Wednesday 23 March 2016

Lady Midnight

24851136

Book Title: Lady Midnight
Author: Cassandra Clare
Series: The Dark Artifices #1
Date Started: March 16th 2016
Date Completed: March 23rd 2016
Genres: Romance, Fantasy, Action, Mystery
Quality Rating: Three Stars
Enjoyment Rating: Four Star
Final Rating: Four stars
Review:

In a nutshell: a strong middle, weak beginning and end. I enjoyed Lady Midnight, but it could have been better if the Blackthorns and Co. were given their own story. I was so sick of the name dropping and cameos (if they even qualify as cameos at this point) by the end that I didn't bother reading the extra story at the back - I'd had more than enough of Clary and the others. I get that all of Clare's books link and it's clever but can't you please let these characters have their own story alongside it?

To kick off what I think about the writing, I need to say a huge warning to anyone who hasn't read all of Clare's previously published books: DON'T READ THIS YET. Something I really, really hate about Clare's various series and the obsession of them all being intrinsically tied together is that you have to literally read them in publishing order to avoid being spoiled. I remember thinking this reading City of Heavenly Fire; it's a good job I read The Infernal Devices to use time while I was waiting for that book to come out, or I would have been completely spoiled at the ending. And now, with Lady Midnight, not only does it spoil The Infernal Devices if you haven't read them, but also City of Heavenly Fire (and the various novellas if you care). I understand Clare's intentions with this but it makes the whole collection of books actually quite inaccessible and infuriating if you're first going into them - it's also not like you can go straight into her later series and be able to understand what's going on because of how much she depends on characters and storylines from her previous books. So I guess, if you've been with her from the start or are willing to begin reading right at the very beginning, you're fine - otherwise there isn't much point starting.
Also as a side note, the references to classical civilisations didn't work for me. As a bit of a classics geek I just tried to ignore it as best I could, and couldn't help feeling it was a bit of tokenism to make the Blackthorns quirky.

There's the same pattern in pretty much all of Clare's books: the forbidden love (and the obsession with finding loopholes in it) and the idea of family and friends being the strength against law. Now disclaimer, I read Clare's novels because they're entertaining and enjoyable above all else, but I was starting to fall into expectations that actually there was more beneath the romance and the teenage conventions. But just when I was expecting things to explode when it comes to the politics, the supernatural species exploration, even the way we're allowed to discover supernatural parts of famous cities, it all disappears. I mean, one of the main conflicts in Lady Midnight is the politics between faeries and Shadowhunters - yet barely any politics is actually shown! It feels a bit like we've stepped forward in terms of writing quality, but backwards when it comes to constructing stories.
In theory the climax was reasonably well put together: the main plot line of the story itself is resolved, which is something I think is really important, especially when it comes to these long stories, so that individual books don't blur into one another. But then afterwards a dozen new mysteries are introduced for the next book. Again I was disappointed in Clare at this point because she had pulled off a resolution really nicely, but then just had to push some 'cliffhangers' on the end for the sake of it (and it's not like she needs to persuade people to come back again, is it?).

The characters are often Clare's strong point, and while yes, the people are the driving force of this book, they didn't seem as solid to me as I remember other feeling before.
Emma I found to be the least irritating of Clare's protagonists (I don't have a great track record of liking her primary heroines - or heroes for that matter), but even so I still wasn't a huge fan of her. She was spiteful at times near the beginning, and towards the end seemed to lose particularly distinguishable features of her personality. I also didn't really feel her connection with Julian either - I could predict how they would be around each other, but more from convention than sensing what their individual relationship was.
I loved the Blackthorns as a whole, but it did come across a little bit like the Julian show. I felt across the whole board in Lady Midnight that the side characters weren't really as developed as in Clare's other series. I also really liked Cristina, and thought she had potential, but we're never really given proper episodes in their personal stories like in The Mortal Instruments or The Infernal Devices. I think it's a real shame since I know a lot of people (including myself) much prefer the side characters to the main protagonists.

Clare's books are often addictive, and I definitely found this when I got into the middle of the story. I do think Lady Midnight was unnecessarily long; there didn't really need to be such a slow build up and such a long come down - especially near the end. I guess I understand establishing the setting at the beginning of the book, but there really wasn't the need for such a drawn out ending just so all these characters from the other books could be thrown in.

Most of my disappointment for this book came from my frustration of knowing that Clare can do much better. Everything's become a little bit preoccupied at tying the web closer together as opposed to making stories that hold up by themselves and fit it naturally. And I did enjoy it, but I was just expecting better, especially with all the hyped reviews recently.

Image Source https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24851136-lady-midnight

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