Major Spoilers Ahead! (Read only after finishing book)
When to read: After Lord of Shadows. If you are reading TSC for the first time, check out my Shadowhunters Guide & Reading Order under the “more” tab.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
It took me a bit to write this after I finished the book bc that ending made me so mad and sad at the same time (smad lol – that still a thing? Probably not).
But I’ll start at the beginning: How James makes up the house for Daisy is SOOOOO CUTE!!! However, this book acutally feels much more Cordelia centered than Chain of Gold (with less of James’ POV) which is now kind of throwing me off and I want more James.
I’m a bit disappointed how little Lucie/Cordelia content were getting. I understand why they have to be more apart for this book – but then we should have seen more of them in the first book. We’ve never gotten a chance to see people training to become parabatai in TSC, nor have we seen two female parabatai – so much potential and nothing is done with it! And I think this hurts the book too because than it doesn’t hurt as much when Cordelia feels like she has to give up being parabatai with Lucie.
This might be an unpopular opinion- but I like Cordelia more than Lucie. I like Lucie, but she is not one of my favorite characters. I know she’s the youngest and I know why she makes certain decisions, but I she acts naive a lot do the time. Though the fact that she carries an ax is amazing 🤩
I still don’t like Grace, but I am starting to root for her redemption (and her ship with Kit). But I still find a lot of the Grace scenes boring. As for the other “redemption arc” character, Alaster, I love him. I love him as a character and I totally think he can be redeemed.
This book feels like it has more of a plot than Chain of Gold, but somehow also slower – I think because the murders are just kind of going on for most of the book but none of the characters figure anything out until the end.
Now, the end: I understand why a lot of characters are keeping secrets (and you don’t have to keep saying “I feel so bad I’m keeping secrets” guys we get it), but the ending is just so dramatic and it HURTS. I still don’t ship Mathew x Cordelia and I just want James to be able to explain and finally be with Cordelia 😭!
Lastly, I want Mathew to be happy because I love him, but worried that he doesn’t seem to have a real love interest (that’s interested in him), and I’m starting to worry that he might die in Chain of Thorns (because Cassie usually gives everyone at the end of a series a love interest).
If you are a Shadowhunters fan, also check out my Shadowhunters Stories Chronological Timeline!
Life Is Just A Blur 