aprildiamond's reviews
144 reviews

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

Read this a while back and didn't have the time to type out my review but here it is now.

The Good:
Honestly, I enjoyed the plot and some of the subplots. I was actually really interested to find out what was going to happen with the manuscript. I was curious about the vampire/witch/daemon splits and the history of those races. I wanted to know more about Diana's parents and the conspiracy of what had happened to them. Even the DNA part was enough to catch my attention. In fact, I was invested almost enough to consider continuing the series. But, due to reasons I will outline later, I decided that this book was more 2 than 3 stars and that I couldn't force myself through the rest of the trilogy.

Another thing I liked were some of the side characters. Diana's gay witch aunts, Sarah and Emily, were great, and so were the vampires Marcus, Miriam, and Ysabeau. I thought the parts of the book with those characters interacting were some of the best moments (especially near the end with the vampires and witches living in the same house). They really added the flavor.

And this book needed the extra flavor because...

The Bad:
To get the big thing out of the way first, the length of this book. Yikes. I can read 700+ pages if those pages contain interesting events or at least fun time-fillers. NOT if those pages are random descriptions of EVERY SINGLE DRINK the characters try or EVERY SINGLE ROOM they step into or EVERY SINGLE DAILY ACTIVITY that they do. Seriously, I DO NOT CARE about the yoga classes. Absolutely do. not. care. It felt like the author was describing when a character BLINKED, that's how heavy and boring most of it was. Plus, once Matthew and Diana decided that they were in love, the descriptions extended to every stupid "passionate" interaction they had, and that was EVEN WORSE. (More on that later).
Since I don't DNF books, I had to drag myself through this, constantly checking page numbers to see how much more I had left. It was that boring.

The author's handling of Diana as a character was also a giant misstep. At the beginning, I really liked Diana. She had attitude, was independent, and found things like vampires following her around to be creepy and intrusive. Great, no problems there. Then, at some point early on, the author completely forgets what Diana had been and the character DEVOLVES. She stops doing things for herself, falls in love with Matthew, one of the vampires who was stalking her (?!), and of course, changes her mind from telling Matthew "do not tell me what to do" to "oh I understand you just want to protect me of course I'll listen to everything you say! you are in charge of me!" So frustrating, and it continues the whole rest of the book.

MATTHEW. Without a doubt the weakest character in this entire thing. The author paints him as this brooding, mysterious vampire who is simultaneously super caring and soft but also willing to murder. So is he dangerous or not? Because this book couldn't decide.
HE ALSO WAS SO BORING. He could have died during this book and I wouldn't have cared because there was nothing for me to care about. His personality was written in the author's notes as "attractive vampire who thinks he owns women" and that's how it stayed.
^Speaking of the owning women thing, let's talk about it! Matthew states that Diana and everyone else in his family have to listen to him because he is the man of the family and that's how vampires work, of course! There is absolutely NO WAY that vampires could be immortal and REFUSE to modernize. They had to change in other ways, because obviously people don't interact the same way today that they did 500 years ago, so to claim that this aspect had to stay the same is absolute BS. And, even worse, NO ONE puts him in his place for this! I was expecting Diana to tell him off and for him to change his ways but NOPE! Instead she decides that yes, he does know best and she should listen to him about her own life choices :)

Last but, oh boy, definitely not least. The "romance". God, there were some parts of this book where I thought I would physically gag. Why did Matthew and Diana fall in love so fast? It's stupid and I don't understand. Why did Matthew DECIDE that they were married for some arbitrary reason even though they never got married? It's stupid and I don't understand. Why did Diana agree to this garbage marriage? It's stupid and I don't understand. Why did we need to know about every intimate moment that these two had, like every time they made physical contact? It's stupid and I don't understand. That's kind of the pattern with the main romance in this book. Stupid and nobody understands.
The description of all the intimate moments was really the icing on the horrible cake, though. I wanted to tear my hair out from that alone. There were also sex scenes and I can't stand sex scenes, but that's of course just my opinion so take that as you will. I didn't rate the book lower because of them, I just didn't enjoy reading those parts.

On the whole, please don't waste your time on this because while the plot might be okay, the backwards ideas and annoying main characters ruin it. And you would be wasting A LOT of time.

3.5 stars.

edit: I said I was going to continue this series but I'm really not looking forward to reading book 3. I just don't think it's working out for me rip.

Once again, the book got better as it went. At the beginning, it was suffering through more of the generic YA stuff that plagued the first book, like the love triangle (square??) and the "omg you can literally do every single thing ever." BUT it got rid of the girl hate and the "not like other girls" bs so I am very thankful for that!!
I also thought it was crazy that so many of the girls at the school liked Fitz. Dude had the personality of a dishrag.

Later on, it seemed that Fitz heard my comment about being a dishrag, got offended, and then tried his absolute hardest to win "most annoying character" award. Not the Oscar you want to win, my guy. It did not make it easy for me to care about his character. Like I know he was going through stuff, but that's no excuse.
On the flip side, I really did like the whole "malfunctioning" plot line. And I think that Sophie actually got a chance to have some character development this time, which was nice.

Overall, there are some good things here! It just seems that the beginning is too long, and ergo, ends up becoming the filler that detracts from an otherwise solid book. So far the series is struggling to get out of the 3 star dungeon, and hopefully if it finally does, it moves up and not down.

4.5 stars for an incredible start to this epic fantasy series!

I am really, really in awe of this book so I'm going to highlight what I thought the best aspects were.
1) The worldbuilding
Black Sun is an epic fantasy based on pre-Columbian cultures of the Americas. If you want a story not based on western European culture like the majority of epic fantasy, this book is for you. The world is seamlessly explained throughout the story (no infodumping here!) And no, you won't be confused by it, even if you have zero background information about the cultures this book is based on. This is some of the best worldbuilding I think I've ever read. It's creative, it's colorful, and it's in-depth.
No more identifying by houses or whatever!! Only by which Clan you're in

Well, this was better than the second book, at least, and probably tied with the first. As a whole I'm not super impressed by this series, but I don't really mind because I read it primarily so that I could read Six of Crows lmao

The characters are nowhere near as annoying as they were last book, and some of the side characters especially are really fun to read about. I hope to see more of them in future books.

Plot was pretty standard, don't really care about romance, so in general I felt neutral about the book.
The one major complaint I have is how the Darkling was handled. Like, why was there still the uncomfy connection between him and Alina?? I thought we were over that once she realized how much of an awful person he was. And then the book kept trying to humanize him at the end and make me care about him but I did not. So those parts were painful. He's literally a homicidal maniac?? Sure he has a "tragic history" and is "lonely" but I'm not gonna care about a murderer

While parts of this were interesting, it felt like nothing happened until halfway through the book. I'm okay with books with long sections of vibing like this sometimes, but if there's nothing much going on in the plot, the characters need to make up for it. And the character of Simon, who plays a big part in the first half, was not doing it for me. I know that he's supposed to be difficult, but I also know that if I met him in real life I'd want to beat him up so fast... We do not need more insufferable guys who think they know everything in books, but we really don't need them to also be married to women who are way too good for them. Sophie, his powerful, more interesting wife, is given less screentime (pagetime?) and is also constantly borderline disrespected by him. But of course, she loves him so she just puts up with it and sticks around

The most obvious improvement I saw from the first book was that this time, the plot moved really well. Things were happening! And it was a lot better!

In addition, except for one (I think) part where they switched personalities again, Tilly and Oskar's characters were much easier to pin down. Which led to an incredibly interesting character arc for Tilly, one that has a lot of potential for future books, and I'm very excited to see where it goes.

I. need. a. physical. copy. Like, I just really want to own this book.

The art is so cute and colorful and eyecatching. The story starts off simple but quickly gets more complex and dark with every chapter. And the characters??? Don't even get me started.
The iconic friends to lovers to ENEMIES to lovers? Beautiful.
The nuance of Nimona's character and slowly finding out more about her? Incredible.
The way Ballister was the villain but also a truly good person? Show-stopping.

I haven't read many graphic novels but I can tell you that this will be one of my favorites, no matter what. Highly recommend for literally anyone.

Somehow the books I feel the least passionate about get some of the longest reviews. Why do I do this.

Anyway, let's get into it!

The Bad:
The plot was... slow? I guess that's the best way to describe it. To me it honestly just felt like buildup to a sequel. Nothing much happens for most of it, there's some action for the climax but not nearly enough, and then it's over.

The biggest issue, though, which made the above more blatant, was that the main characters, Tilly and Oskar, never felt fleshed out. If I was asked, I honestly wouldn't be able to define their personalities. At some points in the book, it seems like one of them is reckless and the other is more levelheaded, but then later on it switches? Having to constantly second-guess where their character arcs even started made it impossible for me to get super into the story.

The last thing is minor and more of a personal preference, but I love party scenes and the fact that the characters talked about an upcoming party basically the entire book and then we didn't even end up getting to see it made me very sad.

The Good:
Audiobooks are portrayed as a fully valid way of reading. This passes the vibe check.

I'm used to seeing fast friendships in MG, where the characters get along/team up almost immediately. That's perfectly fine, of course, but here Tilly and Oskar have a bit of a rough patch as they get to know each other. They struggle to actually build their friendship for a while, which I thought was an interesting and realistic idea.

I didn't think it was a bad book at all! There were definitely scenes that were fun to read and even the slow parts weren't intolerable.

The middle section is the weakest part, but overall this was a good, quick read.

I appreciated Morgan's character arc as well as the emotional depth to the story :)