Lady Midnight

Darn it, Cassandra Clare. I read one of your books again...and I liked it.


I'd say that I have a love/hate relationship with Cassandra Clare. I felt that the Infernal Devices trilogy was very good, a sort of guilty pleasure, whereas I liked the first three books of The Mortal Instruments, only to watch it get steadily worse from there. By the time I read the last book, City of Heavenly Fire, I just skipped to the ending, proceeded to write the book a scathing review and called it a day.

Now, you'd think with a reputation like that, I wouldn't want to begin with Lady Midnight,but some people suggested it to me, so when I saw it at the library, I thought, why not, and started reading it. At the very least, I could just put this quietly back on it's shelf, and forget about it. But you know what? I think I have come to...(gulp) like this book.

I know, I'm shocked.

Firstly, let me say that, without a doubt, Claire's writing has VASTLY improved over the Mortal Instruments. I, personally, could tell that City of Bones was the first thing that Clare had ever written. Some things didn't make sense, and other things that seemed stupid only existed for the sake of a love triangle. Here, however, we have no such problems. It feels like Clare either has improved her story telling abilities, and also gotten a better editor. Her writing not only manages to draw me in, but also makes me forget how much I'm reading and before I know it, I've read almost 50 pages without breaking a sweat. This makes the roughly 700 page book, which I picked up with some trepidation, seem to fly by. . I also like how Clare has managed to stay away from the love triangle, for the most part. It is there, but it definitely was not the main focus, which was a very smart move. It is only a small part of the many different viewpoints that we seamlessly transition to in between each chapter. Another element that Clare was famous for was her crutch of the loner, misunderstood bad boy, aka Jace and Will Harondale. Thankfully, she has enough to leave this annoying archetype behind, in favor of characters who are genuinely likeable.

There are some things that annoyed me, however, like how some of the scenes didn't flow as well as I thought they would. Often times, the plot moves so fast that it is hard to get room to breathe in the midst of romantic moments, and then transition to more action oriented scenes.

Also, what romance is there is good, but I disliked how everyone seemed to need to be paired off with someone else in this book. Seriously, it was getting so ridiculous that I was surprised the cat didn't have a romantic partner. And also, while we are on the subject of romance, what is up with the rule about not being able to love your parabati? And, to clarify, I don't mean that like a agree with the characters who think it is stupid in the book, I mean what point does this serve from a writing standpoint? I would say that, to me, it felt like a cheap way to generate romantic tension in the story. I also dislike how much drama was there in terms of who love who and why. It felt like Clare was up to her old tricks again of trying to give people romantic pairings only to create drama with them later, this is especially true towards the end. I won't spoil it here, only to say that the last minute pairing in the book seemed like something out of the CW Network book of hack romance writing, and had little regard to the established characterization we had seen throughout the book.

As for everything else, such as the mystery, I thought it was good, but it did seem to go by quickly, given how fast paced this book was. Honestly, I thought it could have been improved as well. Obviously, I won't spoil it, but often times it felt rushed and thrown together, especially with how the poem Annabel Lee fits into the story. How does it fit, might you ask. Especially with regards to Edgar Allen Poe? Clare does not answer that question in the slightest, which makes it even more annoying that she included it at all. There are other grading things, like how the evil villain just has to commit the Evil Ruler Mistake Number One: Talking to the hero about how you committed the crimes, instead of killing them outright while you have the chance. Then he made Evil Ruler Mistake Number Two: Monologue about your plans and how there is nothing the hero can do to stop them, instead of just committing the evil deed and hightailing it out of there while the hero is bound/gagged/whatever. These feel like amateur mistakes that Clare should not be making, and it greatly cheapened the story for me.

In the end, I think I liked this book overall, but the ending was marred by a rushed villain plot, and romance that could have been significantly toned down. But lets face it, I am not the audience for this book. This is for the fans and they are not going to care what I say. So I will say that, even though I loved the level of writing in this book, and how it does show Clare's growth as a writer, there are some tropes of hers that I just couldn't agree with. For this reason, I give it a three out of five. It may be better than the Mortal Instruments, but not by much.