kla☾ ✩'s Reviews > Chain of Thorns

~ let’s get controversial ~

did i think i’d love this one? absolutely.
did i tho? i don’t really know to be honest.

i finished this book 2 days ago & yet i still do not really know how i feel about it. for now i’m going to give it 4 stars, for there is something that just did not really sit right with me. can’t really put my finger on what it is right now, but i will definitely try to identify it. for now my best guess is that it was a combination of numerous small things that i was not really a fan of that made me kind of indifferent about the book.

firstly i want to start off with saying that i really liked the first two books. yes, they probably were not my all time favorite shadowhunter books (nothing beats TID) nevertheless they were pretty high up on the list. i loved the characters and setting. i was a bit indifferent to most of the premise but it did keep my attention. therefore when i finished chain of iron in early 2021, chain of thorns quickly became my most anticipated read since according to the previous books, I was pretty sure it had the potential to become one of my favorite books. almost two years later, the book came out and i finally got to read what i was waiting for so long.

there will be spoilers from now on in this review so if that is not something you want to see, this is your time to click off this review :P

what i liked:

christopher herondale:
christopher deserves his own entire paragraph, because sorry folks but he did carry most of the plot of this book. kit has been my baby throughout the first two books, as i am an aspiring scientists too and it is beautiful to see myself represented in a character. in this book he finally gets the screen time he deserves. well until that one unfortunate bump in the road that i’m going to refer later to. other than that, kit made this book one worth remembering <3

my fruity four:
i LOVE these four and how their relationships got developed. i just love them. i think cassie took the time and really did these characters and their relationships justice. for arianna, i think their relationship just has so much care and tenderness to it, they’ve been through a lot but at the end of the day they found each other, which is the only thing that matter. for thomastairs, oh boy, never did i know that i needed this in my life yet i am forever changed. the line where cordelia refers to love as a book pre-written for us and telling alastair that he is refusing to read his story was just so fitting. nothing i did not love about these storylines. chef’s kiss.

grace & kit:
let’s talk about another relationship that has so much potential: kit & grace. never have i ever loved a trope more than slowburn friends to lovers. THEY! HAD! SO! MUCH! POTENTIAL! never getting over the fact that they could’ve been legit everything i have ever dreamed of. i mean kit thinking about how scientific discoveries are made in duos usually and his mind goes immediately to grace??? i am sold, take my money goodbye. they both see each other for more than just their stereotypes & im sorry but that is just beautiful. oh and i cannot go on with mentioning the scene where grace is struggling with the fire messages and kit appears saying ”maybe you are my unfinished business”. I AM SOLD TAKE MY MONEY. easily could’ve been among my top relationships if this was canon, i don’t know how to live on with knowing that they didn’t get their happiness.

addressing mathew’s alcoholism:
i honestly loved how this was dealt with. it was addressed in such a gentle and loving matter that it truly did deserve. no one judged him for it, rather the opposite they were all there for him every step of the way. the entire story of matthew learning to love himself again was really inspiring and done very well. but i do think more time could be dedicated to developing this.

jordelia (what i liked):
i’m gonna start of with saying that after ChoI, Jordelia was one of my favorite ships of all time hence i could not wait for more screen time. let’s just say that i am so glad that FINALLY all the miscommunication got sorted out because ohmygod i was getting so frustrated from that. i also loved how tender and loving their relationship turned out to be. they really did justice to childhood friends to lovers. they have loved each other for years, and even though there were a few bumps in the road at the end of the day their love conquered all !! the pendant scene I MEAN i could cry about that forever. also them talking about domestic affairs *screams in romance*

quotes:
there were some lines & sections that were just beautifully written. since i want to be thorough in this review imma include my favs here too:
~ ”but this was something else entirely, it was like the difference between having someone describe a color to you and finally seeing it for yourself” lucie & jesse first real kiss

~ ”i could never hate you, for all my hate is reserved for myself. I have none left over anyone else” just our favorite parabatai angst

~ ”i am observant. i am a scientist. we observe” yes kit, observing your soulmate might count as science too

~ ”i am not sure we choose who we love. i rather think love is something like a book written just for us a sort of holy text it is given to us to interpret. And are you refusing to read yours?” cordelia bullying alastair into confessing his feelings for thomas >>>

~ THE ENTIRE PENDENT SCENE !! ”…it means i would rather have a home with you than all the world.” JORDELIA SERVED. ABSOLUTELY SERVED.

~ “am i so hard to love?” i cannot tell you what seeing a line like this written in one of my favorite series means to me

~ ”At some point she realized that it was not only Christopher's curiosity and imagination that made him a scientist: it was patience. The patience to keep pressing against a problem until it yielded, rather than giving in to the frustrations of failure.” kit & grace being gentle to themselves is my fav thing ever <3

~ ”but you are good at chess. and even a pawn can topple a king.” these chess references, i cannot !!

~ ”we have been in the crucible and come out as golden” one of my favorite favorite lines from the entire series. ties it all together so beautifully


what i didn’t like:

too many plot lines:
i’m not really sure if i addressed this in my reviews of the previous books but this is a reoccurring problem that is present in pretty much the entire series and probably my biggest “problem” with this book. i know that cassie wants to address all the children of the TID characters and wanted to give us as much content however in some areas i feel that it was just too much. this book was already 700 pages long, nevertheless some major plot points were not developed as much as they should’ve been because otherwise the book would be twice the length. i mean who limited her to writing 3 books? she could’ve easily done 4. i’m gonna address some of those plot points in this review, but the main message that i got here was that sometimes there were way too many story lines with plot points that could’ve been developed a lot more than they were. kinda made the book drag a bit in areas that it didn’t have to.

the death:
speaking about unnecessary & underdeveloped plot points ladies, gents & nonbinary folk let me speak about the most unnecessary death in the history of literature: the death of kit lightwood. first of all, kit legit carried the plot of this book without him shit went down the drain tbh. his death was also written in quite a careless way. and i do feel that i have the right to say this since he was my favorite character of the series (together with daisy) and i honestly didn’t feel an once of grief due to the way it was executed. legit one moment he was there and the other he wasn’t. the characters weren’t even grieving that much?? i mean i am sorry but the merry thieves were legit his best of friends and there was no screen time whatsoever dedicated to their grief for him. legit cassie said “i have to kill someone, who will it be? let’s do a random number generator & have it done and over with a pretend like nothing happened”. the only one who actually showed some form of grief was grace. her feelings did kit’s death at least some justice tbh. so of course i have a problem with my fav character dying, but i have an even bigger problem when it’s done carelessly (or so it seems).

the gracelet drama (continued):
i though the gracelet drama ended (or was on its way to end) when the bracelet finally snapped at the end of ChoI. OH BOY HOW WRONG WAS I. can someone please explain why it took 400 pages for James to confess about the entire grace drama?? oh wait, it wasn’t even james it was yet again the doing of the two characters who carried this book: kit & grace. i mean we got two books of slowburn & angsty jordelia but enough is enough. the gracelet & all the miscommunication just got so much screen time which could’ve been dedicated elsewhere, because at the end of the day we already got all that drama in ChoG & ChoI.

jordelia (what i didn’t like):
now this might be a bit controversial, or something that my mind was just making up however it came up multiple times while i was reading and just could not bring myself to not mention it over here. so before i say anything i just want to make clear that my cold dead heart loves romance. i love love. especially relationships like jordelia. i have already mentioned that their love legit served in this book but i did encounter a minor issue with them. multiple times throughout the book i was under the impression that both cordelia’s and james’s personalities became too much centered around their relationship. which i honestly think is a pity since both of their personalities were really strong in the previous books. don’t get me wrong, cordelia was still the fierce heroine and everything but i would like to have seen more time dedicated to them in order to get content relating to their relationship and at the same time get to develop their independent characters a bit more. yet again coming back to the issue with having too many storylines which didn’t leave enough room for major plot points to develop thoroughly. the current execution just made the characters’ personality revolve to much around the love interest, which i am not a fan of since i believe that love can change you however you should still stay true to yourself.

predictable plot:
the plot in this series was…well kinda vague in some places. we had belial and tatiana and then the inquisitor and all backstories and gay crisis and i mean a lot was going on, you get the memo. but okay if we narrow belial & tatiana to be “the main evil” in this series then there were a lot of plot points that were just so predictable. the part about the dead silent brothers & iron sisters? i guessed in 200 pages before any of the chapters even started to contemplate it. so yes, there weren’t many points in the book that would make my gasp or stand up from my chair or stuff like that.

stuff i was mostly indifferent about/things i expected more from:

cordelia’s character:
i already mentioned how i found james’s and cordelia’s characters a bit underdeveloped due to most of their screen time being dedicated to their relationship. it troubles me a bit more with Cordelia for I have seen myself a lot of times in her throughout the first two books therefore she became of high importance to me. i think that it’s a pity that her character got a bit limited in the last book since there was so much potential that was only partially used up. limiting her to her only personality being James is a bit underwhelming for me and i would have probably expected a bit more. don’t get me wrong, cordelia had so many parts in which she stayed true to herself, so i might be exaggerating a bit over here. but hey you can’t blame me from expecting perfection from my fav character, i guess everyone’s a critic & so am i :P

lucie and jesse’s kissing issue:
lucie & jesse? cute & perfect. were they my fav ship? lol nope. however did i enjoy their content? absolutely. my greatest issue with them, was the entire kissing business. i mean it’s not that much of an issue, just something i thought that could be executed a bit better. i mean really, you had a hundred different possibilities to present a character having dark visions and you really picked kissing the love interest? i hate to be the one to say this but this is such a 2010 cliche trope. so yea, i just think that if you were given over two years to write this book you could’ve come up with something more reasonable, but yet again who am i to judge…

the writing?
i don’t really know how to put this, but there was something in this book that just didn’t feel like cassie’s writing. and honestly it isnt one thing but rather a collection of little moments that made me a little iffy. some things were done is too much of a cliche thing, for instance jesse & lucie’s kissing issue. i also feel that she did reuse a lot of tropes that just didn’t make the experience as unique as it could’ve been, but i’m going to mention that in the love triangle that must not be named section. additionally, i don’t want to be the one to say this but since this book was so anticipated, it made it a whole lot easier to be a let down. and in some parts of the book i felt that if i was given two years to write it, i might have done a similar job. hence saying that this book did not feel as special to me as cassie finales usually do.

defeating the main evil:
i mean, what even was the motivation of these villains? over the years and countless of books, I got kinda used to that Cassie’s villains might not have the strongest motivation for their actions, but like these villains?? like honestly tell me, what was their motivation for their actions. Belial legit just wanted to become the king of London. i mean me too bestie, get in line. other than that what? he wanted a crown to fit his aesthetic? i just could not understand him one bit lol. then we have Lilith, who just wants her realm back. I mean yes but I’m pretty sure she could have done that without a paladin too. isn’t she supposed to be like the mother of all demons? i was pretty confused there too. and then Tatiana, she did this all for what? for her dead husband? there definitely are some weird motives here. and then defeating these evils? we did not need 700 pages dedicated to that. tatiana defeated by calling on the ghost of rupert? could’ve done that in book 1 and kit would still be alive yippee. james stabbing himself as belial with cortana and then being healed? i guessed that ever since lilith said the sword had healing powers. the only thing I approve of is cordelia getting out of Lilith’s deal due to semantics. i mean slay, you go girl. therefore the time we used to defeat these non-existent villains could’ve been dedicated to developing characters more, since Cassie’s books are definitely character driven rather than plot driven !!

the love triangle (faceplam):
listen, i was so frustrated and actually disappointed by the fact that Cassie decided to include this that I don’t want to even speak about it. but i’m staying true to myself and letting all my emotions out in this review. lets start with this: i love daisy, i love james and i LOVE matthew. but for the LOVE of GOD when will we ever stop romanticising platonic relationships? in every shadowhunter series we had at least one love triangle, and it ever truly worked only for herongraystairs because it brought something new to the table and kierarktina because of the representation of polyamory. and i mean, its 2023 not 2010, so why is someone under the impression that i need a generic love triangle in a story we all know how ends. i would’ve been totally fine with Matthew and Daisy going to Paris and sorting through their shit there as friends. why did we need the romantic content, i don’t really know, since we all knew that herondaisy would be canon once they quit the miscommunication. yet again we are tying back to what i’ve been saying for the entire review: we had huge chunks of the book dedication to useless of stuff which led to the underdevelopment of important plot points.

no grief??
everything was just too happy? and don’t get me wrong, i love that (most of) my favs survived but if i had to pick between a happy ending and a gut wrenching emotional one that leaves me sobbing at 2am and overthinking the book forever, the for the love of GOD i’m picking the later one every single day of my life. i like books that make my cold dead heart feel something. i mean i expected something that could rival clockwork princess epilogue, but i guess i’ve had my share of gut-wrenching endings. and honestly i’m not that hard to please: give me a mediocre book that will make me feel something and make me cry at the end and i will give it five stars. so yes no grief/sadness/emotions in the epilogue, but let me get to the fact that i did not feel anything about kit’s death?? kit was one of, if not my favourite character in the series. and honestly i hated how his death was treated. but i already mentioned that and this is already too long so i’m not going to repeat myself. the lack of grief just made me kinda indifferent about it the whole thing tbh.

and finally the biggest problem of all: the last will herondale content we will ever be getting:
listen, i’m not sure i can deal with the fact that this was the last time we’re seeing Will. i will need 5-10 business days a lifetime to process that. i’m just gonna cry a bit more but he’s still gonna be the icon of my life, thank you for saving me all those years ago <33 i love you xoxo <3

and there you have it, these are my thoughts!! i cannot believe this series is over and that we’ll never see more of TID/TLH characters again. we also have one more series to go before this grand series is over. brb gonna sob some more over all these things that are ending soon. anyways happy reading friends <3