Heart of Iron by Ashley Poston Review
Hello Again!
Time for the first review of May! I finished this novel at the end of April and had to share my thoughts. This was a new release for March and I received it in my March OwlCrate. Read on to see what I thought of this sci- fi retelling. Enjoy!
Synopsis
Seventeen-year-old Ana is a scoundrel by nurture and an outlaw by nature. Found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09, Ana was saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09—one of the last remaining illegal Metals—has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him. Ana’s desperate effort to save D09 leads her on a quest to steal the coordinates to a lost ship that could offer all the answers. But at the last moment, a spoiled Ironblood boy beats Ana to her prize. He has his own reasons for taking the coordinates, and he doesn’t care what he’ll sacrifice to keep them. When everything goes wrong, she and the Ironblood end up as fugitives on the run. Now their entire kingdom is after them—and the coordinates—and not everyone wants them captured alive. What they find in a lost corner of the universe will change all their lives—and unearth dangerous secrets. But when a darkness from Ana’s past returns, she must face an impossible choice: does she protect a kingdom that wants her dead or save the Metal boy she loves?
-GoodReads
Review
So far, this has been the year of retellings as this is my 6th (and my 3rd this month)! I was really looking forward to this Anastasia retelling as Anastasia is one of my favorite stories and I very much enjoyed a sci- fi retelling of a classic earlier this month. However, as I reached the halfway point of this book, I knew I was going to be disappointed. Here's why.
Having multiple POV's is usually an asset to most novels, allowing it to have a more complex story and get better character development out of the main cast but that was not the case in this novel. This novel is told through the perspective of 4 characters although Ana is our main character. However, her chapters were so far and few between that this novel felt as if it had 4 main characters who all shared the stage. Calling this novel a retelling is using the word very loosely. Up until the last 80-100 pages of the book, the only things tying this novel to Anastasia is the fact that she is a lost princess (a very common plot point in YA novels) and her name is Ana. And even after another slight discovery, it still does not pull as much from the original tale as I would have enjoyed. This was one of the most disappointing aspects to me.
Let's talk character development. The most interesting character in my opinion is Di, the "Metal" who Ana was found with and has been with her ever since. His story arc is by far the most interesting of the book and I believe this book would have been far more interesting if he was the main character (but I digress). Due to her lack of chapters, we don't get as much development out of Ana as we do the other 3 characters. It felt like Ana is only included in the story to tie in the Anastasia element of the story, like she could have almost been written out of this book. Robb and Jax, our other main characters play an almost confusing role in this novel. Their presence feels out of place and the only thing they contribute to this novel is a forced romance plot line.
The first 200 or so pages of this book flow in a linear pattern and are pretty interesting for the most part then it starts to get choppy. One of the things that irritated me most was how fast certain plot points were accepted by the characters. Robb is a prisoner on the ship and has been there for mere hours before they give him a gun and decide to make him part of the crew even though he's thought to be a member of the enemy. The plot is not well paced which is how we reach (what I thought should be) the natural end just past the halfway point of the book and yet the book continues for another 100 pages or so. This convolutes the plot, making it far more complicated than it needed to be.
Another one of my biggest irritations is the romance between Robb and Jax. They meet when Robb is a prisoner and Jax is transporting him to the ship and hours later they're madly in love with each other. It's preposterous and felt very forced. Although Ana and Di's relationship starts before this book begins, there were still some elements that were a little iffy. Especially the part about him being a metal robot. I understand that he has a personality so to say but it was just a little too weird for me to swallow.
I was most confused when I got to the end of the novel and the story didn't wrap up. From what I had gleaned before reading, this was a stand alone novel. I have since found out that this is going to be a series which I find kind of strange for a retelling of a classic tale. This really threw off the vibe of the story for me and was one of the many reasons why I didn't enjoy this book. I will not be picking up the second novel but I hope the author is able to salvage some of the story in it.
Conclusion
Overall, this book was really disappointing. Anastasia is one of my favorite stories and I was looking forward to its retelling but this book was poorly paced and the characters were underdeveloped. I will not be reading the sequel.
Length: At 480 pages, it's about 100 pages too long.
Story Development: Unevenly paced and continues past its natural end.
Romance: A bit odd and not very well developed, either of them.
Protagonist Strength: Below Average
Re-readable? No
I give this book 2.5 out of 5 stars
