A review by myth
The Lost Herondale, by Robin Wasserman, Cassandra Clare

1.0

This was actually really bad. Like, 1.5 stars bad. I'm sorry, I usually enjoy Cassandra Clare's books even if I am a bit critical, but I could not enjoy this. It has all the worst bits of her world building (like the plethora of completely nonsense shadowhunter laws that aren't even just wrong, they make no sense, and not even in an outmoded or racist way. Just in a way that no halfway logical person could come up with or enforce),all the worst bits of character actions (really, Catarina? You could make it look like the woman was pregnant so you could spirit her child away after inducing labor, but you couldn't get the woman herself out? You don't even try? That has some weird and squicky tones of the worst of the pro-life arguments), and all the worst bits of character motivations ("it was one of my proudest moments" says the woman saying she hated all shadowhunters and wouldn't mind them dying after she spirited away a child shadowhunter so he could have a happy life somewhere). Furthermore, it had all of the relentless drama I have come to expect without anything behind it. IT'S SO SAD, Simon's narration assures us, despite never telling us why he in particular finds it sad.