by Cassandra Clare
And the betrayal just KEEPS ON COMING.
Mortmain is as determined and motivated as ever, and, while he seems a little quiet, he’s clearly not giving up.
Again, Goodreads blurb spoilers in this paragraph. Skip to the next paragraph if you wish to avoid even those “spoilers”. Tessa is kidnapped by Mortmain, and Jem and Will will do anything to save her. While Tessa is Jem’s now, that doesn’t mean other feelings are gone. But Tessa is a strong, independent girl who doesn’t need either boy, and so she’s determined to rescue herself. But can she save everyone she loves before it’s too late?
Tessa’s identity, of course, is finally revealed – and it, of course, complicates things.
**SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT. DON’T READ FURTHER IF YOU DON’T WANT SPOILERS. NO RESTRICTION ON SPOILERS WILL BE MAINTAINED AFTER THIS POINT. NOW IT’S AALLLLLL THE SPOILERS. BE PREPARED.**
This series may or may not have wrecked me a bit. My poor heart.
ALRIGHT. If we didn’t already see Tessa’s kidnap and Tessa and Jem not getting married coming, Cassandra Clare kindly left a rather not-subtle hint for the readers who hadn’t yet picked up on it through Jem seeing Tessa in her potential wedding dress, which is bad luck.
Outside of that doomed wedding . . .
We kind of saw Tessa somehow getting into Mortmain’s possession to do whatever it is he needed her to do, didn’t we? We saw that the watch would come back, that Tessa would do what he wanted with it – and that it would end terribly, didn’t we?
But Benedict Lightwood turning into a worm demon was a fun twist! It also helped develop Gabriel [enter his redemption we saw coming] as well as Cecily – that she clearly was enjoying her training and life as a Shadowhunter and wasn’t going to go home, with or without Will.
Jessamine’s death, though. I wasn’t sure what I anticipated happening to her, though I knew it wasn’t going to be positive. Her fate, between her death and after-death, is actually a fairly satisfying end to her character arc. Whether her marriage to Nate was legitimate or not, she at least got her wish not to live her life as a Shadowhunter. Her ending almost makes you hope her marriage to Nate is legitimate so that she could at least have accomplished her goal to marry a mundane before her death.
What goes on between Tessa and Will when Will comes for her – it bothers me slightly that, when they finally talk about it, Tessa tells Will he is now obligated to offer her marriage because of what happens that night. Not that he wants to marry her because of his feelings for her, but that he’s obligated to because of what happened.
THE FINAL BATTLE, THOUGH. Tessa is incredible, only momentarily worrying about the possible consequences for shapeshifting into an angel before trying, absolutely destroying Mortmain as a result. While the ease of Tessa killing him would normally feel like a cheap way out, it’s almost symbolic of Mortmain’s evil plan being stopped by what he considered lesser – and maybe even to not truly exist. He deserves to be easily destroyed after spending a too-long lifetime to achieve the destruction of something he had no right to try to destroy.
I don’t know if I just don’t have book-hangovers like everyone else, or if my “cure” for book-hangovers is just to pick up a new book immediately, but I’ve already begun The Guinevere Deception, so that will be the next review!
Be kind to each other and read on!
The Fox Den 