“When a decision like that is made by a government, it emboldens those who are already prejudiced to speak their deepest thoughts of hate. They assume they are simply brave enough to say what everyone really thinks.”

Oh my god, what is with Cassandra Clare and messed up love triangles? Or quadrilaterals. I mean, it’s just getting to the point of ridiculousness. And Clare really just needs to stop. I mean, when you can throw out a love connection and list eight characters that are all tangled up in it, there’s a problem. I’m not kidding. I even drew you guys a picture. And sure, one could argue that Cameron is no longer in the picture, but that doesn’t take away from the fact that he was romantically involved enough to be a point of conversation. And that’s without even getting into the annoyance I have with the Livvy/Kit/Ty conundrum.

And 90% of the romance mess comes from the characters’ consistent apparent need to lie repeatedly to each other, and for what? It’s just a useless plot point to add to the story in an attempt to build suspense and drag things out because Lord of Shadows knows we couldn’t have a book worth reading without heaps of unnecessary drama all shrouded in vast amounts of pointless misunderstandings and omissions. It’s just…too much.

Perhaps the worst piece to this is the fact that Clare has done this before. And it was even more involved the first time around with 9+ people. Don’t remember? Here’s another picture! But Clare needs to realize that a good book is not good because there is a giant mess of potential relationships overshadowing the plot. And I think part of the reason I didn’t notice it as much in the past is because it was all spread out among three books rather than stuffed into one. But it takes away from the book, ultimately making melodramatics outshine more important issues. And Clare really needs to just stop. It’s excessive. It’s unnecessary. It’s overdramatic. And it’s kind of gross.

I’ve made no secret of my distaste for Cassandra Clare as a person in the past and though my opinion on that matter has not changed, I did still borrow and read this book. Why? Well, though I think Clare is awful as a person, I do happen to occasionally enjoy her writing. And you know what? Lord of Shadows wasn’t half bad. There are obviously some issues, but at the end of the day, I did find myself enjoying the book.

I think, ultimately, the best thing that this book has going for it is the way it addresses racism, creating a very effective parallel between the extremely racist Shadowhunters and the racists in the United States today. I think it worked well and I am grateful for it because this sort of discussion is necessary. And if you can see what’s wrong with the racism in this book, you can draw the same conclusions about racism in the real world.

A part of me does really enjoy the relationship between Emma and Julian and I was truly enamored with it in the first book. Unfortunately, it has just grown to levels of absolute ridiculousness that I’m not sure I’ll be able to get past at this point. I’m just not sure I really care anymore after everything that’s happened. As for the ending, it was kind of pointless. I don’t know how much that served other than to extend this series into another massive book. Which ironically wasn’t even needed because tackling the racism issue in a well-thought and researched manner would have been much better than creating even more drama that this book just didn’t need. And frankly, if that next book is more of the same ridiculous love triangle nonsense, I don’t really think any of us has a use for it.

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