bloomingrose92 's review for:

The Golden Tower by Holly Black, Cassandra Clare

4.0

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful inspiring mysterious reflective sad tense fast-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Plot

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

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After reading the entire series for a third time, this is what I think.

While better than Harry Potter in terms of character development and theme exploration, it could use more work in the world-building department. It doesn't feel like a fully-fleshed out world, but instead that details are added whenever the plot calls upon them. There are also large inconsistences throughout the series, such as Havoc's eyes being gold in one book then green in another, the timeline of when Constantine started wearing his mask, and Call doing all the driving in the second book instead of Aaron (this book says that Aaron did all the driving). I also feel like the addition of Magnus as the real big bad was unnecessary since it was already established that Constantine was evil far before Jericho died. It just felt like deus sex machina. That being said, I love this series and they remain some of my favorite books. The tension between the good and evil within ourselves was excellently done, and I love all the macabre details of splitting and sharing souls. And them going through the gold gate, the gate of being a good person, just the chef's kiss. 

  10/10 would read again, 10/10 would recommend to others.