Well, I’m all caught up on The Shadowhunter Chronicles as I finished Chain of Thorns this week. So all that’s left is the final trilogy and the last book in The Eldest Curses trilogy. Woo-hoo.

I must admit I procrastinated for almost the entire year before getting to CoT because the prospect of 800 pages was too daunting. Sure, once I started reading I got so sucked in I finished in three days but it’s like the gym. Starting is the struggle.

Anyway, I think I summed up most of my thoughts in the previous Thoughts on The Last Hours post. Clare excells in transporting readers to early 1900s/Edwardian London with its mores and social etiquette as the young people come of age in a new era. The allusions to Vanity Fair and Great Expectations are woven into the plot threads especially with Tatania acting as a demonically broken Miss Havisham.

However, I felt the relationship drama overshadowed the overarching action plot with Belial trying to take over London and Lilith making Cordelia her paludin. I get it is hard as Clare has to keep things within continuity and anything that happened in this trilogy wouldn’t affect the rest of the timeline, but it rendered the potential world-changing threat moot because no one mentions this part of history.

Also what is it with London? Can’t demons try to take over some other city like Cairo or New South Wales.

That aside, the relationship drama primarily relied on miscommunication shenanigans that went on for 500 pages, slowing the pace. I just wanted them to resolve things already but pride was in the way, and yeah.

This is not to say I don’t like the book, I did. I just liked the characters more as individuals rather than their pairings. But in being swept up nby romance, others fell to the wayside like Tom and Ari taking over most of their POV with Anna having almost none of her own. And Alistair literally had none. I wanted to see more things from their side as I found them to be the most compelling but nope. Missed opportunity there as we get their reactions filtered from other’s POV rather than their own internal monologues.

I must admit the only worthwhile part from the 1,000 pages long estrangement of Cordelia and James (yes, I’m including the other books) was when they did get together, sweetly running into each others arms, falling to the stairs in kisses.

And that’s about it. Not one of Clare’s best books as it couldn’t be built up too much compared to other trilogies but certainly not the worst.