Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare

Summary from Goodreads:

Dark secrets and forbidden love threaten the very survival of the Shadowhunters in Cassandra Clare’s Queen of Air and Darkness, the final novel in the #1 New York Times and USA TODAY bestselling The Dark Artifices trilogy.

What if damnation is the price of true love?

Innocent blood has been spilled on the steps of the Council Hall, the sacred stronghold of the Shadowhunters. In the wake of the tragic death of Livia Blackthorn, the Clave teeters on the brink of civil war. One fragment of the Blackthorn family flees to Los Angeles, seeking to discover the source of the blight that is destroying the race of warlocks.

Meanwhile, Julian and Emma take desperate measures to put their forbidden love aside and undertake a perilous mission to Faerie to retrieve the Black Volume of the Dead. What they find in the Courts is a secret that may tear the Shadow World asunder and open a dark path into a future they could never have imagined. Caught in a race against time, Emma and Julian must save the world of Shadowhunters before the deadly power of the parabatai curse destroys them and everyone they love.

Review:

I am a huge Cassandra Clare fan. I have read every one of her books. They are my catnip. Seriously, amazing characters + magical world setting + all the supernatural creatures my heart can come up with + super dramatic teen romance + crazy addictive, high action suspense, and well you get YA at it’s best. And I have to say that I do think her writing has come a long way since City of Bones (her first book). That all being said, this was not my favorite book by her.

It took me longer to read this book than any other book she has written –almost 2 weeks! It is another giant, reaching almost 900 pages. Maybe that mixed with my busy holiday time schedule, mixed with the epic sadness of the beginning of this book, all added to my lengthy reading time. Yet, I was counting down the days for this book. I was anticipating this one more than any other book this year. I didn’t pre-order it because I knew it would come out while I was away in Chicago. I bought this monster on vacation the day it came out and carried it on a plane…this book is massive and takes up a lot of carry on space the otherwise would have been filled with Garret’s popcorn.

Do not read the rest of my review if you don’t want minor spoilers!!

Reading the beginning of the book was like being punched to the heart, repeatedly…on slow motion. An important character died at the end of the last book, and this wasn’t just a well-loved character, this was a well-loved child character. And you go into these books, with the YA/Supernatural (tv show)/Buffy-type mindset of never really knowing if the character is truly dead forever, kind of hoping they aren’t. And then it’s like Sirius Black all over again when you realize your dreams aren’t coming true.

And of course Clare excels at writing characters, so it’s not a gloss-over kind of death. But, instead it’s the realistic, long lasting, slow motion repeated punch to your heart experienced in the eyes of all the other loved characters kind of death.

Then there were some classic, eye-roll inducing, overdone YA tropes I don’t like mucking up an otherwise awesome addition to the story. The whole spell Julian took to remove his love was just plain stupid and I can’t believe Magnus did that. All the elements of Fairy have been done before, and I was hoping for something new there. And the first half of the book just felt so repetitive. Repetitive grief, repetitive guilt, repetitive forbidden love….And I guess I needed more action, suspense, and humor.

Thankfully, those things finally came in the second half. But, I seriously think a whole chunk of the first half could have been removed and this would have solved a lot of my problems. The action, suspense, and humor also came with dystopia alternate worlds, revenge stories, children playing with necromancy, insane spells, added trips to the shadow market, rescuing Clary and Jace, a civil war, prison uprisings, political corruption, and more. Finally, it got to the point where I couldn’t put this book down. It just took a lot of grief-ridden, overly repetitive nonsense to get there.

Also, a lot of questions were answered in this installment. I finally understood some things about parabatai that I didn’t before.  There were tons of references to past series, past characters, past hardships. And I liked how things ended and connected. Stuff is definitely not over with Ty and Kit. I feel like I know where her next series will go (already), and I’m glad to maybe step away from Julian and Emma and Clary and Jace. Though, I had fun for their stories here. I like that Clare has gotten a lot more diverse with her characters. There’s plenty of LGBT representation. It’s the first time I’ve read about a transgender character in a YA fantasy. It’s also the first time I’ve read about a relationship between two men and one woman…And the romance throughout it all is sizzling.

It’s also the closest Clare has gotten to an allegory of current political situations. So much of the evil cohort could be connected to current day bigots in the Trump administration. I’m shocked that no one has commented on this yet. And I also hope that people can be as promising as shadowhunters/downworlders in the face of adversity and change.  Or maybe more promising would be nice too.

I loved the ending. I’m not quite sure why the book is named for a character that didn’t seem all too important…I kept waiting for her story to take more of a center stage, but weirdly she was the least developed character in there. I liked getting the bonus Clary story at the end. And I loved how stuff resolved with Julian and Emma. I’m glad Emma didn’t make the giant mistake I really though that she would. All in all, I give this one an 8/10. It would have been a 10/10 if the repetition and bad tropes to the storyline weren’t there.