Reviews tagging 'Murder'

Łańcuch z cierni by Cassandra Clare

26 reviews

beckyyreadss's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

4.0

I wanted to read this book because I absolutely love Cassandra Clare. The Infernal Devices is my favourite series to date, and I loved the Mortal Instruments, it’s one of the series that got me into reading when I found out that Cassandra Clare was writing a trilogy of the series about the children of the Infernal Devices, I was so excited! All of these books in the series didn’t disappoint.  

Cordelia Carstairs has lost everything that matters to her. In only a few shorts weeks, she has seen her father murdered, her plans to become parabatai with her best friend, Lucie, destroyed, and her marriage to James Herondale crumble before her eyes. Even worse, she is now bound to an ancient demon, Lilith,  stripping her of her power as a Shadowhunter. Cordelia is feeling powerless so she flees to Paris with Matthew Fairchild, James’s parabatai. Cordelia is hoping to forget her sorrows in the city's glittering nightlife. But reality intrudes when shocking news comes from home: Tatiana Blackthorn has escaped from the Citadel, and London is under new threat by the Prince of Hell, Belial. Cordelia returns to a London riven by chaos and dissent. The long-kept secret that Belial is James and Lucie’s grandfather has been revealed by an unexpected enemy and the Herondales find themselves under suspicion of dealings with demons. Belial’s plan is about to crash into the Shadowhunters of London like a deadly wave, one that will separate Cordelia, Lucie, and the Merry Thieves from help of any kind. Left alone in a shadowy London, they must face Belial’s deadly army. If Cordelia and her friends are going to save their city – and their families – they have to muster their courage, swallow their prides, and trust one another again. For if they fail, they will lose everything. 

Like with the second book, this book hurt my heart I didn’t like the tension or the love triangles or the secrets within this book. I like when the gang are all together and no one gets hurts, and we don’t lose anyone. Throughout this whole series, I just wanted for all of them to be happy and the fact that CHRISTOPHER – the golden retriever of the group didn’t get to go off and see how his experiments happened, just drove me up the wall and that Matthew ended up alone just broke me slightly. I still love the dynamic of Will and Tessa and the lightwoods. I love seeing the children being EXACTLY like their parents. It made me laugh especially the running joke of Herondales hating the ducks. And that the children disobey their parents, like their parents did.  

Cassandra Clare manages to do it Every. Single. Time - you don’t have to read any of the other series to know what’s going on, some immortal characters make an appearance, but you could read this series on its own without having to read The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, The Dark Artifices or The Eldest Curses. And I don’t know what I'm going to do now.  

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death, Addiction, and Alcoholism

Moderate: Sexual content, Murder, Grief, and Violence

Minor: Homophobia, Miscarriage, Misogyny, and Pregnancy

mrmarshall591's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional slow-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

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Alcoholism, Child death, Pregnancy, and Murder

Moderate: Emotional abuse, Homophobia, Toxic relationship, Outing, Kidnapping, and Lesbophobia

Minor: Miscarriage, Infidelity, Panic attacks/disorders, Gun violence, and Confinement

cait's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional funny hopeful mysterious reflective sad 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? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Minor: Gun violence, Abandonment, Addiction, Child abuse, Confinement, Grief, Blood, War, Alcoholism, Dysphoria, Vomit, Alcohol, Biphobia, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Murder, Homophobia, Outing, Panic attacks/disorders, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Physical abuse, Violence, Death, Death of parent, and Gore

ara02's review against another edition

adventurous challenging dark emotional sad 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: War, Alcohol, Blood, Alcoholism, and Death

Moderate: Grief, Murder, Violence, Emotional abuse, and Death of parent

hanna's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional slow-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? Yes

4.0

After QoAaD (which was admittedly a good ending but also...weird), I was hesitant to start this, seeing as TLH had the potential to become my favourite TSC series — and it is now!

Yes, it's a very long book and the beginning was very long-winded. Especially the whole love triangle thing, imo, we could've done without.

I enjoyed most of the other plot times a lot, though. We have a visit to Edom again (another good place for CC to be weird) but it isn't weird! Yay. There are a lot of redemption arcs, mainly for Grace and Alastair, and all of those were all believable and well done.

There is one character who dies and it was just such a cheap cop out. I truly don't think last books need to have tragic deaths to become tragic, there was already enough tragedy in this book. It felt like a "gotcha!" moment but a really cheap one.

We got some cute moments for the TID generation but through smart plot lines there were good reasons for them to not be available for most of the drama — this was their kids time to save the world (or...just London).

Overall, I'm still really happy with how this story ended and it was a quite satisfying ending to the TID/TLH story 🤍

Also: Shoutout to our ret-con queen Esme Hardcastle, wtf

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Grief, Addiction, Murder, Alcoholism, and Death

Moderate: Sexual content, Suicidal thoughts, War, Xenophobia, Homophobia, and Torture

Minor: Death of parent, Miscarriage, and Pregnancy

emsavors's review against another edition

emotional funny hopeful inspiring sad 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? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Mental illness, Misogyny, Murder, Sexism, Alcoholism, Child death, Child abuse, Gaslighting, Injury/Injury detail, Kidnapping, Outing, Death, Emotional abuse, Ableism, Confinement, Grief, Lesbophobia, Addiction, Sexual content, Torture, Toxic relationship, Alcohol, Blood, Homophobia, Physical abuse, Miscarriage, Racism, Slavery, Toxic friendship, Violence, Vomit, and War

aklovekorn's review against another edition

adventurous emotional 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? Yes

4.75

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Addiction, Child death, Death, Kidnapping, Alcoholism, Blood, Infidelity, Murder, Violence, Gore, Grief, and Injury/Injury detail

aseel_reads's review against another edition

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

The first two hundred pages were so hard to get through, super boring. Then the plot picked up but the overall ending was just meh. I absolutely hated the death, that was my favourite character. Overall, just super disappointed in this series, I had such high hopes too. 

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Alcoholism, Blood, Child abuse, Death of parent, Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Death, Gaslighting, Murder, Violence, Emotional abuse, Kidnapping, Lesbophobia, Medical content, and Homophobia

lovelymisanthrope's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional mysterious sad 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? Yes

4.0

I picked this up because obviously I needed to see how the Shadowhunters world continues.
"Chain of Thorns" is the third and final book in The Last Hours trilogy. This story starts off bleak. Cordelia's life is turned upside down and all her plans are destroyed. Her father is murdered, her best friend can no longer become her parabatai, and she is now bound to a demon. When she returns to London, she is awed to see that everything is changed, and her life is in perlious danger. Now Cordelia and the rest of the Shadowhunters must ban together to stop this evil, and if they fail, they too might lose their souls.
I have been excited to see the conclusion of this trilogy and intrigued to see if this would bump my favorite Shadowhunters' trilogy out of first place (The Infernal Devices). Spoiler alert: it did not. Although I had a fine time reading this series as a whole, and I loved seeing the children of the main characters in The Infernal Devices, this series did not have that addictive magic for me.
I did really enjoy Cordelia as a character, as well as the other Shadowhunters. I love how Cassandra Clare writes her characters and makes them equal parts empowered and strong-willed, with a sprinkling of soft humanity.
I am SO excited for the next book in the series, and I will be counting down the days until it releases!

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death of parent, Murder, Torture, Child death, Violence, and Death

Moderate: Sexual content

ginbat's review against another edition

adventurous slow-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? Yes

3.0

usually i love the shadowhunter chronicles, just couldn't get behind this one for some reason. the last fifth of the book was just kind of a let down. everything seemed... too easy? it felt in many ways that the book was almost solely to connect it to The Dark Artifices and not enough to it's own trilogy. but maybe im just growing out of YA

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Lesbophobia, Alcoholism, Homophobia, Murder, and Addiction

Minor: Grief, Injury/Injury detail, Miscarriage, Blood, and Death