Charlie
this book cast a spell on me i stg.... (tone signifier: confused). I listened to the audiobook, and the whole time I kept rolling my eyes and going “i can't listen to this anymore.” and then i kept listening. and then the book expired from the library and i thought “well i guess i'll never know!” and then i found myself putting it on hold???? and by god i did finish it.....
but honestly, really a good book for what it is (the wuthering heights ice dance book)
Something I absolutely loved about the first Red Rising book is that it was a self-contained story. I saw V.E Schwab speak once, and she said that she tries to write the first book in her trilogy so that there are cliffhangers for those who want to read on, but that it's important to her to that readers who don't want to continue on feel satisfied as well.
So, the thing about Iron Gold is that it is simultaneously the 1st book in a trilogy and the 4th book in a series. To me, it read like a decent first book in a trilogy, but it wasn't what I had come to expect from Brown. I thought that going from solely Darrow's POV to four different POVs was jarring, and, to me, it made the pacing really slog. Darrow's stakes were just SO MUCH HIGHER than everyone else's that it made everyone else's chapters seem slow in comparison, and I thought the two plotlines that hook into Darrow's took too long to get there. When things started to pick up, it did feel like puzzle pieces falling into place for the rest of the series, which was a cool feeling! I just wished it didn't take 70% of the book to get there.
I also just didn't really like any of the new character - they often felt one-note, which is surprising since the characters from the original trilogy were absurdly rich and practically jumped off the page.
I've heard really great things about Dark Age, so I will be continuing the series, but this one, unfortunately, fell really short of my expectations.
I liked this book a lot more than Jade City - Lee really did a great job of expanding the scope of conflict while maintaining the personal conflicts she created in the 1st book. Similar to the first book, I felt like it really picked up about halfway through (THE CLEAN BLADE!!). Super stoked to read Jade Legacy!
