Surprisingly the plot was actually interesting enough to hold my attention this time. So why 2 stars? Because of everything else, of course.

If you’ve seen my reviews for City of Bones and City of Ashes you already know how I feel about Jace. I just didn’t think he was gonna get worse.

So from like, page 1, he's annoying and tries to control Clary. The dude wastes NO time and just becomes full asshole right away. He's all “I forbid you to go” when she’s trying to save her mom and like… yuck? There’s a huge difference between being concerned (“hey maybe you should think twice about this i’m worried about you”) and whatever the fuck he did. It was honestly THE WORST and I already thought he reached his maximum toxic level last book smh.
But anyway he thought he owned her and could make decisions about her life because that’s how healthy relationships work. If it were me I’d have killed him already idc. He's so damn frustrating.
I will never forgive some of you guys for finding him hot when these books were relevant...

Later on he just keeps devolving. I have never hated a character as much as I hate Jace. Anyway he and Clary get into a big fight in Alicante and then he says a bunch of stuff about how she’s super reckless (the fucking IRONY) and that she always messes everything up idk. So he’s being a whiny baby AGAIN who doesn’t know how to deal with his emotions like an adult and again, everyone just lets him off the hook. They’re like “wow jace that must have been so hard for you :(“ afterwards. Then he punches a window because he’s really good at being mature and doesn't have ANY problems with controlling his rage, of course.
Stop having toxic characters playing the victim and then getting away with it Cassandra Clare this is a fucking callout post!

Anyway when jace died I was like “thank god” but then miss clary had to go and bring him back. thanks for nothing.


Listen I know I complain about Jace the most but to be honest none of the main characters are remotely interesting to me and they’re all annoying at least once. For example, at some point Clary says that the people whose house they were in deserved to have it taken over because they fled the city. ??? Like what if they had little kids or something and it was too dangerous to stay???? so stupid.

I also can’t root for any of the Shadowhunters because they’re legitimately… a racist organization? Most of them say things out loud that are vehemently racist? And then I guess Cassandra Clare wrote the part where Shadowhunters and Downworlders have to work together like “hey guys I fixed racism” but that’s not how it works. IT'S STILL A GROUP OF RACISTS!!

Uhh I also did my whole incest rant last book but I found out some new information, namely that Cassandra Clare wrote actual incest fanfic which was the basis for this series and I’m even more disgusted. In that vein, I was forced to read an almost sex scene between two characters who, again, still thought they were siblings. I've been trying to bleach my eyeballs and brain ever since.
Even worse, I guess maybe you could have argued that technically Jace and Clary were never real incest, but then Cassandra Clare made Clary and the real Jonathan kiss so guess what. Same nasty problem. She WANTED incest in these damn books that is so w e i r d.

I care about exactly one relationship. Jocelyn and Luke. That is all. Every other relationship has zero chemistry or is weird or is problematic or some combination of the above. I mean seriously...
cassandra clare getting ready to write chemistry for jace and simon instead of her actual main couple:


Random other things I thought were stupid because there are just so many:
1) At some point Jace says “Greek. Of the ancient variety.” JUST SAY ANCIENT GREEK WHO TALKS LIKE THIS
2) Another great adult character moment when Amatis projects all of her trauma onto Clary, a literal teenager, and this is fine and not concerning to anyone
3) The decision to bring back Isabelle and Simon as a thing because the relationships weren’t confusing enough already
4) The design of Alicante was so damn boring. It could have been anything cool because this is a fantasy world of angels and shit but no, let’s make it look outdated and have no technology. I was looking forward to seeing the city because the books hyped it up so much and it was just a huge disappointment
5) “Jace not everything is about you” “yeah but most things are” I mean do I even have to explain how much I hate him again

To sum everything up, it was pretty much a nightmare but at least it wasn’t as bad as the second book. Only 3 left before I’m free of this god awful series. HOW are these books rated so highly??

Ending with my favorite quote of the book:

“Every second you’re not panting after your own sister, you’re whining on and on about how your daddy didn’t love you. Well, who could blame him?”

I don’t know WHY real Jonathan had to read Jace like this but it was SO FUCKING FUNNY