Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
It’s packed with good ideas, but betrayed by rushed execution.
It’s a good book. And while I liked the story and think that it’s pleasantly enough written, here’s why it’s 4 stars and not 5:
-It feels underdeveloped and rushed. Like a movie instead of a book. Or like someone took a much longer and complicated novel and made an abridged version of it. There were very nice ideas and moments, but it didn’t feel like they were explored. I honestly felt like I was being rushed through the story, without getting the full experience.
-Perhaps related to the previous point, but it also asks the reader to take for granted a lot of things without explaining how they really work in the world. Or much about the world in general.
-It didn’t really escape the ‘teenage heroine that makes you want to smack her for her stupidity’ curse of YA literature. I don’t know if it got a bit better towards the end, or if I just got used to it.
-There were cringy moments that personally rubbed me the wrong way. Felt like cringingness for the sake of cringingness – and while I know some people are fans of that, I am not.
I do think it’s good read… if you don’t mind being left with more questions than answers and completing the world you’re reading about in your head instead of getting it from the book, or feeling like you just watched a nice sci-fi movie, instead of reading a novel, and I also think I’ll try to pick up the sequel when it comes out, but I do think it leaves a pretty noticeable ‘something’s missing’ aftertaste.
Keina Daria 