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4.2 AVERAGE
4.2 AVERAGE
adventurous
dark
funny
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
adventurous
dark
funny
hopeful
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
dark
emotional
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
lighthearted
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Yes
“It's all right to love someone who doesn't love you back, as long as they're worth you loving them. As long as they deserve it.”
4.25 stars
4.25 stars
slow-paced
So....this was meh ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ It was cool to see more of the Shadowhunter world, but I was continuously convinced that I would never want to live in this universe. The way the Shadowhunters talk about Downworlders and mundanes is so icky. In the scene where they're fighting de Quincey, Will says, 'One of the Devil’s abominations, aren’t you? You don’t even deserve to live in this world with the rest of us, yet when we let you do so out of pity, you throw our gift back in our faces.’ That encapsulates how the Shadowhunters truly think about anyone who is not like them. They think they're scum beneath them, and the only people worth anything are themselves. Downworlders are good enough to dally with in secret but not good enough to be seen with in public. Why should I like them when this is the way they treat the people they're meant to be protecting? It was very much the same in the first three TMI books. I know this is right after the Accords, so they still have pretty fresh tension, but Will is supposed to be the good guy. And he says some of the most despicable things. I can't root for someone like that.
I remember enjoying this one the first time I read it, but now I'm again annoyed by most of the characters and their choices. The storytelling also underwhelms me. In the first chapter, we're just told about Tessa's six weeks with the Dark Sisters, and personally, I would have liked to experience them with her. It could have been an exciting way to get more insight into Tessa as a person. I can instantly glean from her as a character, though, that she is the type of person who reads something in a book and believes it immediately. Will says it's 'hotter than hell', and she instantly corrects him and tells him that hell is cold because she read it in Dante's Inferno. Girl, have you actually been to hell to experience this first-hand? No? Then shut up. We're told three times in one chapter that she hates charity but then lets Jessamine buy her a bunch of expensive dresses.
I'm also irritated by how she has to insert herself into everyone's business. And like, some of the things she says are so weird. "I know you don't like giving straightforward answers. I know you're probably about 17..." Okay????? "I know you're probably an orphan." Tessa!!! HAVE SOME TACT.
This book is literally TMI but in Victorian times. I'm not even going to bother mentioning the name similarities because I know how it's explained away in later books. I think she just came up with that because people were giving her crap for the name similarities but whatever. Tessa is your average Mary Sue who has never heard of the Shadow world only to get dragged into it by a rude hot guy she likes even though he's a dick. And then she finds out that she's a part of this world and also has a super special power that no one else has and blah blah blah. Oh, also, her brother is evil.
Will and Tessa constantly quoting pretentious poetry back and forth gets old really fast.
I'm annoyed by the way Magnus was introduced. “His skin was brown, the cast of his features like Jem’s.”So first of all, in TMI, he is described as having white skin and then it's said he's Indonesian in TRSOM, and now here brown skin. Could she not decide what ethnicity she wanted to make him? Also, what a lazy way to say that Magnus is Asian. Also, Chinese and Indonesian people do not have identical features, bro. ‘She wondered if perhaps, like Jem, he was of foreign extraction.’ I’m sorry, Tessa, are you really that stupid? No SHIT, he was ‘of foreign extraction'. For someone who’s such a know-it-all with your stupid booksplaining bullshit, you’re awfully dumb.
I'm too lazy to write the rest of this comprehensively, so just enjoy the notes I took while I read.
*The way Will dumps Thomas for Jem and immediately forgets about him as a person is so messed up. And then Thomas just dies in the end. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Who cares about the mundanes that work for the Shadowhunters, right?
*This book has one of those love triangles where it's like...okay, sure Will is hot, but Jem is RIGHT THERE.
* Tessa….girl, really? You had to scream for Nathan and ruin the WHOLE Shadowhunter plan? And you don’t even feel a lil bit bad about it.
*Question. Why would a knife be stronger than Tessa’s temporary vampiric strength? Like why would a knife be able to remove Nathaniel’s manacles when a vampire with super strength couldn’t?
*Tessa telling Brother Enoch she’ll never forgive him if anything happens to her brother. Girl, do you think he CARES?
*'It hardly seems worth living a long time if you’re going to look like that.' WOOOOOOW TESSA.
* Lol at Tessa not knowing if it’s right to feel murderous and, like me today, wanting to kill every man I come into contact with.
* LMAO TESSA COMPARING HER BEING HALF DEMON TO JEM BEING HALF CHINESE. It’s not the same thing, ma’am.
* God, if Tessa had just TRIED to open the door herself when the automatons were attacking her and Jem, she would’ve found out so much sooner that she had Shadowhunter blood
* What the heck does fighting smell like?
* “Maybe you should just let him have me.” Ugh, shut UP, Tessa.
* I literally hate Will. He’s such a butthole. The way he talks to Tessa when Jem asks for her to see him. “He wants to talk to you. So you will get up, and you will come with me, and you will talk to him. Do you understand?” Like, um, excuse the fudge out of me????
* “IF you care about him so much, why not look for a cure?” What’s with this trend of Clare’s FMCs thinking it’s okay to say things like this about people they’ve known for three days? Also, Jem legit told her last night that he asked them to stop looking for a cure, so why is she even saying this
* When Mortmain tells Tessa that he knew he was going to marry her and they would be together forever, her first response is, " WHAT IF I WAS UGLY?!?! I’m dead, goodbye forever. I want to know what would’ve happened if she was a boy. Would Mortmain still marry her? Why did he need to marry her if he only planned on having her shapeshift into his warlock dad so he could bind demon energies to his robots? (That is the funniest sounding plot ever. Goodbye)
* God, Tessa comparing Will’s assholery to Mr Darcy is infuriating because that should not be the norm, man. Like Mr Darcy is the exception, okay. He’s one of the few who gets to pull that shit off. Will is just a dick.
* Jem straight up just said Will’s parents are dead when they’re not the hell? “I am not sure there is anyone in the Institute who is not an orphan. Otherwise we would not be here.” EXCEPT WILL ISN’T AN ORPHAN, HE HAS PARENTS.
I remember enjoying this one the first time I read it, but now I'm again annoyed by most of the characters and their choices. The storytelling also underwhelms me. In the first chapter, we're just told about Tessa's six weeks with the Dark Sisters, and personally, I would have liked to experience them with her. It could have been an exciting way to get more insight into Tessa as a person. I can instantly glean from her as a character, though, that she is the type of person who reads something in a book and believes it immediately. Will says it's 'hotter than hell', and she instantly corrects him and tells him that hell is cold because she read it in Dante's Inferno. Girl, have you actually been to hell to experience this first-hand? No? Then shut up. We're told three times in one chapter that she hates charity but then lets Jessamine buy her a bunch of expensive dresses.
I'm also irritated by how she has to insert herself into everyone's business. And like, some of the things she says are so weird. "I know you don't like giving straightforward answers. I know you're probably about 17..." Okay????? "I know you're probably an orphan." Tessa!!! HAVE SOME TACT.
This book is literally TMI but in Victorian times. I'm not even going to bother mentioning the name similarities because I know how it's explained away in later books. I think she just came up with that because people were giving her crap for the name similarities but whatever. Tessa is your average Mary Sue who has never heard of the Shadow world only to get dragged into it by a rude hot guy she likes even though he's a dick. And then she finds out that she's a part of this world and also has a super special power that no one else has and blah blah blah. Oh, also, her brother is evil.
Will and Tessa constantly quoting pretentious poetry back and forth gets old really fast.
I'm annoyed by the way Magnus was introduced. “His skin was brown, the cast of his features like Jem’s.”So first of all, in TMI, he is described as having white skin and then it's said he's Indonesian in TRSOM, and now here brown skin. Could she not decide what ethnicity she wanted to make him? Also, what a lazy way to say that Magnus is Asian. Also, Chinese and Indonesian people do not have identical features, bro. ‘She wondered if perhaps, like Jem, he was of foreign extraction.’ I’m sorry, Tessa, are you really that stupid? No SHIT, he was ‘of foreign extraction'. For someone who’s such a know-it-all with your stupid booksplaining bullshit, you’re awfully dumb.
I'm too lazy to write the rest of this comprehensively, so just enjoy the notes I took while I read.
*The way Will dumps Thomas for Jem and immediately forgets about him as a person is so messed up. And then Thomas just dies in the end. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Who cares about the mundanes that work for the Shadowhunters, right?
*This book has one of those love triangles where it's like...okay, sure Will is hot, but Jem is RIGHT THERE.
* Tessa….girl, really? You had to scream for Nathan and ruin the WHOLE Shadowhunter plan? And you don’t even feel a lil bit bad about it.
*Question. Why would a knife be stronger than Tessa’s temporary vampiric strength? Like why would a knife be able to remove Nathaniel’s manacles when a vampire with super strength couldn’t?
*Tessa telling Brother Enoch she’ll never forgive him if anything happens to her brother. Girl, do you think he CARES?
*'It hardly seems worth living a long time if you’re going to look like that.' WOOOOOOW TESSA.
* Lol at Tessa not knowing if it’s right to feel murderous and, like me today, wanting to kill every man I come into contact with.
* LMAO TESSA COMPARING HER BEING HALF DEMON TO JEM BEING HALF CHINESE. It’s not the same thing, ma’am.
* God, if Tessa had just TRIED to open the door herself when the automatons were attacking her and Jem, she would’ve found out so much sooner that she had Shadowhunter blood
* What the heck does fighting smell like?
* “Maybe you should just let him have me.” Ugh, shut UP, Tessa.
* I literally hate Will. He’s such a butthole. The way he talks to Tessa when Jem asks for her to see him. “He wants to talk to you. So you will get up, and you will come with me, and you will talk to him. Do you understand?” Like, um, excuse the fudge out of me????
* “IF you care about him so much, why not look for a cure?” What’s with this trend of Clare’s FMCs thinking it’s okay to say things like this about people they’ve known for three days? Also, Jem legit told her last night that he asked them to stop looking for a cure, so why is she even saying this
* When Mortmain tells Tessa that he knew he was going to marry her and they would be together forever, her first response is, " WHAT IF I WAS UGLY?!?! I’m dead, goodbye forever. I want to know what would’ve happened if she was a boy. Would Mortmain still marry her? Why did he need to marry her if he only planned on having her shapeshift into his warlock dad so he could bind demon energies to his robots? (That is the funniest sounding plot ever. Goodbye)
* God, Tessa comparing Will’s assholery to Mr Darcy is infuriating because that should not be the norm, man. Like Mr Darcy is the exception, okay. He’s one of the few who gets to pull that shit off. Will is just a dick.
* Jem straight up just said Will’s parents are dead when they’re not the hell? “I am not sure there is anyone in the Institute who is not an orphan. Otherwise we would not be here.” EXCEPT WILL ISN’T AN ORPHAN, HE HAS PARENTS.
adventurous
emotional
lighthearted
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
I was reading this book and very much enjoying it, but I did come to realize that besides the very loveable characters there wasn’t much of a plot. I mean, there was a plot. But the plot seemed inferior to the character’s development. Nevertheless, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Will, Tessa en Jem are great characters and work really well together and though the plot might not be the biggest or most complicated, it was nice and easy to follow. Victorian London is a really fun setting, and it’s great imagining the fashion (though I am having a hard time getting the Mortal Instruments setting out of my head while reading this).
But the real big deal in this book: Jem deserves the world and I will riot if he does not get it. Such a kind and wholesome character and a perfect counterweight to Will, but he does deserve more of a storyline himself. I’d read a book solemnly about Jem.
But yes. Read this book, even if you hated The Mortal Instruments like I did. You won’t regret it.
But the real big deal in this book: Jem deserves the world and I will riot if he does not get it. Such a kind and wholesome character and a perfect counterweight to Will, but he does deserve more of a storyline himself. I’d read a book solemnly about Jem.
But yes. Read this book, even if you hated The Mortal Instruments like I did. You won’t regret it.