sudatot's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Adult/minor relationship, Blood, Child death, Death, Death of parent, Domestic abuse, Emotional abuse, Fire/Fire injury, Genocide, Grief, Hate crime, Incest, Injury/injury detail, Medical content, Murder, Pregnancy, Self harm, Sexual assault, Suicidal thoughts, Torture, Violence, Vomit, and War
Moderate: Animal death, Drug use, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Homophobia, and Rape
doggipet's review
adventurous
emotional
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
4.5
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest and Death
Minor: Violence, Murder, Hate crime, and Blood
blakethebookeater's review against another edition
adventurous
mysterious
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
Ok so this book gets back to the fun antics from the first novel, but actually way more interesting now! The world starts to feel more fleshed out and lived in and traveling to the Shadowhunters’ homeland really gave me a sense of what their culture actually is.
There was fun twists and turns and action moments but in the end it was all overshadowed by one infuriating plot line: the incest.
Literally it’s so in your face and drawn out and I hated it sooooo much. Like that “forbidden love” thing disgusts me and doesn’t intrigue me at all so my brain basically shut off everytime that plot line came to the forefront and that was way too often for my liking. Like I was able to mostly handle it in the last book because they knew it was forbidden and tried to resist but at this point they just don’t care and it made me not even want to pick up the novel tbh.
The ending was sweet and left some small threads dangling (presumably for when she stretched a trilogy into six books), and overall this first trilogy was a solid 3 stars from me. Like intriguing at times, fun at others, bad and very bad at times, and sometimes just meh. I can see how it had a foothold in late 00’s YA culture and I’m glad I read them, but I probably wouldn’t read them again.
(One thing I will give Cassandra Clare props for though is a canon gay relationship in the late 00’s when I was still getting called a faggot in middle school. It would’ve made me feel less alone even if I had read about some gay rep at all! Obviously there are better queer books out there but to have a gay relationship in such a major series at the time is pretty awesome.)
3.5/5 stars
There was fun twists and turns and action moments but in the end it was all overshadowed by one infuriating plot line: the incest.
Literally it’s so in your face and drawn out and I hated it sooooo much. Like that “forbidden love” thing disgusts me and doesn’t intrigue me at all so my brain basically shut off everytime that plot line came to the forefront and that was way too often for my liking. Like I was able to mostly handle it in the last book because they knew it was forbidden and tried to resist but at this point they just don’t care and it made me not even want to pick up the novel tbh.
The ending was sweet and left some small threads dangling (presumably for when she stretched a trilogy into six books), and overall this first trilogy was a solid 3 stars from me. Like intriguing at times, fun at others, bad and very bad at times, and sometimes just meh. I can see how it had a foothold in late 00’s YA culture and I’m glad I read them, but I probably wouldn’t read them again.
(One thing I will give Cassandra Clare props for though is a canon gay relationship in the late 00’s when I was still getting called a faggot in middle school. It would’ve made me feel less alone even if I had read about some gay rep at all! Obviously there are better queer books out there but to have a gay relationship in such a major series at the time is pretty awesome.)
3.5/5 stars
Content Warnings
Graphic: Incest and Violence
Moderate: Hate crime, Genocide, Misogyny, and Child abuse
Minor: Body horror
bookishemma's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
It was a good read overall, and a great conclusion to the first tmi trilogy, and I think that the character development was strong across this book, but I will say that like alot of C.C's books, it took me really getting through the first hundred or so pages before I wanted to continue reading it but it was great.
Content Warnings
Minor: Incest, Hate crime, Grief, Emotional abuse, Death, and Child death
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