I forgot how I first got introduced to this book, but thank goodness I did! I've always been interested in the fey, the dangerous, cruel immortals instead of the fluttering pixies with glowing wings. Now, if you know you're urban mytholygy, all fey have an aversion to iron, right? Julie Kagawa plays on this legend and uses her imagination to dream up the Iron Fey, a new race of faeries who are made from the new dreams of mortals, dreams of science and technology. When the journey starts, it's Meghan's sixteenth birthday, a big thing for all teens. She swears this is going to be the day she gets her crush to notice her, but instead, she gets something she never thought possible. The knowledge of her true heritage, the entrance to a whole new world where Summer and Winter are enemies and where there are many, many things that want to destroy her.
What I didn't catch at the beginning of this book, and what made me face-palm myself, was that her best friend is the one legendary faery that is not royalty, and yet is still so old. A few chapters in, I was hooked and Meghan was already running away from human-eating trolls and escaping death by a millimeter, not to mention meeting a faery cat that reminds me suspiciously of the Cheshire Cat. Don't tell him I said that. When reading this you won't be bored what with everything going on here and there.
Meghan's world is suddenly turned up. Side. Down. Especially when she discovers that her father wasn't her father, that she's half faery princess, that her best friend isn't human, that she's falling in love with someone who can never be with her and who's supposed to be your enemy. It's bound to happen.
This book is one of my favorites for many reasons. The characters will make you love them no matter how infuriating they are, you'll start to actually feel like you're in Arcadia, or the iron realm, and you'll experience the exact same emotions along with Meghan. I was so into this book that I read it in one sitting and into the night.
After reading this, you'll be making your parents buy you the next book, Iron Daughter, just to find out what happens with Ash, Robbie (insert wink), and Meghan! Plus there'll be the usual check-under-your-bed-for-bogies and look-at-computers-weirdly routine that you'll be experiencing every time you think of this book!