Lord of Shadows
Ratings112
Average rating4.2
“Sometimes the most ruthless heart speaks the most truth”
“Break my heart, he said. “Break it in pieces. I give you my permission.”
I've been buddy reading Clares books with Erin this year and it's been a rollercoaster of a ride. This book probably had the best start to any of her books. Usually, her books have a slow start and focus on the relationships all the way to the last 25% of the book where the action comes into play. That was not the case with this book. We jump into the action from the very beginning and that carries on throughout the book. This one had a great balance between the relationships and the action. This is probably my favorite from her in a while.
This would be a 5 star if we had gotten more in Faerie and more of Gwyn and Diana.
I still really enjoyed this, I read the last half in one day. The Blackthorn family has my heart.
WHAT. THE. HELL. WAS. THAT. ENDING.
OMG!! My heart!! So much happened in this book, and so much happened in the last chapter alone, I can't even begin to process it all! And the ending!!!!!
2nd read Feb 2020
This one kills you. It just kills you.
First of all, it's fantastic.
Ty's absolute honesty, and Kieran's as well, is very welcome against Emma and Julian's bullshit. Those two... I mean, they get their shit together eventually, but like GUYS. CMON.
The amount of traveling happening in this one book seriously makes me feel like I've read three books. I'm not even joking, THERE IS SO MUCH GOING ON AT ALL TIMES. AND I'M NOT EVEN MAD ABOUT IT! Because it's so. good.
Fuck, if I could just... Like, the last 100 pages is just me in a constant state of heart arrest, everything just keeps happening and I'm constantly worried, and the fighting and the plans and aaaaahhhhhh. It's a lot.
And Julian, with every book just gets scarier. Like, he has moments in LM where he makes you slightly uncomfortable because he doesn't seem to have a STOP button. In LoS, he's scary. He is frighteningly smart, like, boy just comes up with a new plan in like 0.5 seconds, nothing fucking surprises him, he's able to manipulate literally anyone, is the biggest (and best) liar in the entire world, and I just love him.
Lastly, we get so much more of Kieran in this book, and I just- yes. Yes, please. Keep it coming, I want it, I need it.
Oh, and also THE KITTY. By the Angel, it's so obvious.
1st read Feb 2018
I feel... broken.
sobs in a corner
FINISHED: after DNFing this book 3 times.. I've finished. I've done it. One of the worst books I've ever read.
edit: DNFing for the 3rd time 48% through. So awful.
DNF at 46%
Will pick up again in the future.
Ive never rated a Cassandra Clare book under 4 stars before :(
What I read of the book was horrible.
Boring story, bland characters, just everything was so bad.
Emma and Julian are the worst couple, I mean they aren't a couple yet but its obvious they will be and I don't want to be here for it.
I don't understand how Cassandra Clare can keep writing books like this...now that is true magic. i love all her books and this ones no exception, i didn't want it to end also that ending was so unexpected! i cant believe what happened omg
Ugh... another cliffhanger! How long until the next book comes out?? I do get grossed out by all the tangled “romance” in the shadow hunter books, and this book had a ton of nauseating “love scenes”. There are fun twists and turns and you can't help but be smitten and invested in the characters.
I said: Pain and sorrow. He said: Stay with it. The wound is the place where the Light enters you. —Rumi
You're a Herondale. Which, by the way, means that not only are you part of a stunningly good-looking family, but you're also part of a fam- ily that owns a lot of valuable property, including a London town house and a manor in Idris, which you're probably entitled to part of. You know, if you were interested.
Heroes aren't always the ones who win. They're the ones who lose, sometimes. But they keep fighting, they keep coming back. They don't give up. That's what makes them heroes.
“What's the Nephilim motto again?”
“‘We are dust and shadows,'” said Ty, not looking up from his book.
“Some of us are very handsome dust,” Jace added.
“Come to the library,” she announced. “The tentacle is starting to dissolve.” “You drive me wild with your sexy talk,” said Jace, pulling on his gear jacket.
“I'll crash the wedding,” Emma suggested. “I'll jump out of the cake, but not in a sexy way. Like, with grenades.”
“Didn't you just all catch a murderer?”
“Malcolm sent a note,” Ty said in a withering tone, as if he were disappointed that Malcolm had ruined crime-solving with his confession. “And then he admitted he did it.”
“That does rather narrow down the list of suspects,” Kit said.
You want to live. Just like everyone else does. You don't want to be trapped, is all.
We fear things because we value them. We fear losing people because we love them. We fear dying because we value being alive. Don't wish you didn't fear anything. All that would mean is that you didn't feel anything.
The world isn't the way you want it to be. It's the way it is.
“Magnus Bane,” said Barnabas, with clear loathing. “The Ultimate Traitor.”
“Not my favorite nickname,” Magnus said, gently wiggling his fingers in Barnabas's direction. “I prefer ‘Our Lord and Master' or maybe ‘Unambiguously the Hottest.' ”
That is the problem with revenge—you wind up destroying the innocent as well as the guilty.
It was dangerous to dream, he reminded himself.
“People often run even when they have nowhere to go,” said Cristina. “It is all about what you can bear in the place where you are.”
“Do you know why I'm sure?” he whispered, kissing her temple, her cheek where it tasted like salt. “Because when this universe was born, when it blasted into existence in fire and glory, everything that would ever exist was created. Our souls are made of that fire and glory, of the atoms of it, the fragments of stars. Everyone's are, but I believe ours, yours and mine, are made from the dust of the same star. That's why we've always been drawn to each other like magnets, all our lives. All the pieces of us belong together.”
Lord of Shadows has been one of the most hotly anticipated Young Adult releases of 2017, since it was released in May it has been a very hot topic on book forums and BookTube and the reviews on this latest installment from Cassandra Clare have been rave with many hailing it her biggest success to date.
Now bearing in mind that at the release date of this book I literally had only read one of the Cassandra Clare books required leading up to this one, I have been marathoning all of them over the past few months leading up to the moment when I would delve into Lord of Shadows and have a chance to see if all the reviews indeed did the book justice or whether it was worthy of all the hype. I have been living through the eyes of all Clare's characters for the past few months and have come to love them and hold a special affection for many of them and so I really hoped this book would be as good as it hinted at being.
The first thing I was really pleased about in this book is that we are beginning to see the worlds of The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, and The Dark Artifices coming together. We have several of our favourite Shadowhunters and Downworlders featured in this book in various ways and this mixed with all the new characters we had introduced in Lady Midnight give us a real sense of being with friends. I am absolutely delighted to have Magnus and Alec back in this book as they have always been my favourite characters and they really made this book so much more engaging for me.
Secondly, as we did in Lady Midnight we get plenty of new additions to the story as well, my favourite being Kit Herrondale, the Lost Shadowhunter discovered at the end of Lady Midnight. His relationship with autistic Ty was one of the most beautiful friendships I've read about and I really liked him and his character arc in this book. I have a feeling there's lots more of his story we don't know about yet and I'm really keen to see where Clare takes this in the last installment of this series.
This is a hefty book at nearly 700 pages and so it took me a little bit to get through it but never did I find myself being frustrated with the story, it flowed really well and there was always lots going on to keep you engaged and hanging on for the next twist and turn. It is though a book that is clearly about setting us up for the showdown which is due to come in the next book in the series. The book has an almighty cliffhanger ending and a heartbreaking one at that. It was shocking and desperately sad and leaves us uncertain about what is to come. I can imagine with the excitement that people had for this books release we can only expect that to be increased for book 3 with the ending having so much tension and unanswered questions.
I didn't give this book 5 stars and that was only because if I had to compare it to Clockwork Princess or Clockwork Prince I'd still say those were my favourite of this series but I would put this as being of a much better calibre than many of The Mortal Instruments series, there is much more action packed within the pages and the stories seem to have become more encompasing of all the different facets of the Shadowhunter world which adds depth that some of the earlier books lack.
Shadowhunter universe is probably one of the best fantasy universes currently – only after Potterverse and the Middle-Earth though. Cassandra Clare has great imagination, an exec Ellen knack for combining myth, folklore and fantasy with current socio-political climate and ultimately giving us a world full of characters that we can root for. However, one of her great strengths is writing love triangles. Reading romance novels gets exhausting after a period of time and as we grow more cynical, it gets harder to empathize or even choose our favorites in a triangle. But Cassie writes such beautiful characters that it gets difficult to choose your favorites, but for a whole other reason – you want all the three to be happy, to find love and to be together. You don't want any of them to be separated. You fall in love with all of them and then can't extricate yourself from the entanglements of their love. My all time favorite trio is always going to be Tessa, Jem and Will from TID but this book gave me a similar feeling regards to Mark, Christina and Kieran. Their love has this undercurrent of pain, betrayal, friendship and so much more and I am very sure that I will grow to love them more.
This book is probably Cassie's best writing in terms of character development. We get to hear many different points of view and get to know them for who they really are. Julian is tormented in his love, Ty is both sure and unsure of everything , Kit feels out of place initially but grows into his love for Ty and the Blackthorn family, Emma is brave, Livvy is strong, Dru is lonely and Mark is conflicted. We see the story from everyone's eyes and sometimes are even able to sympathize with Malcolm- why he turned out to be the villain. There are also so many diverse personalities here and you can see that what unites them is so much more stronger than their differences. These characters make you care about them. They make you want to do something to make them happy, drive away their loneliness and fears, just be with them. It is because of these characters that everyone is still reading about the Shadowhunters even ten years after the first book.
Coming to the plot itself, much of the story is quite as expected. It's still interesting to venture into various cities including Fairieland and learn certain unexpected things about our favorite characters and their motivations. The best part about the plot is the way current issues are woven into the narrative but they seem so true to their world as well. And it proves, if you keep denigrating/controlling/punishing one group of people because of actions of a few and because you think your group is superior, the consequences will be bloody and devastating for everyone – even the innocent – especially the innocent. That's what happens at the end – innocent blood is shed and we will see the consequences of a bigoted and unjust world in the next book. But alas... very excruciating two year wait it's going to be for THE QUEEN OF AIR AND DARKNESS.