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4.37 AVERAGE
4.37 AVERAGE
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Mediocre-Read
So where do we begin?
Well, first of all, I liked Will for obvious guilty-pleasured reasons, however, I hated his role throughout this book. He was too... disconnected, and not in the intentional kind of way. Also, his ‘curse’ was one of the worst attempts at a redemption arc I’d ever seen/read in my entire life.
Meanwhile, Jem was his usual sweetheart self up until he decided to suddenly become self-centered enough to ask Tessa for her hand in marriage. Okay, so didn’t it take him losing a literal fight before he agreed to become Will’s parabatai? I assumed that was because he thought Will deserved so much more than him, right? Then, what about Tessa? Why did he act so selfish all of a sudden? I’m honestly really perplexed as to why no one in the book community has brought this issue up yet but, maybe I’m missing something, idk.
Okay, now for the positives:
No doubt, the strongest attribute of this book was its love triangle (not much else to say on this point).
I liked most other parts of the story and characters. Although I was indifferent about Tessa, she turned out to be not as bland of a protagonist as I thought she’d be considering her background. Granted though, she is still pretty bland...
Also, Markus Bane is great, however, it didn’t really surprise me that the crowd favorite would be the one rather interesting character out of the bunch.
Luckily, the story and plot were pretty simple to follow and the lore/ world building stayed fairly uncomplicated.
However, I would’ve liked to have seen more from the main villain since he was practically nonexistent throughout this whole book.
I also feel similarly here as I felt towards my earlier issue about the characters acting as though they weren’t really from a fantasy novel. Don’t get me wrong, having grounded characters is a great and refreshing way of portraying your fictional world, especially in terms of fantasy. However, I always felt it a bit odd how the characters were acting as though everything was some sort of average chore, even the crazy life-threatening missions that we also rarely ever got the chance to read about.
Additionally, I didn’t like the amount of time that had passed since the night Tessa had escaped from the dark sisters. I think there wouldn’t have been any great changes to the plot if Cassandra had decided to time-skip a year or two into the second book, and it would’ve also added this layer of legitimacy and depth to the love triangle too, but oh well, that’s YA for you.
All-in-all, this book didn’t suck balls, so that’s a plus!
So where do we begin?
Well, first of all, I liked Will for obvious guilty-pleasured reasons, however, I hated his role throughout this book. He was too... disconnected, and not in the intentional kind of way. Also, his ‘curse’ was one of the worst attempts at a redemption arc I’d ever seen/read in my entire life.
Meanwhile, Jem was his usual sweetheart self up until he decided to suddenly become self-centered enough to ask Tessa for her hand in marriage. Okay, so didn’t it take him losing a literal fight before he agreed to become Will’s parabatai? I assumed that was because he thought Will deserved so much more than him, right? Then, what about Tessa? Why did he act so selfish all of a sudden? I’m honestly really perplexed as to why no one in the book community has brought this issue up yet but, maybe I’m missing something, idk.
Okay, now for the positives:
No doubt, the strongest attribute of this book was its love triangle (not much else to say on this point).
I liked most other parts of the story and characters. Although I was indifferent about Tessa, she turned out to be not as bland of a protagonist as I thought she’d be considering her background. Granted though, she is still pretty bland...
Also, Markus Bane is great, however, it didn’t really surprise me that the crowd favorite would be the one rather interesting character out of the bunch.
Luckily, the story and plot were pretty simple to follow and the lore/ world building stayed fairly uncomplicated.
However, I would’ve liked to have seen more from the main villain since he was practically nonexistent throughout this whole book.
I also feel similarly here as I felt towards my earlier issue about the characters acting as though they weren’t really from a fantasy novel. Don’t get me wrong, having grounded characters is a great and refreshing way of portraying your fictional world, especially in terms of fantasy. However, I always felt it a bit odd how the characters were acting as though everything was some sort of average chore, even the crazy life-threatening missions that we also rarely ever got the chance to read about.
Additionally, I didn’t like the amount of time that had passed since the night Tessa had escaped from the dark sisters. I think there wouldn’t have been any great changes to the plot if Cassandra had decided to time-skip a year or two into the second book, and it would’ve also added this layer of legitimacy and depth to the love triangle too, but oh well, that’s YA for you.
All-in-all, this book didn’t suck balls, so that’s a plus!
challenging
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Loveable characters:
Yes
even better than the last one
adventurous
medium-paced
This part felt a little dry for me personally.
Where in part one there was a lot of intrigue about learning more about Tessa and her whole situation, it felt like that was put in the backseat. This caused me to not be as invested as I was before and I felt myself zone out more often. Which was a shame because it could've been interesting learning more about Will. It was just a pinch too slow this time!
I listened to parts of the audiobook to get through it. And the weird thing was that with this audiobook, unlike the one from the first book, it was partly told by a woman and partly by a man. But because of Cassandra Clare's amazing writing style (heavily sarcastic here). It would often be that the female narrator ended a chapter reading from a male character and then the next chapter would begin with the male narrator from Tessa. I really don't know why they switched between narrators as it didn't do anything good for the audiobook.
This book does however do one thing right, and that's the love triangle. This is I believe the first love triangle where I:
1. Don't have a clear preference for either one of them
2. My heart would break either way, the only way to prevent that if they would just give up and go for a polygamous relationship. Win-win situation if you ask me
3. Where the girl doesn't feel brainless
So yeah I will finish this series, I will take a little break I think. Or someone needs to motivate me to read part 3 immediately!
Where in part one there was a lot of intrigue about learning more about Tessa and her whole situation, it felt like that was put in the backseat. This caused me to not be as invested as I was before and I felt myself zone out more often. Which was a shame because it could've been interesting learning more about Will. It was just a pinch too slow this time!
I listened to parts of the audiobook to get through it. And the weird thing was that with this audiobook, unlike the one from the first book, it was partly told by a woman and partly by a man. But because of Cassandra Clare's amazing writing style (heavily sarcastic here). It would often be that the female narrator ended a chapter reading from a male character and then the next chapter would begin with the male narrator from Tessa. I really don't know why they switched between narrators as it didn't do anything good for the audiobook.
This book does however do one thing right, and that's the love triangle. This is I believe the first love triangle where I:
1. Don't have a clear preference for either one of them
2. My heart would break either way, the only way to prevent that if they would just give up and go for a polygamous relationship. Win-win situation if you ask me
3. Where the girl doesn't feel brainless
So yeah I will finish this series, I will take a little break I think. Or someone needs to motivate me to read part 3 immediately!
adventurous
emotional
medium-paced