Every book in this series has been quite long, but this was the longest of them all. It’s not really my thing, especially if I can’t listen as I read.

Read: April 16 – April 27, 2024

Genre: Fantasy, Supernatural
Audience: Young Adult
Book contains: dark elements/themes, demons and monsters, murder, necromancy, implied sexual content, mildly graphic sexual content

Purchase a copy from Amazon.ca

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Dragged On a Bit, But Really Fun!

The council meeting that was meant to clear everything ended in disaster. The Inquisitor is dead, Livvy is dead, the Mortal Sword is shattered, and Annabel and the Black Volume have been taken by the Unseelie King. With the Blackthorns and their plans left in ruins, Emma and Julian try to salvage everything as they are sent on a suicide mission by Horace Dearborn, who has seized power in the aftermath.

I’ve warmed up a bit more to the characters, but the pacing of this book was what caught me. There are so many subplots and minor plots woven together that the book was made incredibly long, but at the same time, I couldn’t see what could be cut out to bring down the word count. This book just is this long. It was over 270k words, which played a big role in my motivation to keep reading; I felt like I’d never get through it. Clearly, long books aren’t for me.

Once again, Clare uses third person perspective to follow multiple characters, as they are all required for the plot and subplots woven together. This book again begins with a poem, but unlike the first two, the story is divided into three parts. The first part takes up most of the book, while the second and third parts share the back half.

I read about halfway through this book the old-fashioned way before finding a decent audiobook to listen along to. From there, it went a lot smoother for me. I think a big problem that comes from regularly listening to audiobooks at 2x speed like I do is that my regular reading becomes much too slow for me.

The main characters continue to be Emma and Julian, who now have no hope for their cursed Parabatai runes due to Robert’s death. They are separated from their siblings for quite a bit of this book, and the tensions are high as the curse grows worse. The other Blackthorns are also reeling from the loss of Livvy, and with Julian, they sort of fall apart. Meanwhile, Christina is dealing with her own troubles with Mark and Keiran.

I sort of loved how messy everything was, though. The problems between Emma and Julian, and Christina, Mark, and Keiran. There were also some positive relationships, such as Gwyn and Diana, Alec and Magnus, and Jace and Clary. Life is always messy, and Clare did well in portraying that.

The quality of the writing is very well-suited to Clare’s YA audience, though there are sections that touch on a bit more mature areas, such as the near-graphic intimate scenes. They built up from the first book, but I was surprised by the level of detail included.

The only downside, in my opinion, was the pacing. There was always so much going on, so anything shorter would’ve been rushed, but it was also incredibly long. If one wanted to cut down the length of this book, they’d have to take out a whole subplot or two.

I still highly recommend finishing this series—especially if you love (or at least don’t mind) hefty books. The ending was very fun and creative, and I want to see where it goes (into the next series).

Related Reviews:

The Dark Artifices Book 1: Lady Midnight
The Dark Artifices Book 2: Lord of Shadows
The Dark Artifices Book 3: Queen of Air and Darkness
The Mortal Instruments Book 1: City of Bones
The Infernal Devices Book 1: Clockwork Angel
*The Other Side of Daylight by Nicole Chartier*