFF, LIKE HOLLY BLACK.
Thank you.
Sincerely,
Gina DC, Continuity Cop
(and admittedly not your target demographic)
no subject
I don't write paranormal romance, but I have a couple of urban-fantasy fairy stories that were published in the last couple of years. If you are interested and you're prepared to give me an honest opinion, I'll be happy to send you PDF copies...
Cheers!
-- JF
no subject