No Spoilers for this book. Spoilers for TMI!
When to read: Do NOT read this book until finishing TMI and TID as it has major spoilers for both of the final books of those series (this book also won’t make as much sense if you haven’t read those books already). If you are reading TSC for the first time, check out my Shadowhunters Guide & Reading Order under the “more” tab.
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️/5
It’s seems like most people find these stories hit or miss, but personally I loved every single one and as a whole this is one of my favorite books in TSC.
First off, although this is a collection of short stories, it reads much like a book. It’s different than Bane Chronicles and Ghosts of The Shadow Market where the stories are far apart and aren’t very related. These stories only happen like a few months apart (except for flashbacks but those are told as if Simon is listening to a story) most of the text is told from Simon’s POV, and the side characters stay the same. Therefore, I’m going to review it as a whole.
Going into this from COHF, I wasn’t really thinking about how hard this was for Simon. I feel like as readers, we are like Clary and everyone who knows everything that happened before Simon lost his memory. Seeing Simon struggle with self-identity and living up to a version of himself he doesn’t really know hit hard and felt very real.
I loved getting to meet all the kids in the academy. I’m glad we finally got to see some kids who are raised in idris so we could compare them to characters from the series who are all mostly raised at insistutes. I also liked hearing more in-depth shadowhunter thoughts on Mundanes and Downworlders.
I really enjoyed the flashback scenes,- I couldn’t put down “Whitechapel Fiend” or “Nothing but Shadows”. I know a lot of people didn’t like “The Evil We Love” but personally I found what happened to Robert as a kid really interesting to learn about and it’s something I didn’t even think about happening in the shadow world.
The ending- people seem it hate this. I think it’s unfair, and yes I saw it coming, but it had to happen to someone. I think it was the right choice.
Overall, as in all of Cassie’s books – but even more so in this one – the dialogue is laugh out loud funny. “Born to Endless Night” was a happy surprise for me as a Malec fan and probably my favorite.
If you are a Shadowhunters fan, also check out my Shadowhunters Stories Chronological Timeline!
Life Is Just A Blur 