Review: The Iron Traitor by Julie Kagawa

The Iron Traitor

Author: Julie Kagawa
Series: Iron Fey, #6; Call of the Forgotten, #2
Goodreads

In the real world, when you vanish into thin air for a week, people tend to notice.

After his unexpected journey into the lands of the fey, Ethan Chase just wants to get back to normal. Well, as "normal" as you can be when you see faeries every day of your life. Suddenly the former loner with the bad reputation has someone to try for-his girlfriend, Kenzie. Never mind that he's forbidden to see her again.

But when your name is Ethan Chase and your sister is one of the most powerful faeries in the Nevernever, "normal" simply isn't to be. For Ethan's nephew, Keirran, is missing, and may be on the verge of doing something unthinkable in the name of saving his own love. Something that will fracture the human and faery worlds forever, and give rise to the dangerous fey known as the Forgotten. As Ethan's and Keirran's fates entwine and Keirran slips further into darkness, Ethan's next choice may decide the fate of them all.

My mind is still reeling after that cliffhanger!! Holy crap! I can't believe I just read that. And now I have to wait a whole YEAR before I can find out what happens. Why, Julie??? Whyyyyy????

The Iron Traitor starts off with Ethan trying to go back to his normal life, but after having vanished for a whole week with one of the most popular girls in school who just so happens to be very sick, people tend to notice. And have a problem with it. Especially that girls father. He forbids Ethan and Kenzie from seeing each other, yet Kenzie finds a way anyways and they find themselves on a wild goose chase searching for Keirran and a way to save their friend and Keirran's love Annwyl from Fading out of existence.

Unfortunately for them, things don't go as planned. Bad things happen and Ethan begins to notice a change in the Iron Prince, one that's dark and dangerous. Pretty much anything that could go wrong does go wrong, all leading up to an insane cliffhanger. At the very end it was one thing after another turning into chaos, while the beginning started off a bit slow. In fact (or to me at least) the story doesn't really pick up until they enter the Nevernever and meet up with a few my favorite characters from the series.

There are a lot of things that I can't discuss in this review because it will spoil the story for you but I will say that I could feel the madness of what they were doing. It was like I was standing there watching this destructive path that they were on with no way of stopping it. You know those dreams you have where you're standing there yelling at the top of your lungs in a crowd of people and not one person turns and looks at you or acknowledges you at all and you're flailing your arms and doing everything in your power to get their attention, yet everything continues on anyways? Yeah, it's kind of like that.

As far as characters go, there aren't many new ones with the exception of Kenzie's family and a couple of others that made brief appearances. I really didn't like Kenzie's dad at all. He's just one of those characters who comes into the picture and causes unnecessary drama and doesn't seem to get the whole picture and who I just want to slap in the face. It was kind of a relief when they went back to the Nevernever because they didn't have to deal with clueless humans anymore which to me just seemed to slow down the progression of the story. This is probably why I enjoyed the Nevernever scenes far more than I did the ones that took place in the human world. I'm still not a huge fan of Kenzie. She's an okay character but compared to so many of the others, she just seems to fall flat to me.

As much as I love the Iron Fey series and Julie Kagawa's fantastic story-telling, The Iron Traitor seemed to go at a very slow pace in the beginning and didn't pick up until about halfway through. The first half of the book seemed to rotate around Kenzie and Ethan, their families and all the drama of their disappearance and relationship. I was hoping for more of the Faery world than what was actually in the story, but once they did make it to the Nevernever everything seemed to spiral out of control and suddenly move very quickly. With that being said, I can't wait to read the next installment. I just know that it's going to be full of action and I NEED to know where Julie will take the story next and how she will end it. I still can't believe she ended The Iron Traitor the way she did and I just know she's going to wow us in the story's conclusion.

I rate this book:

The Iron Fey Series

My review of The Iron Knight

Novellas

My review of The Iron Legends

The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten Series

My review of The Lost Prince

Favorite Quotes (Possible Spoilers!!)

This was nothing new. I'd been seeing things move my whole life: silhouettes in the trees, shadows from the corners of my eyes, brief glimpses of things in mirrors, doorways and reflections. That was the world of the fey, and you either got used to it or you became a neurotic freak.

"You ask a wearisome amount of questions." Grimalkin stood and stretched, curling his tail over his back. "Honestly, I do not know how mortals came up with that ridiculous phrase 'curiosity killed the cat.' Certainly they have never been around the lot of you."

"Ow! Dammit, Puck!" I raised my sword, knocking the dagger away as it came at my face again. The screech of metal on metal sent a chill up my spine. "Can you not make things worse sometimes?"
"What? I never make things worse," Puck replied, stepping forward to deal with another eddy swooshing in from the side. "I make things more interesting."
"Yeah, my food is about to have an interesting encounter with your ass."