Samantha's Reviews > Chain of Gold

3.75 stars - This book is exactly what I wanted right now. I’ve only previously read The Infernal Devices, but I enjoyed this for the same reason I enjoyed that series: it’s follows a bunch of beautiful people in love and there’s barely any plot. The fantasy world is a fun but fairly unimportant backdrop to the angst and romance of the characters. And I couldn’t be happier! I go into these books with those expectations and I am not disappointed. These are the book equivalent of a CW tv show (and I say that as a fan of CW shows for the same reason — pretty people who all love each other!)

While technically these series can be read separately because Clare does a good job of recapping important bits from other series and the Shadowhunter world in general, I can’t imagine reading it without TID. There’s too many characters from TID and too many references that make the book more fun if you understand them.

There are so many characters in here that at one point I had to draw a chart to outline how everyone was related and who liked who, but I caught on quickly after that. This was a fun romp with likable characters and plenty of angst and romance tropes to enjoy. But it did drag on a bit towards the end and would have been better as a shorter book.

I will be doing a full review and discussion in my channel :)