Tag: cassandra clare

Lord of Shadows – Cassandra Clare

October 1, 2017

Warning: Spoilers Ahead

I know this review is seriously late but I’ve only just gotten over the ending! Lord of Shadows was one of my most anticipated reads of this year and I am happy to say that I wasn’t disappointed. The sequel to one of my favourite reads of last year had everything and more than the first book in the series; more action, more adventure and more heartbreak. We are once again transported to the shadowhunter world and I loved how the story moved around more and to different locations, featuring previous favourites like Alicante, LA, more of the Faerie Realms and my favourite London and Cornwall.

This book focuses more on the all the other wonderful characters Cassandra Clare has created and it was really enjoyable to read from different perspectives and learn more about all the characters especially Dianna. I certainly wasn’t expecting her backstory but I’m loving the transgender representation and all the other gender and sexual representation in this book! Emma and Julian will always be one of my favourite fictional couples and some of my favourite characters to read about! At the end of the last book, we were introduced to Kit Herondale and I loved seeing his character develop and adapt to life as a Shadowhunter. His relationship with Ty is perfect. I love how Kit understands Ty’s autism and how they have both helped each other grow and come out of their shells, if they don’t become parabati then I’ll be gutted!

I finished this book on the plane and I had to hide the stream of tears from the people around me because then ending broke me! How could Cassandra Clare do this not only to her characters but her readers? The last 50 pages was a whirlwind of emotions, hatred towards characters like Annabel and Zara, panic and worry towards all of my favourite characters yet happiness towards Helen who was finally reunited with her family. After this ending, I need the third book in this series as soon as possible so Cassandra Clare if you would like to send me an ARC closer to the time that would be amazing!

If you haven’t already guessed this book deserves all the praise it’s been receiving and more than 5/5 stars. Once again we are thrown on intense and edge of your seat journey which readers will have no choice but to love! If you’ve been living under a rock and haven’t yet read the outstanding Mortal Instruments series, then what are you doing, go and pick up the first book now! I can guarantee that you’ll enjoy it.

Cassandra Clare ‘Lady Midnight’ Book Signing

April 22, 2016

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Last weekend Eleanor and I, along with 800 other people queued for over 4 hours to meet the wonderful Cassandra Clare. For those who don’t know Cassandra Clare is the New York Times Best Selling Author of the amazing ‘Mortal Instruments Series’ and was on her UK tour for the release of her new book ‘Lady Midnight’. I will link our review here on Lady Midnight which Cassandra Clare actually read, which we both seriously freaked out about!!

Her signing was in Birmingham and Waterstones had already announced that the queue would start at 3pm with the signing at 5pm, so we popped into the Handmade Burger Co. for lunch (it was delicious!). It was bang on 3pm when we arrived and the queue was HUGE!  So far not so good.

However, we were able to meet some lovely people when queueing and it turned out we had so much in common and made the 4 hours waiting in the queue go a bit faster. We all had such a great laugh together and it felt like we had known each other for years so I highly recommend that if you attend a signing make friends with the people around you! When it came to the end of the signing we were all pretty upset that we had to go our separate ways but don’t panic we had each other social media and we plan to all meet up again soon!

We finally met Cassandra Clare and she was lovely! She had a brief conversation with both of us, asking Eleanor who her favourite character was (she replied Magnus! Good choice) and discussed our newly found friendships with me! Both of us got ‘Lady Midnight’ signed as well as one other book stamped with the angelic rune which looks pretty cool! Overall we had a fab day filled with excitement, laughter, and friendship!

Lady Midnight – Cassandra Clare

April 1, 2016

Righty ho, before we get started with this mammoth review (trust me it’s going to be a long one!) I just want to disclaim that the first half of this section will be SPOILER FREE, but after a big warning, the second half will be a SPOILER review because I can’t not talk about what happened, but there will be ample warning so if you haven’t yet read Lady Midnight and don’t want to be spoiled, leave at that point.

OH MY GOODNESS! I am actually so excited to write this review also emotions are still very high so if this review isn’t very coherent I do apologise! So, this Shadowhunter book is set approximately 5 years after the last Mortal Instruments books left off, it follows the lives of Julian Blackthorn and his family and Emma Carstairs in the Los Angeles Institute. This book is an absolute Shadowhunter classic with action, adventure, love and loss, but it’s also a bit of a murder mystery with Emma trying to find out who killed her parents, as we found out in the last Mortal Instruments book.

I was SO excited for this book it’s unreal, anyone who has followed our blog for a while knows that I (Eleanor) adore the Shadowhunter novels, it’s one of my favourite worlds to live in! However, this did mean that I had incredibly high expectations going into this book, which is usually a bad thing for any book. Although this book absolutely did not disappoint, it was everything I was hoping for AND MORE! The characters in this book were so strong, I cared for them so much and felt their pain with them. The characters that I’m going to talk about in this half of the review are going to be Julian and Emma, because I’m so scared of spoiling it for you guys and they are the main characters… Anyway, lets start with Emma, I loved Emma so so much, her character was really quirky and she had some amazing one liners, she kind of reminded me of Jace. She is also an amazing Shadowhunter, she’s an amazing fighter and is so determined, anything she sets her mind to will get done, she’s just a great character! Now onto Julian, oh Juilian, he is another amazing character, he kind of reminded me of a combination of Will and Jem, he’s very thoughtful but he also feels emotions very deeply and you can’t help but feel pain for him! All the characters in this book though are so incredibly written and the emotions you feel for them are so powerful, you just have to appreciate Cassandra Clare’s talent, she is awe inspiring!

Another thing I really love about this book is that it touches on so many real issues in life, things like young carers, body image, learning difficulties like Autism and mental health issues. The book in no way focused on these issues but they were always in the background and were hinted at, because of this, it never felt like they were being thrown in your face. They were subtly obvious, which I thought was incredibly clever, it must have been hard to obtain that balance.

Finally, for this section at least, I want to talk about the pace of this book, because this isn’t the first or even the second shadowhunter book, it wasn’t necessary for there to be so much description about the world. The story jumped straight into the plot, why they where there and what they were doing. This made the book feel a lot faster paced without having to stop for extra description and the pages just kept turning!!

Well that’s it for the non spoiler section of the review, I truly, truly LOVED this book, so please if you’re a fan of this world I implore you to read this, it is incredible! For that reason I’m going to award it a massive 5/5 stars! If you have read the book and wish to read on then please do, I will be talking about some of the events in the book and my thoughts on them. If you don’t want to be spoiled then please click off now, I really don’t want the responsibility of you being spoiled because that is literally a crime!

 

 

!!**SPOILERS AHEAD** **SPOILERS AHEAD**!!

 

 

HOLY SMOKES! Okay, in this section, I’m just going to give a run down on what I thought were the best/most shocking/ most emotional moments of the book, I will also give my opinions on them and what I was thinking when I was reading them!

First of all let’s talk about the forbidden love story between Emma and Julian. I honestly don’t think I have ever shipped a couple so hard, but it was also so painful because at the back of my mind I knew they could never be together because of their Parabatai bond, but you know what, that didn’t stop my feelings and all I want is for them to be happily in love with no limits! What was also interesting is that they didn’t really declare their love for each other until about 400 pages in, so all this time we’re building up to them eventually being together which just builds the emotion even more, and made me ship them even more, well played Cassandra Clare! But lets talk about that beach scene! HOT DAMN! At first I didn’t think they actually went all the way, because in The Mortal Instruments, it took like 5 books for Jace and Clary to finally have sex. It only really dawned on me that Emma and Julian had sex when Julian was talking about contraceptive runes and stuff and I was like “OH, OH! THEY DID IT!” and it just made me so happy! Although, I’m not gunna lie, the last couple pages when Emma was trying to ‘break Julian’s heart’ because of the repercussions of Parabatai falling in love LITERALLY KILLED ME. I know it was necessary because I don’t want Julian and Emma to get all power hungry and destroy their family, but jeeeze, those pages were so hard to read!

On to the next thing, Mark. I was SO HAPPY that Mark was in this book, he added another dimension to the whole story. He was such a good character as well, he was so childlike because he had essentially been indoctrinated into faerie. He also turned out to be incredibly loyal to his family and eventually, we saw a cheeky side to him, especially in the last line of the whole book when he said ‘Why lie’. I took this as Mark wanting to ‘do stuff’ with Emma, so they didn’t have to lie to Julian and the rest of the family. This was so cheeky, I was a little dumbfounded by this as first as I didn’t really see Mark as that kind of character, but once it sunk in I thought it was funny and quirky and just showed how Mark had developed throughout the book.

Okay, now let’s talk about the main plot and plot twist of this book. I loved the whole murder mystery element to this book. I was totally involved in the plot, and I’ll be honest I had no clue who The Guardian was, I had a sneaky feeling that maybe it was Dianna but I wasn’t 100% sure. So when we found out it was Malcolm was completely knocked for six! Initially I really liked Malcolm, he was funny and intelligent, and I was like YES ANOTHER MAGNUS! But noooooo no no no! The little git, I felt genuine fear when he took Tavvy, holy moley! But I was glad Emma finally had closure on who killed her parents all those years ago and no one I cared about died, I was so pleased and thankful that Cassandra Clare didn’t kill anyone!

Some of the new characters were amazing, I loved Christina, Perfect Diego and the whole Blackthorn family, I also had so much respect for Julian and all he’s done for his siblings, effectively becoming a single parent at 12 years old! But most importantly I was so intrigued by Kit, I couldn’t get my head around who this boy was, especially as as he effectively starts off the whole series! I knew he was important but I just couldn’t figure out why, so when we found out he was a Herondale I was like “WHOA WHOA WHOA! WHAT THE F*CK!” Cassandra Clare is so clever because even though I thought the main plots were out of the way, something else comes flying out of the woodwork!

I am SO excited about the next book, even though it’s going to be so painful to read with the whole forbidden love thing! But this series has completely sucked me in and I just can’t wait! If you’ve stuck with me through this whole review, well done because insanely long (1500 words!) but also thank you, and I hope you enjoyed this book as much as I did, and also please be considerate in the comments for people who haven’t read the book and keep the spoilers to a minimum! Thank You!

 

The Bane Chronicles – Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan and Maureen Johnson

February 23, 2016

I really don’t know why it’s taken me this look to read this book, you all know that I love the shadow world and pretty much anything Cassandra Clare has written… but I have finally read it, and of course I loved it!

For those who don’t know this book is a compilation of short stories which make up the exciting life of Magnus Bane the high warlock of Brooklyn in the incredible shadowhunter series’ including The Mortal Instruments and Infernal Devices, each story is completely different and involves a ton of well known characters and events that were only mentioned  briefly in the other books. What really stood out to me straight away was the humour, I had completely forgotten how funny Magnus Bane is, he literally had me in fits of giggles! I also really loved how it was set out as lots of short stories as we got a little snapshots of Magnus’ life instead of a massive long narrative, although I have to admit that some stories were much better than others! The only downfall of the short story element that there were quite hard to remember, I found myself reading over things I already read to remind myself what was going on! Also it would have been much easier if the stories were in chronological order, but that’s because my brain isn’t quite advanced enough to piece everything together as to what was happening and when.

Like I said before, some stories were better than others, for example ‘The Runaway Queen’ (Amy you would love that one!) was very exciting, I especially loved the historical element! I also loved the story about James Herondale (Tessa and Will’s son) it was lovely to revisit those characters and I can’t wait to learn more about James H, he seems VERY interesting! I also loved Magnus’ point of view during the attack on the downworlers by the Circle, and when Clary was first brought to Magnus to to have her memories altered, all very interesting to read about in more detail! One story I was really disappointed with however was ‘What Really Happened in Peru?’ I heard a lot about it and it did intrigue me and I really wanted to find out why Magnus was banned from the country, but to be honest it was a real let down, there were many adventures but the actual reason as to why he got banned just felt like a real cop out from the authors, I’m sorry Cassie, you know I love you but not your best work!

Although on a whole, the majority of the book was very entertaining and I did really love it! I would definitely recommend people to read this who have read the other books in the shadowhunter world as it does bring a really interesting insight! But I would say, don’t get your hopes up about Peru… Overall I’m going to award this a 4 out of 5 stars, I really wanted to give this 5 stars but I just couldn’t with the Peru let down!

Shadowhunters – Episode Reaction/Review

January 15, 2016

Amy:

I went into this show with very low expectations but very high hope and I’m pleased to say that I really enjoyed the first two episodes and I’m looking forward to seeing what else they have in store. From the pilot episode, it’s clear they’re not sticking completely to the books but thats something that I like and means that somethings will be left as a surprise.

Let’s start with the positives. Character wise I really liked Simon and Luke the most which was a surprise for me as they were the two characters I was a bit worried about because I still loved Simon and Luke in the film adaptation. Alan Van Sprang as Valentine was perfect, which wasn’t a surprise for me as I loved him in Reign and I thought he played this evil and mad character really well. Mathew Daddario as Alec was also another highlight of the show for me; he’s gorgeous and even though we haven’t heard or see much from him yet but I’m sure as the show continues, we will see more of his character.

I understand that they didn’t have a huge budget for special effects but some of them I thought were a bit poor and didn’t fit in with the show. I also didn’t like how the institute looked like something out of a spy movie and that it was full of other shadowhunters  but this is something I’m sure I’ll get used to it as the show goes on. Again on the lines of locations, I wasn’t a huge fan of the fact that Valentines lair was situated in Chenolbyl; for me I found it a bit odd and unnecessary.

Apart from those two small bits I thought the show was really great and I can’t wait for the next episode!

Eleanor:

It seems as though I have been waiting to for, for ages, but the premiere creeped up on me and I had a fit of excitement when Amy told me about the premiere date! I really didn’t want watch this show with high expectations because I was so worried that I would be disappointed especially as these books do mean an awful lot to me! Not going to lie though all of Wednesday I was really apprehensive about watching it… but luckily I wasn’t too disappointed and I actually enjoyed watching it, there were just a few things that I didn’t really like…

But let’s start with the things that I did like, some of the character portrayals I really liked, Simon, Jace and Alec I though were spot on. I also liked Kat’s portrayal of Clary, I wasn’t sure about her in the role at first but she grew on me throughout the episode, but I have to admit some of the ‘scared’ acting could have been better… I also thought that the aging up of the characters worked well so that the characters can mature a bit more, so there were lots of things that I did like!

However, there were elements that I wasn’t too happy about the main one being that I felt as though Izzy was really sexualised… I know she’s supposed to be stylish and what not but I thought that they went a little too far, plus, there’s no way she could fight in mini skirts that small without showing everyone her lady parts! Similarly, I wasn’t too happy with what they did with the institute, this is probably just be being protective over the books but I did love the fact that it was old, gothic and only contained the Lightwood family and Hodge, but i’m sure i’ll get used to it!

Overall, I did like it and i’m excited for the next few episodes and I hope my negative points will be less negative throughout the coming episodes!

The Mortal Instruments City of Bones – Cassandra Clare

March 7, 2015

Just to let everyone know this is my second read of this book and I intend on re-reading this whole series again so along with my book marathon I will also be doing a little review marathon on all the books in The Mortal Instruments series, I hope to read them as quick as possible but I am reading a few books in between so just keep your eyes peeled for the next installment in the series…

On to the review!

As I’ve already told you all this isn’t my first read of this book. I originally read this book a good couple of years ago and I was reminded on just how much I adored this world and everything in it! It is and always will be one of my favourite series of books! On the second read I realised all the things that I missed on the original read so I suggest if you read and love this book as much as I did then definitely read it multiple times, if that’s possible…

The main story line to this book revolves around a young 15 year old girl named Clary living in Brooklyn New York. One night, whilst in a club (casual) she witnesses a group of mysterious teenagers kill this boy. This boy turns out to be a Demon and the group of teenagers are Shadowhunters, beings with half human blood and half angel blood, set on this earth to hunt and kill Demons. Clary suddenly realises that her life will never be the same again…

I LOVE THIS BOOK SO MUCH I CAN’T DESCRIBE AHHH! The world is just so beautiful and perfect and I so wish I was a Shadowhunter because their lives are just so cool! But let’s talk about Jace Wayland, one of the Shadowhunters Clary meets, he is the one that also has the biggest impact on her. Some of the things he comes out with are just so perfect, he’s sassy and sarcastic and all around pretty amazing. Jace isn’t the only brilliant character in this book there are countless unforgettable characters like Alec, Isabelle, Magnus and the infamous Valentine Morgenstern. It’s jam- packed with awesomness.

Another of my favourite parts of this book is that there are some AMAZING plot twists that no one will expect! The first time I read this I was like ‘WHAT?!?’ literally every five minutes!

I have countless praise for this book but I highly doubt you want to hear me rattle on and on about how awesome this book is (it’s truly amazing), just trust me and read it, if you’re a fan of fantasy then this is the perfect series of books for you! It’s not surprising that i’m awarding this books a massive 5 out of 5 stars * * * * *!

Keep your eyes peeled for the review for the 2nd book (it will be coming soon-ish).