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A review by literalottie
Chain of Iron by Cassandra Clare
adventurous
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? It's complicated
3.0
After absolutely loving Chain of Gold last year, I was greatly anticipating Chain of Iron. I have to say, I'm a bit disappointed. It wasn't that this book was bad, per se - it started off on a bit of a dull/slow note, then progressively got better in the second third, and then the ending had a lot of moments that just left me underwhelmed.
The biggest strength in this series is still the cast of characters for me - and in fact some of them, such as James and Grace, actually grew on me more in this installment. The relationships, interactions and history between all the characters is where this book (and The Last Hours as a whole) shines. I also love that they're all obviously living a rich lifestyle, almost Gossip Girl style where they can just decide to buy a new apartment and/or travel to Paris on a whim. Let me live vicariously through these crumbs of a frivolous and glamourous lifestyle for a minute!
However, some of the side characters feel too extraneous. I was fine with the big cast in Chain of Gold, which left room for many of these side characters to grow into the story, but now with only one book left some of them don't really feel like they've been given much of a justification plot-wise, which is a shame as the characters themselves are very well written. Take Christopher for example - he mainly exists to provide the occasional awkward/"funny" comic relief lines and... that's about it. I think his one plot relevant scene was setting up an unnecessary romance arc that I can already tell I am going to find extremely tedious in the third book.
Speaking of romance, I do find myself bored with Cassandra Clare's extremely predictable romance writing. It becomes so transparent as to what relationships are going to be endgame, and her habit of needing to pair pretty much every single character up doesn't help. Even as someone whowholeheartedly shipped Matthew and Cordelia in book 1 (and I know I'm a minority! That's fine!), they were given almost no development throughout and only came together at the end off of the back of a painfully trite miscommunication trope. I'm not going to pretend Cassandra Clare is a flawless writer, but I KNOW she is better than "character overhears an incriminating conversation and leaves in a huff before they can hear the rest of the conversation which provides very important context that would completely reverse their perception". It's just hard for me to be invested in Matthew and Cordelia when it's obvious that by the end of the final book, James and Cordelia will have reconciled and will be happily married once again and Matthew will probably be partnered up with someone else.
As for the twists in this book, they were a bit hit or miss for me, but overall I'm intrigued by the plot threads that have been left. I really enjoyed the Lucie/Jesse arc, and the continuation of this is probably one of the things that I'm most looking forward to in book 3. As for theLilith's paladin stuff, I'm on the fence. I thought it was a bit of a lame twist on first impressions, but I think there is a lot of potential to do some great things with it. I think it could go really dark, but somehow I doubt it'll really get to the level I'm hoping.
The biggest strength in this series is still the cast of characters for me - and in fact some of them, such as James and Grace, actually grew on me more in this installment. The relationships, interactions and history between all the characters is where this book (and The Last Hours as a whole) shines. I also love that they're all obviously living a rich lifestyle, almost Gossip Girl style where they can just decide to buy a new apartment and/or travel to Paris on a whim. Let me live vicariously through these crumbs of a frivolous and glamourous lifestyle for a minute!
However, some of the side characters feel too extraneous. I was fine with the big cast in Chain of Gold, which left room for many of these side characters to grow into the story, but now with only one book left some of them don't really feel like they've been given much of a justification plot-wise, which is a shame as the characters themselves are very well written. Take Christopher for example - he mainly exists to provide the occasional awkward/"funny" comic relief lines and... that's about it. I think his one plot relevant scene was setting up an unnecessary romance arc that I can already tell I am going to find extremely tedious in the third book.
Speaking of romance, I do find myself bored with Cassandra Clare's extremely predictable romance writing. It becomes so transparent as to what relationships are going to be endgame, and her habit of needing to pair pretty much every single character up doesn't help. Even as someone who
As for the twists in this book, they were a bit hit or miss for me, but overall I'm intrigued by the plot threads that have been left. I really enjoyed the Lucie/Jesse arc, and the continuation of this is probably one of the things that I'm most looking forward to in book 3. As for the