January Wrap Up

Welcome back, dear reader

Well, here we are, one month in to 2022. I suppose we'll see what mysteries the future holds together. The immediate future holds me trying to explain the plot of The Mortal Instruments series one book at a time. We'll see how I do.

But, of course, let's take a look at the books I read in January. 

January's Reads from left to right:

First up is City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare. Brace yourself, reader. There's going to be a lot of Cassandra Clare coming up.

I was still enjoying myself during City of Ashes. Most of my enjoyment did come from Simon getting turned into a vampire. There is that. I knew going into these books that Simon becomes a vampire. I'm just glad I didn't have a long wait. 

We are, of course, still grappling with the twist that Clary and Jace are siblings. I, of course, know this will not end up being the case which makes this plot only a little more bearable. This is even less solace than you might think, reader. 

The writing continues to be serviceable, the plot was alright. Honestly, I didn't expect Valentine to be able to gather as many demons as he did in this book. Many revelations to be had. It did make me want to read the next book in the series and I can see why so many readers picked these books up. 

I also want to shout out the moment where Simon tries to say the last prayer and can't get the words out because he's still a new vampire and saying holy names hurts him. It was honestly my most poignant reading moments this month. Very good Jewish vampire moment.

4/5 pumpkins

Then all my reading plans were put on hold because a purchased a copy of Where the Drowned Girls Go by Seanan McGuire, the newest book in the Wayward Children series. I had to read it.

This tiny little book follows Cora, back from her adventures in the Moor with Jack and the Drowned Gods, can still feel their voices calling to her. She's having trouble sleeping and bathing. It's a problem. She asks to be transferred to the other school, the one for kids who just want to forget the doors they went through. 

I was excited by the premise, needless to say. 

Cora ends up at the other school and finds that it's terrible other there. I was not surprised. Regan, our horse girl hero from the last book, is also at this school which was very to discover. At this school, they essentially force kids to live in the opposite conditions that their world had. Logic kids can't clean up after themselves and have to live in disorder. Nonsense kids have to clean up after everyone and live very regimented lives. It's terrible.

Cora hates it, but it's slowly helping her break the Drowned Gods' power. Sumi also comes to the other school to help Cora escape since she can't imagine Cora actually wants to stay. They plan their escape, figure out that the headmaster has a dark secret (naturally), and make a break for it. 

It ends on a cliffhanger and I cannot wait for the next book. I need to know what happens next, reader.

5/5 pumpkins

And then I proceeded to read every other Wayward Children book. So I suppose we should talk about those, reader. They're all rereads so I shall be brief. 

First is Every Heart a Doorway by Seanan McGuire, the first book and story of Nancy who went to the Halls of the Dead. She is sent back to 'be sure' by the Lord of the Dead and ends up at Eleanor's school for kids who've gone through doors.

I still love this book just as much as I did when I first read it. I love the universe it's set in, I love the characters, all of it. I'm so glad we got more Jack after this book.

The events of this story do leave several people dead, although one of them gets to come back.

5/5 pumpkins

Next is Down Among the Sticks and Bones by Seanan McGuire which follows Jack and Jill on their first trip to the Moor. This is one of my favorite Wayward Children books along with Come Tumbling Down. 

Jack and Jill are twins and discover a doorway in their attic that leads to a world called the Moors. It's a bleak place locked in various supernatural power struggles. The one the twins fall into is one between a vampire and a mad scientist. 

Jack goes to live with the mad scientist. Jill stays with the vampire.

Their story is a tragedy, but one that won't be wrapped up until Come Tumbling Down, which is two books from now.

5/5 pumpkins

Then we have Beneath the Sugar Sky, the direct sequel to Every Heart a Doorway. Sumi's daughter from the land of Confection falls out of a door and into the turtle pond. This leads to a quest.

Kade, Cora, Nadya, Christopher, and Rini head off to resurrect Sumi. They travel through several different worlds before they land in Confection with Sumi's skeleton and soul. 

And they have to be quick or the timeline will unravel and the evil queen will kill them all. So no pressure.

They do succeed in baking Sumi back to life, and each of them goes either home to Confection or home to Eleanor's. 

Nadya does find a door back to her turtle word, at the end.

5/5 pumpkins

Next is In an Absent Dream, which is a standalone following Katherine Lundy, who died in the first book. 

This tells the tale of Lundy's trip to and from the Goblin Market, a place with magic that makes sure everyone trades fairly. If you don't give fair value for something you start growing feathers. Continue and you'll turn into a bird. 

Lundy is able to go back and forth several times but is told she must make a choice before she turns 18. Once that day hits she has to make a choice, Earth or Goblin Market. If she doesn't become a citizen of the Goblin Market before then she'll be locked out. 

Naturally, Lundy wants to have the best of both worlds. She wants to be there for her sister as she grows up. She also wants to keep having adventures in the Goblin Market. So she tries to get around the rules. Which is not allowed.

Lundy ends up locked out of Goblin Market and also is stuck aging backwards, slowly, until she dies. Oops.

Even though it is a standalone, I do enjoy the setting of Goblin Market immensely. It's one of the more interesting doorways to fall through.

5/5 pumpkins

Another favorite is Come Tumbling Down, the book which finishes up the Jack and Jill Wolcott saga.

It's been about a year since the events of Every Heart a Doorway. Life is settling back to normal. Then Jack and Alexis come open up a doorway into Christopher's (new), Jack's (old), room. Alexis is holding Jack up and Jack herself is not doing well.

She manages to explain that her sister and her vampire Master made Dr. Bleak swap their bodies so Jack is in Jill and Jill is in Jack. She did this because a body can only really die and come back twice at max and no body that's died can become a vampire. And becoming a vampire is exactly what Jill wants. Jack has OCD and this swap is more than she can handle.

So the kids have to go on another quest. Kade, Christopher, and Cora all travel with Jack and Alexis to the Moors. 

Cora is immediately stolen by the Drowned Gods, while the others try to resurrect Dr. Bleak and confront Jill before the Master can turn her. 

It's very good and I won't reveal how it ends. Only that it's a good ending, but not a happy one. Which is very fitting for the Moors.

5/5 pumpkins

Las of the rereads is Across the Green Grass Fields. This story follows Regan, an intersex horse girl who goes through a door and ends up in a land of horses. Or at least, of horse-like creatures, there are no actual horses. 

She lives with a small herd of centaur women and their flock of unicorns. She's told that she'll get to go so the Queen who is said to be a beautiful Qirin. More on that later.

Regan almost gets kidnapped when they go to the livestock fair so they take to hiding deeper in the woods, away from the Queen and her castle. Running doesn't work in the long term so Regan does eventually go to the castle. 

Much adventure was had by all. I am sad that I now know she ends up at the other school and not Eleanor West's. Regan deserved to go to a nice place and I'm sad for her, reader.

5/5 pumpkins

Alright, now that those rereads are out of the way, let's move on to These Violent Delights by Chole Gong. It's a 20s Shanghai retelling of Rome and Juliet. There is also a parasitic bug monster. I was only expecting one of these things. 

I'll get to that in a minute.

Roma Montagov and Juliette Cai are scions of two rival gang families in Shanghai. The Cai family runs the Scarlet Gang who keep the Chinese part of Shanghai running smoothly. The Montagov family are Russian, there to help China's growing Communist movement. 

They are also ex lovers. Much drama. 

Central to my interests were Marshall Seo and Benedikt Montagov, the counterparts to Mercutio and Benvolio. Chloe Gong is very passionate about Rome and Juliet. I am, in turn, very passionate about Mercutio and Benvolio. 

Anyway, not only is there political and sexual tension but there is also a monster killing people on the streets of Shanghai. This is not good for business or streets safety, so each powerful family asks their respective heirs to go figure out what's causing this.

Roma has his Friar Laurence. Juliette has Rosalind and Rosalind's sister Kathleen. There is no Nurse character because she was tragically blown up. I mean that in all seriousness, reader. The Nurse was blown up. Roma was forced to choose between keeping Juliette safe or blowing up some of her house and he chose house. So. That's why Roma and Juliette broke up. 

Anyway they're both back in town and trying to solve a mystery. Things get urgent in the last section when Roma's little sister gets infected with the bugs. They do heroically find the weirdo who created a parasitic bug plague and kill the giant queen parasitic bug.

All is not celebration, however, because during a confrontation with Tyler (Tybalt) Juliette has to deny accusations that she's a spy working with Roma. So she shoots Marshall. (Don't worry reader, he gets better.)

As of twenty pages into the sequel, Benedikt does not know that his crush is actually not dead, so things are going very poorly for him. I just hope he figures out Marshall is still kicking before he can fully reenact the classic RnJ ending. 

I guess we'll see.

I thought this book was only okay. It didn't grab my attention and hold it at any point. I was grossed out by the bug stuff, so there was some good body horror content. Overall though it was pretty middle-of-the-road.

That said, I do like seeing people of color take stories and reimagine them. I certainly liked this as much as if not more than the original Romeo and Juliet. I count that as a positive.

3/5 pumpkins

And we are back on that Mortal Instruments train, reader. I bring you City of Glass, the third book in the series and the one where we finally get to see Idris.

Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, reader. 

The whole demon hunting crew has been summoned to the city of Alicante. Jace decides he doesn't want Clary to go. I'm sure his reason was very noble and angsty, but I do not remember what it was. I finished this almost a month ago, reader.

Jace tries to get Simon to run interference so she doesn't figure out that he's told her the wrong departure time but they are attacked by Forsaken and Simon gets thrown through the Portal and into Alicante. A place he is not supposed to be.

Meanwhile, Clary is not pleased about being left behind so she opens her own Portal which drops her and Luke into a cursed lake. Clary also loses her stele, which became a running theme in the rest of these books.

So our plucky band of heroes are all worried about Valentine stealing the mirror, which is somewhere in Idris since he already has the sword and the cup. I think it's in this book that we learn that should Valentine process all three items he'll be able to summon the Angel Raziel who created the Shadowhunters.

His plan is to remake all Shadowhunters into his own racist image. Our heroes wish to stop him. They do so in the funniest manner.

So many things occur, the lake is the mirror, other such twists and turns. Clary is with Jace at the lakeshore with Valentine and his angel summoning circle. He is in the middle of summoning Raziel. Then Clary scratches his name out and writes her own. So she asks the Angel to bring Jace back to life. She also stabs Valentine, but details, details.

This is also the book where Sebastian shows up. Just when you thought you were free from an incest plotline. 

How to explain.

So Sebastian is actually Jonathan Morganstern, Valentine's actual son. Jace is a Herondale who was raised by Valentine while he was in hiding in Michael Wayland's house. Nobody knew Jace was a Harondale because Valentine sort of took him from his mother's womb after she died post-Uprising. If that makes any sense. People just assumed that he was Valentine's blood son because he just showed up one day and people leapt to conclusions. I guess.

It's all very twisty, reader. Anyway. Jace stabs Sebastian, who appears to die. 

I think that's all the relevant information. I thought the book was okay. The fact that we defeated the main villain three books in to a six-book series has me a little worried.

4/5 pumpkins

 

I wrote in my notes for the last book 'at least the incest plot is over and done with.' Let's see how wrong I was, reader.

Next is City of Fallen Angels, book four of the series. 

A lot happens in this one, reader. I shall try to be concise. 

Simon is experiencing Consequences for having the Mark of Cain put on him by Clary. He gets kicked out of the house, people are trying to murder him, and a random dude turned up to audition for his band. 

This random man turns out to be Jordan Kyle, werewolf and ex boyfriend of Maia, who Simon is dating. Simon is also dating Isabelle. Jordan does give Simon a place to stay and he has the vibe of a very stoned werewolf but like. Jordan did hit Maia and turn her into a werewolf so...

I want to like Jordan, but it's kind of hard to get past the fact that becoming a werewolf in this universe can give you uncontrollable rage issues and I hate that trope, reader. Jordan and Maia deserve better.

Simon also talks briefly to Camille Belcourt, a vampire girlboss whose plan is confusing and does not work out. Her aim is to take back control of the New York vampire clan which Raphael is currently running. Technically she is the leader, but she's been in exile for a while. She wants Simon on her side because he's a Daylighter which makes him a hot commodity as an ally. 

Camille is also Magnus' ex. This is important later, I'm not just chronicling Magnus Bane's love life.

Simon also accidentally bites a groupie named Maureen who gets turned into a vampire. I think by Camille. It might have been by Lilith? I'm really unsure, reader.

Anyway, Jace and Clary are having difficulties again and Luke and Jocelyn are getting married. 

Jace is having nightmares where he stabs Clary, which is making him a little standoffish. Again. Turns about, Shadowhunters need to be ritually protected from demonic influences and because Jace was resurrected by Raziel he has none of those things. They take him to the Silent Brothers and everything seems to be looking up for your plucky young heterosexuals. 

And then Lilith rune hijacks Jace. Oops.

Jace, under Lilith's control, kidnaps Clary. Simon is kidnapped by Maureen. They all end up with Lilith and Sebastian, who she's keeping in a Sleeping Beauty-style coffin. She demands that Simon bite Sebastian to bring him back to life or she'll use Jace to kill Clary. 

Simon bites Sebastian, Clary manages to cut Jace on the rune Lilith is using to control him, and he comes back to himself for a hot second. Lilith tries to smack Clary and Simon gets in the way. The Mark of Cain protects him from harm so Lilith is exploded slightly. 

Unfortunately for our heroes, Sebastian still has control over Jace so when his rune heals, he puppets Jace back so he can resurrect fully.

Oops.

This was an okay book. The dialog continues to be good and the plot continues to wobble between serviceable and confusing. So many girlboss' with absolutely wild plans. I'm still a little confused about how Camille planned to do any of the things she wanted to do.

3/5 pumpkins

Book five is City of Lost Souls. Jace is still under Sebastian's control. He tries to get Clary to come with him, which does not work. Jocelyn also sees Sebastian and freaks out because he's her actual son who Valentine experimented on. 

You know. How you experiment on babies with demon blood?

Jace is able to tell Clary about Sebastian's plan, which is to make a new Mortal Cup, but one filled with Lilith's blood. This way, Sebastian can create a race of Shadowhunters with demonic origins rather than angelic. 

Simon and Clary have a brief interlude with the Fairy Queen who asks them to go get two rings for her. These allow Simon and Clary to communicate so they keep the rings. Clary plans to go undercover with Jace and Sebastian to see if she can stop them and free Jace.

Simon meanwhile helps the rest of the gang summon Raziel again. The angel gives them Michael's sword to borrow and takes Simon's Mark of Cain in the meantime.

Clary manages to tell Simon and Co where Sebastian is planning on holding his evil ritual before she is caught and forced to destroy the fae ring.

Simon gets Clary the blade, which is full of heavenly fire. Oddly enough. She stabs Jace with the blade, certain that it will spare him and only burn out Sebastian's influence. The fire also manages to get Silent Brother Zachariah, a character we learn more about in the Infernal Devices trilogy.

So Jace is free, Sebastian gets away with a few of his demon Shadowhunters, including Luke's sister Amatis.

While all of this is going on, Alec is having difficulties with the fact that Magnus is immortal. Camille inserts herself into this drama and starts telling Alec that if he doesn't want to become immortal, maybe there's a way for Alec to make Magnus mortal. 

Alec, being kind of a dingus, considers this. I think he ultimately was planning on going back and telling Camille 'no way' but Magnus finds out about all of this and is a little put out. So he breaks up with Alec. Alec is devastated and will remain so for the next book. The poor boy.

As always, I like the vampire world-building centered around Simon. I love the idea that you can say holy words as a vampire if you don't believe you're damned for being undead. Love that. Everything else was only okay.

3/5 pumpkins 

Last is City of Heavenly Fire the last book in the Mortal Instruments series. It's also 725 pages long. You might want to prepare yourself, reader.

A lot of new characters are introduced in these last three books with the intention of being explored in later trilogies. I'm not going to go into detail about their plot lines. I'm sorry if you love Emma Carstairs, reader. I just met her and I have no feelings about her yet.

Okay, Shadowunter Institutes are being attacked by Sebastian and his demon Shadowhunters.

Clary goes and finds a Morgenstern sword so she can finally have a weapon of her own. Maia becomes leader of the New York werewolves, and Simon gets kidnapped by Maureen, who's killed Camille offscreen and wants to marry Simon. Raphael helps Simon not get married to a thirteen year old vampire. Maia also feeds Maureen some holy water so Lily ends up as leader of the vampires.

Raphael, Magnus, Luke, and Jocelyn are all kidnapped into the Fae realm by Meliorn who is working with Sebastian. Raphael also gets stabbed and killed. Alas, poor Raphael.

Everybody eventually ends up in Edom in Hell, the place that Sebastian has decided is his to rule now. He tells everyone that he's willing to let them all go so long as Clary stays with him. Clary agrees so that everyone else can go free and then stabs him. The evil Mortal Cup is destroyed so all the demon Shadowhunters also die. 

The gang is at this point trapped in Edom, however, so Magnus does have to ask his demon dad to get them out.

Also, Magnus and Alec get back together.

So Magnus' dad asks for one of them to give him their powers so they can all go free. Simon asks to be chosen, so all his memories and all his vampire powers are taken away. He's a normal mortal who can't remember his best friend now.

This will not stand, so the last part of the book is Isabelle and Magnus getting Simon to become a Shadowhunter so they can start returning his memories.

Oh, also Jordan dies. It's very sad.

Thus ends the Mortal Instruments series. It was okay. I can certainly see why so many people love these books. 

3/5 pumpkins

And that is everything I read in January. Trying to explain the last three Mortal Instruments books took me much longer than I thought it would. They are very dense, reader. A lot happened and I couldn't keep the timeline straight in my head.

Anyway, I shall see you later in the month for other Wrap Ups and Tbrs.

Until next time, reader 🎃