Audiobook Review – Iron Hearted Violet by Kelly Barnhill (3/5 stars)

Reading Level: Middle Grade
Genre: Fantasy
Size: 432 pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 9, 2012
ISBN: 978-0316056731
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Audibook from Audible.com
Rating: 3/5 stars

I listened to this on audiobook. It was an okay fairy tale about how being ugly on the outside doesn’t mean you are an ugly person. I had some issues with the story and the narration.

I listened to this on audiobook and wasn’t a huge fan of the narrator. All the women’s voices sounded like men with clogged up throats.

This was a fairy tale like fantasy about Violent, an ugly young princess, who gets drawn in by an evil banished God. As a result she almost destroys the kingdom in her search for beauty. It’s also the story about a King obsessed with a Dragon.

It is interesting how a storyteller narrates the whole story. I enjoyed the fairy tale feel to it. I loved the inclusion of dragons. The story ends with an interesting twist to it that will leave readers surprised and intrigued.

It does bother me a bit though how Violet is so beautiful on the cover of the book, yet throughout it a point is made to constantly described her ugliness. In the end it is the beauty of her personality that makes people love her, but I didn’t enjoy the emphasis put on looks and how her main feature was her ugliness.

I didn’t enjoy or engage with most of the characters in this book. The exception was Dimitri who is a stable boy who is trying to solve the mystery of why the things are going so horribly in the castle. He was an engaging and interesting character and also pretty much the only “good” character in the story.

Overall it was a decently done story and decently written, I just never really enjoyed the characters all that much. I did like the fairy tale feel to it and the twist at the end of the story. I didn’t enjoy the inconsistency between the illustration and the description of Violet in the book. I personally wouldn’t recommend this unless you are really into the ugly princess type of story.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
– 150+ Books Reading Challenge