REVIEW: The Dark Artifices by Cassandra Clare

Greetings bookworms!

When I was younger and The Mortal Instruments were still being released, I was all for them. I loved the series, I loved Jace, and I loved the world. However, I never felt the need to read The Infernal Devices or later The Dark Artifices. I was good with sticking with Clary and the gang.

It was when Queen of Air and Darkness came out and everyone was feeling all the feels that I decided I might be missing out. Plus, I had found out that Cassie Clare was going to expand on the overall Shadowhunters Chronicles with more series. So I decided that at eighteen years old, this was the time for me to catch up on my missed youth and read the two series I had previously turned my nose up on.

I reread The Mortal Instruments, then The Infernal Devices, and recently polished off The Dark Artifices. Why didn't I do a review on The Infernal Devices? Because I don't have enough to say about the series as a whole. It was alright, not my favorite. Probably my lowest rating of the three series. Perhaps there maybe be an overall Shadowhunter Chronicles review coming up in the near future.

Anyways, let's get into this review. Just to let you know, this will be containing spoilers like crazy so please leave now if you do not want to read them.

Plot

So let's start off by dissecting the story line itself. Well, there's a lot of ground to cover. However, I really enjoyed the depth we as readers got to explore in these books with complicated plots and subplots. I think this was one of Clare's strongest series plot wise. While all her stories have compelling story lines, I truly got lost in each book in The Dark Artifices series. I really did want to see the outcome of each one. That being said, there were still some issues I had with the plot(s) and subplots. But instead of being vague, let's jump into some specifics. (Once again, did I mention spoilers ahead?)

the mystery behind the parabatai curse:

I initially really enjoyed this plot line. I liked learning more about this major aspect of the Shadowhunter world. It played on an aspect that's been in these books since The City of Bones that we definitely would want to learn more about. It's part of what made Lady Midnight such an awesome start to this series.

Do you feel the 'but' coming?

This was one of the main plot lines of the whole series, if not the plot line threading all of the books so tightly together. Julian and Emma are madly in love. They can't help their feelings. They can't even keep their hands off of each other. Since Clare loves forbidden romances, they can't be together due to their parabatai curse because it's against the law for reasons the Clave won't disclose and no one really knows. This is some pretty epic stuff. So I assumed that a) the reasoning behind it would be really epic and b) the resolution of it would be something crazy.

Well...

I mean the fact that the parabatai curse can turn the two people who share it into monsters if they care too deeply about each other is pretty scary consequence. My problem lays more that the Nephlim hid it just because they could. It seemed very weak to me. I don't think people except like Valentine would've taken advantage of the curse, so that other aspect behind keeping that fact hidden wasn't very compelling.

The large problem laid with the resolution in the curse. It was like the least anticlimactic ending ever. Even though Emma and Julian went essentially crazy due to the curse and became the blood thirsty giants. they were talked out of it pretty easily. If the curse it that powerful to destroy them, I thought more drastic measures would need to be taken to stop this uncontrollable power to destroy. Although I will admit that Tavvy would be able get me to stop doing just about anything, even if I was going insane. So, maybe I'm a little hypocritical. However, my biggest problem of all: the runes are just gone when they wake up.

They.

Are.

Just.

Magically.

Gone.

That was an oddly easy end to this massive problem. The curse is lifted. They can be Edward and Bella and live happily ever after. I couldn't have been more disappointed with how this issue was handled in the end. But my disappointment comes from how enthused I was about this plot line.

Anabel 'not' Lee:

I feel like Edgar Allan Poe stirred in his grave a little, although I'm surprised he didn't just come back to life. I can't believe she actually incorporated Poe into the story line and used one of his poems. I honestly just found it to be really cringey to use such a famous piece of poetry in a teenage fantasy-romance novel. I just feel like it felt out of place in this story. I think she would've been better off just having the situation be what it was while having a character remarking, "wow this sounds like a Poe poem."

Ty's mission to resurrect Livvy:

This just caused me so much frustration. It was so out of character for him to try to bring Livvy back from the dead, even in the context of grief. I understand this is setting things up for her future series following Ty and Kit, but it just didn't fit. Ty loved Livvy so much that he wouldn't have wanted to disturb her from her eternal rest. I think his grief could've been more suitably portrayed in other still dramatic ways. For one, Ty could've tried to avenge Annabel for killing her or he could've tried to bring other Livvy to his world.

Thule:

I truly just hated this plot line. There's no other way to say it.

This felt like the biggest waste of time and I skimmed so much of these chapters. Like we already knew what reality would be like if Sebestian/Jonathan/Valentine's lil demon hadn't been killed. We all know life without Clary, Jace, Alec, Magnus, and the Blackthorns would be rough.

Again, I know she did this to fulfill getting the mortal sword, helping Ty raise up Livvy's ghost, and to set up her other novel. But it felt so uninspired to just go to another universe to solve these issues. It felt like she was reusing some of her plot from the Mortal Instruments with the updated characters.

I just wasn't a fan.

Jace, er, I mean the other Jace:

I about threw the book across my room after I read the epilogue. I didn't, but only because it was a library book.

As I said with the Thule plot in general, this feels so uninspired. We already know how the Clary and Evil Jace plot line works out. It ain't great hun. And if Jace has to die/almost die one more time I'm going to actually kill him. Like how is he the best shadowhunter out there?

This doesn't make me want to pursue the next series she has in mind. I honestly don't care about wherever this plot is going to carry. And I think it's time for her to have less involvement with past characters. Like it was nice for them to be around in the Dark Artifices to see how they grew up and they're still apart of the world, but they shouldn't be the focus of these books any more.

Overall my feelings of the story lines of these books were mixed, but I still think these were Clare's best ones yet.

Characters

Characters. An important part of any story. Some characters you love to love, others you love to hate, and then there are the ones you just hate in general because they aren't constructed will. This series integrated both new and old characters, which brought in both the good and the ugly.

Emma Carstairs

In The Mortal Instruments, Clary was annoying as heck and I hated Tessa in The Infernal Devices, so I found Emma to be a decent focus in this series.

But she wasn't anything special.

I never really found myself caring that much about her throughout this series. While I didn't have any negative feelings toward her, I just felt like she wasn't anything original or particularly compelling. What made her interesting was her parabatai love affliction. Outside of that, she was a very mundane character.

Again, she was supposed to be an empowering female character who was fearless and strong willed. However, she was just like every teenage girl I've ever known. That would've been fine if she hadn't been made out to be this phenomenal person during the whole series.

I will say that I enjoyed Emma's basic grasp on common sense and the fact that she was a fairly selfless character.

Ty Blackthorn

I don't even have the words.

He is the most pure and gentle hearted soul. I want to protect him from everything awful in the world. I always loved reading about him (except for the raising Livvy from the dead plot line) and just found him endearing. I also appreciate that he was written with some Autistic tendencies, though I don't know if he would be considered truly Autistic. That is not my area of expertise. However, most characters who are written as Autistic come across as completely abnormal or obnoxious such as Sheldon from the Big Bang Theory. He was written as an actual human being that was so much more than his social/sensory disability. I loved him so much. He was definitely my favorite character from this series, though tied with Alec overall.

Annabel Blackthorn

Aside from the fact I wasn't thrilled about her plot line, I found her to be a fairly weak antagonist as well. She wasn't very well developed. She seemed to all over the place. And she wasn't very scary, even for being a formerly dead person.

The only thing that really made me feel strongly toward her is when she killed Livvy. Other than that, I didn't really care about her. She just was written as a 2-D villain.

Mark Blackthorn

I originally really liked Mark. I liked watching him redevelop his relationships his siblings and the fact that he was part Fae, but also a shadowhunter.

And then Lord of Shadows happened.

He just became one of those not actually nice nice guys that I absolutely despise. He made decisions that hurt people that justified by saying that he thought he was doing right. It's just because his heart was so pure. But when he lied about not having a stele on the beach, that was my last straw. He just reminded me of Ross Geller, Lucas Scott, and every other supposed nice guy that's actually the worst.

Julian Blackthorn

One of the best love interests in all the series. Period.

Aside from that, he was just an enjoyable character. He had a lot of complexity that made him feel so realistic. I was definitely eager to continue to follow his story and wanting him to get that happy ending. He's the main reason I really enjoyed the main relationship in this series. I want a Julian.

Overall rating of the books and series

So I've complained quite a bit about this series, almost to the point where you might be thinking that I hated it. In reality, I enjoyed this series quite a lot until the ending came. Let me break down how my feelings about this series went about:

Lady Midnight:

I believe I rated this 5 stars on Goodreads. I really enjoyed this book, truly a lot more than I thought I would. I was dying to find out how the rest of the series went afterwards. I loved the conflicts and characters introduced.

Lord of Shadows:

On reflection, this would be a 4 star rating for me. I still enjoyed the story a lot, but this is when I started having problems Mark's and Diego's characters. I also started to feel that the parabatai plot might not be as deep as I thought it would be.

Queen of Air and Darkness:

3 star rating, which might have been a bit generous. This book kind of ruined the series for me. I didn't enjoy it nearly as much as I did the other two. I had a lot of problems with the ending and it did not make me excited for the next series.

So how I would rate The Dark Artifices overall?

3.5 stars. Honestly, this would've probably been a lot higher if the last book hadn't been so problematic for me.

That was my journey of reading this series. Hopefully it was entertaining and I'm not alone in some of my opinions.

That will be all for this post. Thanks for reading if you're still here and stay sunny!