Review: Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

Warning: This review may contain spoilers. Please read the follow text at your expense and risk.

Synopsis:

It’s been five years since the events of City of Heavenly Fire that brought the Shadowhunters to the brink of oblivion. Emma Carstairs is no longer a child in mourning, but a young woman bent on discovering what killed her parents and avenging her losses.

Together with her parabatai Julian Blackthorn, Emma must learn to trust her head and her heart as she investigates a demonic plot that stretches across Los Angeles, from the Sunset Strip to the enchanted sea that pounds the beaches of Santa Monica. If only her heart didn’t lead her in treacherous directions…

Making things even more complicated, Julian’s brother Mark—who was captured by the faeries five years ago—has been returned as a bargaining chip. The faeries are desperate to find out who is murdering their kind—and they need the Shadowhunters’ help to do it. But time works differently in faerie, so Mark has barely aged and doesn’t recognize his family. Can he ever truly return to them? Will the faeries really allow it?

There is something that I learned on my first semester in college: if you want to understand someone, you have to put yourself on the other person’s shoes, look at things the way they do and accept them for who they are, not for who they should be.

I also believe that If you wonder why is someone so passionate about something, you should try to understand and explore that “something”, try to see things from the other person’s perspective. If you are in love with a bookworm, maybe it’s time for you to get to know a little bit more about the world that exists within ours. Try to read what she/he reads before you judge her/him and- who knows- get to know her/him a little bit more. It may sound cliché but it isn’t completely nonsense when people say that our favourite stories reveal a small part of who we are and how we are (not saying that if you love The Hunger Games that you are a cruel person, but maybe there’s something about the characters you identify with).

Getting to know a bookworm may prove to be a very interesting experience. A bookworm has lived many lives, fight many wars, shed tears of sadness, laugh and joy, travelled more than you can imagine and get to know so many worlds that you would be in awe. Maybe you’ll find out that she/he reads to run away from her/his reality, to mend a broken heart, heal her/his soul, to win knowledge, fight anxiety and deal with so many struggles, or just for the pleasure of getting home at the end of the day and feel the texture of paper under the fingers… You also get to deal with her/his more touchy and romantic side. Do you want to know how to get to her/his heart? The answer is loud and clear: books. Seriously! Read them! Find the ones with her/his OTP (One True Pairing) and learn something with the way they act (but please forget the creepy parts. Stick with the cute and legal ones).

Do you still think that books are that boring? If you do, you should re-read what I wrote.

Nevertheless, this is why I don’t have a boyfriend. I scare people with this kind of deep/weird conversation, I’m too busy being at home reading, studying, watching Tv shows, writing deeply random things and… Thanks to Cassandra Clare, my expectations of men and relationship goals are insanely high.

FINALLY!- you must be thinking- SHE IS GETTING TO THE POINT!

Yes, I am.

Cassandra Clare is getting better and better, book by book. Lady Midnight is my new favourite book by Cassandra Clare!

Due to college, my time and patience are decreasing slowly so when I started the book I wasn’t really excited. I read a couple of pages before I decided that the book was a little bit slow, but I was quick to judge and Cassandra Clare soon prove my point to be extremely and painfully wrong!

Wow!

At some point I wasn’t really able to put the book down, but my obligations didn’t allow me to read it faster. What I loved in this book: the story kept me at the edge, my head was full of theories at some point, romance, romance and more romance, the characters seemed pretty much real to me, Julian, Mark…

Although I loved the book, there were some small details at the end that didn’t make much sense to me.

There was a connection between the previous books and Lady Midnight, which was amazing because Clare didn’t just try to pretend that the other characters didn’t exist at all, but she also showed us their growth and how much their lives had changed since the last book (City Of Heavenly Fire). It was very emotional for me to read about them again and remember their path. Also, Clare didn’t forget her new readers, the ones who didn’t read The Infernal Devices and The Mortal Instruments, and she did that by introducing the characters briefly.

My favourite thing about this book was, with no doubt the characters as they were as realistic as possible, and as defective as only humans can be. Cassandra Clare finds a way to go through themes such as forbidden love, broken hearts, revenge, treason, mourning, mental illness, sexuality orientation, autism…

Julian is my favourite character. He was left with 4 younger brothers to take care of at the age of 12 and his older siblings were taken away from him, so he grew up too fast. He could be a very bitter person but instead, he invests all his energy in raising his brothers with love, compassion and kindness. He’s strong and caring even though life isn’t kind to him at all. He never quits. In order not to worry anyone or to keep his family together, Julian is forced to build a shell which protects his real emotions from everyone. He’s selfless. He’d do anything for the ones he loved, even if that might hurt him really bad. He’s sensible and he’s an artist. That’s a brief description of Julian Blackthorn, and that’s why I love him.

The story of Julian itself is one of the most important pillars and what touched me the most. His love for his family and Emma are really important for the development of the plot.

If you are already familiar with the Shadowhunters world, I strongly recommend you to read Lady Midnight.

Rating: 4.5/5