Ironside

It's time for Roiben's coronation to be made the offical king of the depraved Unseelie Court. Kaye, who is just getting used to her pixie state after being raised as a human, is having trouble fitting in to the court. During the celebration, Kaye drinks more faerie wine than she should and drunkenly declares her love for Roiben in fae tradition. It's customary for him to give her some sort of trial, an easy one if the love is returned, and she can't see or speak to him until the task is done. His task is for her to find a faerie who can lie, which is completely impossible. Shocked and reeling, Kaye returns to her home and goes into a shame spiral, resulting in telling her mother that she is a changeling. When trying to retrieve her human counterpart, Silarial, queen of the Seelie Court, attempts to ensare Kaye into her plan to take the Unseelie throne from Roiben. How can Kaye hope to beat the ancient queen of the faeries at her own game?

I seriously love this series so much. I have no idea why I waited so long to read it. It combines so many things that I love: dark faeries, realistic characters, twisty plots, unconventional romances, sword fights, and games of wit. While there is one fairly one dimensional villain, both sides of the conflict are largely in shades of grey where both do good and evil for different reasons. How they appear is not usually how they actually are and it has led to many surprising and turns in the series. This installment also merges the characters from Tithe with those from Valiant, but I felt they were underutilized considering an entie book was spent building up their characters. I especially loved returning to Kaye and Roiben and seeing that the events of Tithe didn't magically make all of their problems go away.

Kaye is still lost as a newfound pixie and Roiben still holds all his feelings inside without sharing all of himself with Kaye. Now that Kaye knows what she is, she no longer truly belongs to the faerie world or the human world. Faeries view her as ignorant, socially inept, and someone to play tricks on, as close to human as a fae can get. She sticks to the human world most of the time because she can at least glamour herself to fit in even though she knows she doesn't belong there anymore. As before, she's prone to drowning her sorrows in booze instead of facing them head-on. This paired with her eagerness to be accepted into fae society as Roiben's mate drove her to declare herself to Roiben.

Roiben also has a lot of baggage. He feels similar to Kaye about the Seelie and Unseelie Courts. While the depravity and cruelty of the Unseelie Court disgusts him, he has found that the Seelie Court isn't much better after being blind for so long, especially since he has seen his former Queen and former beloved Silarial's true colors. Kaye is his escape from all of it and he didn't want to endanger her by putting a big target on her forehead as someone to torture or kill to get to him. While his reasonings aren't terrible, he doesn't share anything with Kaye. leading to her spiral after he very publicly and soundly rejects her declaration.

Ironside is an amazing end to a strong series. I was on the edge of my seat for much of the end since I couldn't figure out how Roiben and Kaye would get out of their predicament. The clever thinking and faerie logic that leads the story in unexpected places is unparalleled. Holly Black is the queen of faerie stories as far as I'm concerned and I can't wait to read The Cruel Prince when it comes out. She always writes unexpected stories with engaging characters and I will read every book she writes, especially if it's in the fae world.

My rating: 5/5 fishmuffins

Switched

Wendy Everly has never felt as if she fit in anywhere. When she was six, her own mother tried to murder her in a fit of delusion, convinced that she replaced her mother's real child. People seem to dislike her upon meeting without knowing anything about her and she just seems to stumble into trouble without meaning to. At seventeen, she's living with her brother and her aunt, trying to be good, do well in school, and stay out of trouble for their sake. Then a boy at her school named Finn starts to kind of stalk her, making Wendy suspicious but interested. He reveals that she is a changeling and she must return to her true family or be kidnapped by an opposing faction. Is this the place she belongs or will she be just as alien as she is in the human world?

Switched is a typical teen fantasy book that is supposedly about trolls (AKA trylles). This aspect isn't necessary at all and seems like an easy way to market it as something unique, when it's actually just a typical fairy story. There are some things I liked about the book, such as the trylle society and the dynamic of her blood family as opposed to her human family. The society has a rigid caste system that doesn't allow for upward mobility. The regular, peasant trylle don't have any special abilities, so they work in order to contribute. Those in the aristocracy have magical abilities of some sort, but they don't know how to defend themselves. Trackers only have abilities that go with their trade and are considered very low on the totem pole, but humans hold the lowest position. The blatant hatred of humans and behavior of the people in different levels of the caste system really intrigued me. The different family dynamics are also interesting. The family that has taken care of her for all of her life is the most important to Wendy. Her family by blood is cold and distant with only duty binding them together. The vastly different family units highlight that love, not blood, makes a true family.

The rest of the story is fairly typical for a teen fantasy read. Of course there is a hot guy named Finn that makes Wendy act completely senseless and melodramatic. This is the most annoying aspect because I really like her except when she acts like she's going to die without Finn, as so many heroines do these days. It's also creepy that she finds it sexy to be stalked and annoyed instead of meeting and getting to know each other like real people. The love at first sight trope is getting a little tired for me. The plot is a little uneven with pacing and doesn't really pick up until she arrives in the trylle world.

Overall, Switched was enjoyable, but not a spectacular read. The writing was all right and the story kept my interest, but I don't have a burning need to read the next book in the series.

My rating: 3/5 fishmuffins