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A review by kaulhilo
Chain of Iron by Cassandra Clare
5.0
let’s be real (for a second): does this book deserve 5 stars? nope. it’s probably somewhat closer to a 3 or 3.5 — and all of that has to do with how overly ridiculous the plot keeps getting in this (overall) series. cassie went from an author whose stories i was obsessed with - in tmi and tid - to an author i couldn’t leave alone simply because i have too much invested in her/her characters. which is such a bitter reality to accept, for me, because i’ve spent so long with the shadowhunter world as my often lone solace.
i really do believe the plot tends to fall flat now because cassie keeps trying to override herself - which is something expected, obviously, but also something i wish more people would understand isn’t absolutely fatally necessary. it’s okay if you can’t do a more “flashy” villain than sebastian, it’s okay if you can’t write a more “moral” evil than valentine, it’s okay if you can’t write a more “shocking” turn of events than tessa turning into an angel. that doesn’t have to mean you need to keep writing books that get more and more flabbergasting- sometimes at the cost of the book itself. i’ve seen exactly this happen in tda before (i don’t wanna say qoaad but...qoaad) and now it’s happening all over again in tlh. lol
i will say, however, that tlh has one thing tda never did for me - and that is the characters. chain of iron felt more natural to me than chain of gold in more ways than one (maybe because i ran-read cog overnight, while coi has taken me (more than) the better half of a month? i’ve had exams, and then i fell sick, couldn’t read, and on and on...) — it felt much easier to connect with the characters here, all of their depths and nuances, and i’m really really glad for it because it made me love jamescordelia, grace, lucie and matthew in a way that had felt half forced last year.
all of them, even jesse, have all of my heart and i’m really just
i really do believe the plot tends to fall flat now because cassie keeps trying to override herself - which is something expected, obviously, but also something i wish more people would understand isn’t absolutely fatally necessary. it’s okay if you can’t do a more “flashy” villain than sebastian, it’s okay if you can’t write a more “moral” evil than valentine, it’s okay if you can’t write a more “shocking” turn of events than tessa turning into an angel. that doesn’t have to mean you need to keep writing books that get more and more flabbergasting- sometimes at the cost of the book itself. i’ve seen exactly this happen in tda before (i don’t wanna say qoaad but...qoaad) and now it’s happening all over again in tlh. lol
i will say, however, that tlh has one thing tda never did for me - and that is the characters. chain of iron felt more natural to me than chain of gold in more ways than one (maybe because i ran-read cog overnight, while coi has taken me (more than) the better half of a month? i’ve had exams, and then i fell sick, couldn’t read, and on and on...) — it felt much easier to connect with the characters here, all of their depths and nuances, and i’m really really glad for it because it made me love jamescordelia, grace, lucie and matthew in a way that had felt half forced last year.
all of them, even jesse, have all of my heart and i’m really just