Iron Crowned

As good as rachel morgan series. So sad I have to wait months for next one.

This book was what broke the series for me. It started out well in the first book, an intriguing use of shamanism and realistic techniques for confronting the spirit world. I was willing to overlook some of the book's faults for the novelty of it. However, by the end of the first book and all throughout the rest of the books, the spirit world became less an intangible mystical place so much as just… well, Narnia; as Mead mentions herself in the book! That killed a lot of what attracted me in the first place to the story.

But what ultimately killed the Dark Swan series was Eugenie herself. I haven't encountered such an unlikeable protagonist since New Moon! I saw all the signs throughout the second book. Eugenie is ruled by her emotions and us utterly incapable of thinking rationally. She is endlessly selfish and is unable to set aside her sheer incompetence for even a moment despite the fact that there are clearly hundreds if not thousands of innocent lives on the line. As a queen, she never rises to her new responsibility and acts like a child all through the second book and the third. She whines and moans about the petty details of her love life while people are dying all around her. She leans on her staff and her boyfriends to accomplish anything. Her only skill seems to be killing things. Which, probably is fitting.

While the second book redeemed itself enough in my eyes at the climax to warrant buying the third book, the climax for the third rendered Eugenie completely unsalvageable as a protagonist for me. I actually skipped to the end when I was halfway through because I couldn't take anymore of the protagonist's refusal to accept any other reality than her own and her penchant for avoiding any sort of responsibility and just ignoring problems until others solve them for her. I stopped randomly near the end and the few paragraphs I read was enough to make my jar drop with the sheer callousness of the protagonist. An utter rejection of what she'd been saying earlier about not caring about any prophecy and living her own life, Eugenie became completely unrelatable as a character in a heartbeat. No normal person would act like this!! Eugenie, AKA Odile (Oh, and we never see her in her freaking swan spirit form!!!) is sociopathic and is fueled by selfishness and teenage angst. I wouldn't trust her with a dog let alone a child.

Read the first book and pretend that the rest in the series doesn't exist.

I can't wait for the next one.