liya
DNFing (maybe temporarily) at 61%. slow, dense, and long adult fantasy is my bread and butter. but this was too slow even for me. to be fair, the author literally puts a disclaimer in the beginning about how this story may be confusing for awhile and you basically just have to keep going. so, points for awareness. but i don't think that was enough preparation, personally, for how slow this is.
i read 474pgs and it's been literally zero plot. it's all character-driven so far. which would be okay with me tbh if i found the characters and their situations actually interesting. there's four main characters. i only care about one of them so far, and even that one is not that great. there's one more who i actually find very intriguing but we've gotten their POV like twice in these 50+ chapters so...
and there's a particular POV in here that, if you asked me to summarize what's happened in their chapters so far, i wouldn't be able to. all that comes to my mind are the multiple weird scenes where the character walks into/overhears ppl having sex. and these scenes are described in depth over multiple pages. it just kept happening, at some point it just made me laugh cuz ??? what was the reason, genuinely.
i kinda want to finish this book bc the little hints we've gotten so far in regards to what the conflict of the series could be has me intrigued. and the world itself is kinda cool, although we don't see much of it.
idk, i'm already half way through this almost 800 page book...feel like i might as well just finish it. but i have no idea when that'll be and it annoys me every time i see this on my ‘currently reading' shelf. so for now, these are my thoughts on this massive tome that i was actually rlly excited for, originally.
UPDATE: no this is a hard DNF i cannot see myself continuing this
2.75 // i think you have to really feel attached to the characters to love this story and i wasn't at all. while i didn't necessarily dislike Tessa, i'm not sure why she was the main character?? she didn't actually do much. from beginning to nearly the end, so many things were just happening to her and she just had to go along with it. to me, this made her feel flat.
most of the characters felt that way tbh. the only one i felt any strong emotion towards was Will and that was just bc i found him incredibly annoying and unlikeable. however, i did feel rather protective of Sophie. i would've liked to see more of her.
i also noticed that Cassandra Clare (this is my first book of hers btw) loves an in-depth, multiple paragraph description of every room we enter and of every new character we encounter. which very much slowed down the pace of the story in a way that felt unnecessary to me.
another thing about the writing itself is that there is so much repetition of information and world-building we'd already established previously in the story. there was multiple times a character—mostly Tessa tbh—would ask a question that i could've sworn was talked about just a couple pages prior. also, this book is a great example of telling the reader everything rather than showing. it spoon feeds the reader so much of the information, there's no time for you to infer for yourself bc the book will tell you... repeatedly, as if you forgot or something.
some positives!! while i have so many complaints, i'm giving it 2.75 stars bc there was nothing i hated or deeply disliked about anything here. also, i do rlly rlly like the world. it seems to have complexities and intricacies to it, even if the story itself doesn't at all. my favorite thing about this though is Tessa's power. that's the one thing about her—any of the characters, really—that i thought was very interesting and i wanted to know more about it. i preferred the first half (and the ending) for this very reason. bc we actually got to see her use her powers in those portions of the story. her conflict regarding those powers and how they sort of gave her this identity crisis was also very cool. however, while i understand this is only book 1, i think that aspect could've been executed better and been given way more depth than Cassandra Clare gave it, thereby making Tessa's character a bit more dynamic and interesting.
this was one of the craziest reading experiences i've ever had. i'll probably try to write an actual review in a few days but rn my vision is still partly obstructed by tears and my brain is scrambled and i'm literally sweating from that ending. so i'm gonna just say this may be one of my new all-time favorite fantasy books. maybe even books in general but i'd have to think on that a bit more
3.75 // the second half was so much less exciting than the first half, which is like the complete opposite of how i felt about book 1. and i feel like there was some missed opportunities in certain scenes. also not sure how i feel about that reveal...but overall this was pretty fun. Calen and Valerys (honorary mentions include Vaeril, Dann, and Erik) are for sure my favorite part and are what make my rating this high
this is probably gonna be in my top 5 books for the year. the characters are all SO GOOD. the way things tie together and relate to one another in ways i wasn't expecting. the humor is impeccable. i was brought to tears or close to them multiple times. and i've never been so proud of a fictional character before. Elizabeth Zott is a treasure.
4.75 took me awhile to get attached to the characters, specifically Cyrus, but the second half (which is the far better half of the book) fully made up for that. saw the twist from very early on, but when it landed the impact was still there. the action is for sure the best part and the main reason my rating is so high. was gonna wait to read book 2 but i might add it to my feb tbr.
