Holly Black

A Modern Faery's Tale

Ironside

chloe rae

3.5*


This was probably my favorite of the three, but I still found so many weird problems with it. The second book continues to make absolutely zero sense and I feel as if I almost wasted time reading it. And this just didn’t wrap up as nice as I’d wanted? The ending, again, felt so ABRUPT. I still managed to fly through the story and find it hard to put down, but there’s never much pay off at the end. I just wanted so much more from this series but...that’s ok! Certain books speak to us and certain books don’t. I’ll be sticking by her Cruel Prince series and I think that’s it, at least for now. Maybe I’ll try other Holly Black books in the future!

As bonds of love threaten to break forever, the faerie courts will never be the same in the stunning conclusion to New York Times bestseller Holly Black’s critically acclaimed Modern Faerie Tale series. As the darkest day of the year approaches, the time has come for Roiben’s coronation. Uneasy in the midst of the malevolent Unseelie Court, pixie Kaye is sure of only one thing—her love for Roiben. But love in the realm of faerie is no simple matter, and when Kaye declares herself to Roiben during the celebration, he sends her on a seemingly impossible quest to find a faerie who can tell a lie. Unable to see Roiben until she has fulfilled his quest, Kaye calls upon her friends to help her. Their adventure will take them on a dangerous path, where Kaye finds herself at the center of the battle of wits and weapons being waged over Roiben’s throne.

A Modern Faerie Tale

(Bre)anne✨

TW: SA, addiction, death, overdose

Great ending to the trilogy. Corny needs #therapy! Loved the Hades/Persephone mention.

Allison Garrett

It's really hard to review a book that you want to love and just didn't. I loved the characters in Tithe, so I was really excited that they were also the stars of Ironside. Somehow the plot just really felt flat for me again. It was a very quick read, and I was absorbed into the first half. However, second half just wasn't as engaging. 

The Good: 
•Again, excellent writing style that is unique to Black’s writing 
•Kaye is a likeable (enough) main character 
•Corny’s character development was dead on 

The Bad:
•I really felt Kaye and Roiben’s relationship in Tithe, but in Ironside I thought it just seemed extremely rushed and they spent the whole book apart 
•Pretty predictable plot twist at the end 
•Seemed to work out a little too perfectly in my jaded opinion 

All in all a reluctant 3/5 because I wanted to love it so much. With that being said, I was engaged and I liked the way she brought in characters from Valiant as well.

Hazel Morton

I loved getting to see more of Kaye’s story in this book! There were lots of surprises that kept my attention hooked throughout the book too. A few minor parts I wished would have been slightly different, but other than that this book was a great read!

B. K.

3 stars. For such as short book, this felt like it took forever to read. Like the other Modern Faerie Tales, it felt like a jumble of moments that worked and moments that didn't.

Reading Rush 2020: read the first book you touch. (a.k.a. the book I was already reading)

Alejandra Bran

I guess it was okay. I liked it, but it doesn’t compare to the first two. Ironside is more muted, less darkness and killing. Technically everyone has a sort of happy ending. I expected more of it.

Hannah

3.25? 

definitely the best out of the series but like all i really feel is relief that this series is over. yet somehow i feel like nostalgic towards it?? definitely has that early 2000s ya vibe

Chelsea Hogg

"Seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to New York City, trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city’s labyrinthine subway system. But there’s something eerily beguiling about Val’s new friends. When one talks Val into tracking down the lair of a mysterious creature, Val finds herself torn between her affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming." - Amazon

Marie Duhamel

Estelle

sarah

Kerry McHugh West

Rachel Wellington

Quinnie

Chloe Heisserer

ghost girl in satin

A Freckled Bookwyrm

Holly Black's long-awaited sequel to Tithe sees Roiben uneasy on the Unseelie throne, his tenuous hold on his subjects compounded by his relationship with a commoner -- and one raised as a human to boot. Then Kaye, drunk on faerie wine and goaded by malicious ill-wishers, makes a passionate declaration -- in public -- which makes their situation immeasurably worse. Because of it Roiben must set her a task which she must complete to show that she is worthy to be his consort. The quest he gives her, however, is an impossible one: to find him a faery who can lie. Devastated as she is by his rejection, belonging neither in Faerie nor the human world -- Ironside -- Kaye is not the only one in trouble. Corny too has acted rashly and has to face some harsh and unpleasant consequences when he is cursed so that every thing he touches decays and dies. Together they set out to seek an answer and a cure, and both find more than they bargain for. Corny finds a soulmate in the mysterious and taciturn Luis -- whom he dare not touch -- but Kaye uncovers a plot to destroy Roiben once and for all by an act of exquisite cruelty and revenge. A plot hatched not in the twisted heart of the Unseelie Court but by the Seelie Queen herself: the bright star, Silarial, to whom Roiben in turn had once declared his love. Love and hate and good and evil are only sides of the same coin. But which is which and how fine is the line that lies between them?

Ironside A Modern Faery's Tale

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