Paper Fury

All I can say is that Lord Of Shadows was so so so so so so so so so so so so EXCELLENT.

And if you thought this review was going to start off with a coherent and emotionally charged sentence of passionate and triumph…hahaha. You’re adorable. LET’S JUST SAY I AM SHADOWHUNTER TRASH AND AM REDUCED TO A WILD MESS EVERY TIME I READ ONE OF THESE PERFECT BOOKS.

I AM CURRENTLY A BROKEN PIECE OF RUIN. I JUST LOVE IT THAT MUCH.

IT WAS SO GOOD.

NOTE #1: This is the sequel to Lady Midnight! There will be mild spoilers for the first book in this review. But NO spoilers for Lord of Shadows! (Or they’ll be hidden by tags anyway.)

Note #2: If you haven’t read The Mortal Instruments…can you read Lady Midnight? Why yes…yes you can. I think it’s better to have read both The Mortal Instruments and the Infernal Devices first, however, because there are small spoilers in Lady Midnight for them. But as an introduction to the Shadowhunter world — it can work on its own!

+ I AM ABSOLUTELY DYING. IT WAS JUST THAT GOOD.

It’s been like 4 days since I read it and I’m still obsessing about it. I’m basically an ANXIOUS WRECK because the story has so captivated me and ajfsdkaldajkd. I’m in that level of love for it. THAT LEVEL. I think all the Shadowhunter books are perfection, but Lady Midnight took it up a notch with the most beautiful Blackthorn family, faeries, mental health acutely accurate disability representation. It’s extraordinarily crafted, with plots tying in from older stories and everything stitching so seamlessly together I can only SHRIEK. And suspect Cassandra Clare is a warlock of great power. The humour! The sass! The beautiful sensory description! The complex and detailed characters! I JUST MELTED MY MIND EXCUSE ME.

+ As far as sequels goes? Lord of Shadows was perfect.

No second book blues here!! Except for, well, (a) the cover is blue, and (b) I’m kind of blue in the face from being so excited over it and falling over. I will admit it slowed down around the 70% mark, but when I’m so in love with the characters, I really don’t care if all they’re doing is eating toast in a cottage and sassing each other. I will take the lowkey scenes as eagerly as the action.

+ Plot? OBVIOUSLY I LOVED IT.

I swear it’s pure WIZARDRY how a small thing from the TMI series will mean something BIG here. And how this plot fits perfectly with that series and etc. etc. IT’S INCREDIBLE. THE SHADOWHUNTER WORLD IS SO INTENSELY COMPLICATED AND INTRICATELY DESIGNED. The foreshadowing (har har get it??? SHADOWS) makes my heart beat faster.
I also 500% admit my favourite thing about The Dark Artifices is how it’s very faerie-centric. I love how deliciously evil and terrifying the faeries are. THEY ARE THE BEST. Also the description for their culture and lands is marvellously gorgeous. A sky full of jewels? Like sure, just let my heart gallop out of my chest for appreciation for the description. I probably shouldn’t love the evil faeries so much but…hi.

+ Okay so let’s talk about the characters?!? WHAT WE’VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR.

I’m just gonna flail. For 900000 years. These are some of my all time favourite characters of ANY book.

• JULIAN: he is so so Slytherin in this book it’s kind of scary and I love it. <3 <3 <3
• EMMA: I think she has some secret badass magic powers that no one knows about yet?!? I suspect. And I actually appreciated how the book wasn’t JUST focused on Julian/Emma so much this time too. Also: Emma’s sass and sarcasm levels GIVE ME LIFE.
• MARK: MARK IS MY PRECIOUS AND MY FAVOURITE AND MARK MARK MARK HE IS THE REASON I LOVE THIS SERIES SO MUCH MY ULTIMATE FAVOURITE CHARACTER OF ALL NO I WILL NOT USE PUNCTUATION I WILL JUST SHOUT HOW MUCH I LOVE MARK. Although I aggressively ship him and Kieran. Just saying. (AND STILL NOT EVEN SLIGHTLY EXAGGERATING HOW MUCH I LOVE MARK.)
• KIERAN: Who is a Slytherin also and I love him and I know he’s such a vicious faerie…but he’s still precious. Don’t fight me on this. And I love how his hair changes colours. Such beautiful hair.
• CRISTINA: I always will like Cristina, who is a sweet and kind cotton fluff. But she’s really really…good. And I prefer characters who frolic in the dark side. Plus she’s interrupting my Mark x Kieran ship so I’m a peeved at her.
• KIT HERONDALE: OKAY MR. CHRISTOPHER HERONDALE IS MY THE BEST. He is such a mini-Jace! He’s also a huge thief, adorable, hugely sarcastic, will fight if needed, and is super sweet and supportive of Ty without question. The fact that his first reaction to Ty’s autism is “okay how can I support you” makes me want to cry. <3 <3
• Ty: The fact that there is an Autistic Shadowhunter who is not only accurately represented, but really beautifully and thoughtfully written — I JUST CAN’T STOP BEING SO HAPPY ABOUT IT. I’m also glad Ty (and Livvy) had more room to actually be badass Shadowhunters. Julian totally smothers them, but he is their brother and they are his babies. C’mon though. LET THE BABIES FIGHT. (Clary and Jace were 15 when they broke the world…oh wait. Maybe this is why you don’t let the babies out…)
• LIVVY: She isn’t such a big character, but her love and protection of her twin is gorgeous and wonderful. I still don’t really know her personality though.
• DRU & TAVVY: They’re kind of like the Blackthorn babies no one talks about. Dru unfortunately feels like a spare wheel most of the time. I hope she gets more of a plot soon?
• MAGNUS BANE: is here in a burst of glitter and narcissism and I love him. Also YES we get to see more of Alec and the kids! I also quite severely suspect that their blue adopted warlock child is actually the lost baby of Lazlo Strange. Excuse me.
• ZARA: I wish to would fall off a cliff.
• PERFECT DIEGO: He can join Zara on the cliff.
• ANNABEL BLACKTHORN: Is terrifying, dead, and therefore excellent. I have a soft spot for the dead ones. She has such severe PTSD and I kind of hate her but also think she needs to be understood.
• UNCLE ARTHUR: My feelings of caring are basically 0%.
• DIANA: I LOVED finding out Diana’s backstory! Although lowkey think her romance with Gwyn was kind of boring/distracting from MY PRECIOUS BLACKTHORN BOYS.

+ And I will always cheer appreciatively for the Autism rep!!

It is not only thoughtful and complex, it is so so accurate. Ty is so precious and I just love how carefully Cassandra Clare weaves in how different his brain is wired and his habits and tics, with the Shadowhunter world and magic. It’s perfect. I live for the day when all fantasy books have careful and loving disability rep, because we are in sore need.

+ So so much shipping is to be done.

Obviously Julian x Emma are an incredible ship of angst. Although I appreciate how the angst levels didn’t swallow the book. I hate hate hate the love triangle with Mark x Kieran x Cristina. Mostly because I FREAKING LOVE MARK X KIEREN and Cristina is boring. Plus I also think Cristina only likes Mark because he’s a fearie and she’s obsessed with faeries?!? So that’s not fair. Ty x Kit will make a super cute ship someday. But otherwise I ship Kit and cookies.

+ DIVERSITY IS A+.

We’ve touched on this already but I just looove the diversity. With featuring POC and queer romances, plus adding in mental health and disabilities in characters, and different cultures, including heavily featured Spanish characters.

+ Cliffhanger?? Haha…you didn’t want…to be calm…ever again…did you.

JFAKDLFAJDSKLJ AKLFSJDAKL JFKDASL THE CLIFFHANGER AJDKFLASDJFAKLDJ.
WHY ARE WE NOT GETTING THE 3RD BOOK FOR 2 YEARS WHAT IS THIS MADNESS. WHATEVER DID WE DO TO DESERVE THIS.

+ SPOILERS ABOUT THE ENDING:

So obviously DO NOT open these tags unless you want to see major spoilers. You’ve been warned, you grape.

+ Perfect book is perfect.

There is no other word for it.

Help.

I am so wildly in love with this series.

THANK YOU TO SIMON & SCHUSTER FOR THE REVIEW-COPY. Lord of Shadows (The Dark Artifices #2) by Cassandra Clare was published May, 2017.

★★★★★

Emma Carstairs has learned that the love she shares with her parabatai, Julian Blackthorn, isn’t just forbidden—it could destroy them both. She knows she should run from Julian. But how can she when the Blackthorns are threatened by enemies on all sides?
Their only hope is the Black Volume of the Dead, a spell book of terrible power. Everyone wants it. Only the Blackthorns can find it. Spurred on by a dark bargain with the Seelie Queen, Emma; her best friend, Cristina; and Mark and Julian Blackthorn journey into the Courts of Faerie, where glittering revels hide bloody danger and no promise can be trusted. Meanwhile, rising tension between Shadowhunters and Downworlders has produced the Cohort, an extremist group of Shadowhunters dedicated to registering Downworlders and “unsuitable” Nephilim. They’ll do anything in their power to expose Julian’s secrets and take the Los Angeles Institute for their own.
When Downworlders turn against the Clave, a new threat rises in the form of the Lord of Shadows—the Unseelie King, who sends his greatest warriors to slaughter those with Blackthorn blood and seize the Black Volume. As dangers close in, Julian devises a risky scheme that depends on the cooperation of an unpredictable enemy. But success may come with a price he and Emma cannot even imagine, one that will bring with it a reckoning of blood that could have repercussions for everyone and everything they hold dear.

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are you into the Shadowhunter books???! PLEASE FLAIL WITH ME IF YOU ARE. which is your favourite series? character? ship?? is anyone else screaming after finishing Lord of Shadows? did you prefer book 1 or 2 in The Dark Artifices?!?

Well that was freakishly DISTURBING.

I am all the disturbed. And this is ME, the self-confessed-horror-hater because I never get scared by it! Okay I wasn’t scared while reading The Women in the Walls and I’m still not trembling in my boots — but I finished the book with a look on my face kind of resembling PERPLEXED HORROR. And I think that’s a good thing! Yay horror that is actually horrible!

However, I’m not flailing about in the streets because I felt the writing was lacking. But we’ll get to that later because clearly now is list time. And then directly after this, I shall devour a hot chocolate and soft marshmallows and have someone gently pet my head and say “DON’T WORRY CAIT THERE’S NOTHING BUSTING OUT OF YOUR WALLS TO MURDER YOU IN YOUR SLEEP.” I need some assurance. #ImNotFreakedAtAll

• It’s very creepy, especially at the end. Like the beginning is about as thrilling as a cheeseless pizza. But then the END….oh yes. LET’S ALL FREAK OUT COMPANIONABLY TOGETHER.
• The cast was like 98% women. Well, hello there, this was awesome. Sure they were all psychopaths, but don’t let that put you off.
• THERE WERE SOME REALLY GROSS SCENES. And yes this is a positive! You don’t want to pick up a horror and have people cleaning up nicely after themselves with no random rotting body parts lying around, do you??? NO. YOU WANT THE GROSS STUFF. There’s ancient teeth and blood and tombs and other things that’ll totally make you want to lie down for a moment.
•  Lucy did have some moments of awesomeness. They were brief and she was generally as dynamic as my bedroom carpet, BUT SHE STILL DID YELL AT PEOPLE OCCASIONALLY! And stood up for herself! It was great!
• There is NO ROMANCE. Which endlessly pleases me, because the book deals with mental illness and heavy grief, and adding romance in would’ve messed up the gravity of the situation completely. I’m really glad it just focused on (A) people getting stabbed in the face, and (B) ghosts screaming and comingout of the walls, and (C) very very bad cooking.

• Well, I did mention the beginning was a potato. We’re in one of those big ol’ Victorian estates, so everyone is posh and formal and unfeeling, and Lucy’s hobbies include DOING NOTHING EVER. So. I could nap? The ending makes up for this however. SO KEEP THAT IN MIND. I just felt like fast-forwarding the first 100-pages.
• The representation of mental illness is not….great. Lucy cuts herself. But this isn’t really discussed. It’s such a huge topic and I felt it was just brushed over. The suicide and grief and depressino topics also felt like they were barely touched. #disappointing
• The writing felt so unemotional. We got told Lucy was sad. And we got told she lay in bed for two days straight after witnessing a death. But did we see it? NOPE. Did it come out in her actions, her mannerisms, her expressions? NOPE. The book was all “tell tell tell” and it didn’t pack a punch with visual or emotional writing.
• Lucy’s father could win the award for WORST DAD EVER. Things go massively wrong and he’s like “Aw, dear, get some rest.” He’s dismissive of mental illness, he cares NOTHING about his daughter going insane through grief. He never checks on her. HE’S A WORM. But yet that was intentional so even though I hated reading it, I get that it was part of the story!
• The ending was….NOT AN ENDING. Fair warning: if you like closure, this book is laughing at you. Because THERE IS NOT AN ENDING. HAHHAHA…HAH hah..ha…ha….Excuse me I’m screaming. I’m actually unsure what the point of the story was? Because the ending had no resolution. Ergo I assume the point is “if you hear screaming in the walls of your house, GET OUT OF THERE AS FAST AS YOU FRICK FRACKING CAN.” Which is an excellent moral, to be honest. Let’s all adhere to it.

As far as horrors go, it was horrible! Which is great!

But I wanted the writing to rivet me to the page instead of me feeling like I was gnawing through disappointing cheeseless pizza. The blandness nearly made the gory parts fail to deliever. But still…there is mystery! Intrigue! Murder! BLOOD AND GUTS. If you want to be creeped out, here you go and you’re welcome.

Also FYI if you think your family is messed up — read this. You’ll love your family after this. YOU’LL NEVER COMPLAIN AGAIN.

THANK YOU TO SIMON & SCHUSTER FOR THE REVIEW COPY. The Women in the Walls by Amy Lukavics was published October, 2016.

Lucy Acosta’s mother died when she was three. Growing up in a Victorian mansion in the middle of the woods with her cold, distant father, she explored the dark hallways of the estate with her cousin, Margaret. They’re inseparable—a family.
When her aunt Penelope, the only mother she’s ever known, tragically disappears while walking in the woods surrounding their estate, Lucy finds herself devastated and alone. Margaret has been spending a lot of time in the attic. She claims she can hear her dead mother’s voice whispering from the walls. Emotionally shut out by her father, Lucy watches helplessly as her cousin’s sanity slowly unravels. But when she begins hearing voices herself, Lucy finds herself confronting an ancient and deadly legacy that has marked the women in her family for generations.

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do you read much horror?! do you ever get genuinely scared by a book (i don’t, alas) or just generally disturbed (i definitely get disturbed omg)??? and how often do you find a YA book without romance?? also HAVE YOU READ THIS? discuss with me! i beg!

I’ve wanted to read Mara Dyer basically…FOREVER. For so many reasons. I mean, gawsh, look at that freaktastically gorgeous front cover, and then Cassandra Clare gave it the sticker of approval, and it’s about muuuuurder. This is a Cait Book. That is all.

JUST KIDDING. Totally not all. I have a list of reasons why it’s so suffocatingly glorious for you! And also a small list of reasons I frowned slightly. And dark creepy bookish photos. HERE WE GO.

A S T R O N O M I C A L L Y   G L O R I O U S    T H I N G S

• This book was so incredibly and deliciously creepy. SO MANY QUESTIONS. So many odd things go down.

• I basically knew nothing about it when I started, but if you’d like a little more detail, here’s the basic premise: Mara Dyer wakes up in a hospital after an accident that killed all her friends. She remembers exactly zlich. But she has weird hallucinations and she is freaked out of her brain 60% of the time. They move to a new town and stuff just gets weirder. People dropping dead. Visions. Black outs. That sort of thing.

• It’s insanely addictive. Seriously. Forget your weekend plans at the local platypus petting zoo because this book will SWALLOW YOUR WHOLE DAY.

• The writing is just a pleasure to read. It’s fast and not bogged down in details or slowness.

• And the characters? LET US PAUSE TO SHOUT HUZZAH AT THE CHARACTERS. Firstly, there’s Mara’s family. Yes. She has a family!! I just…maybe I read the wrong books, but usually characters seem to be missing a parent, don’t have siblings, blah blah etc. Mara has BOTH parents and two brothers. (Hold me this is wonderful.) I adored her interactions with her big bro — they really looked out for each other! She lied a lot to her parents, but that was partly because A) she was going crazy with hallucinations and B) didn’t want her dad to lose his job because of that. Her little brother has as much personality as a toothpick but he exists. So that’s nice.

• Mara herself is a total unreliable narrator and very unhinged. It was hard to know if something was real or not. But that’s why I liked the story?! REAL OR NOT REAL, KATNISS. YOU TELL ME.
• Oh and Noah. Let’s talk about Noah. BUT HOW DO WE TALK ABOUT NOAH?!  He’s a complex mess and reminded me so so much of Miles from Made You Up. He’s the love interest. He’s snarky and borderline mean and rich and intelligent and insufferable — but at the same time it hides how much he cares. And he has deep dark secrets. Mwahhaha. I liked him.

• I had 394839 questions right up until the end. And it didn’t drive me to screeches of annoyance — it just intrigued me. I loved the dark ethereal tone and the muuuurder mystery of it all.

S O M E     D U B I O U S    T H I N G S

• The book is VERY romance-y. Not that this is “bad” but for a murder mystery, I wish it had focused on the mystery more than the affectionate “I-hate-you-but-that-means-I-love-you”. So just be prepared for smooching between death. Okay? Okay.

• It gets confusing. Some of the circumstances are SO outrageous and unlikely I thought they’d end up being hallucinations…but…they weren’t? Hmm. I had to suspend disbelief a lot.

• The meaning of Mara’s name is kinda a spoiler. Don’t look up her name, obviously, if you don’t want to know!! But I knew already, because I’m a nerd, and I was 90% right in my finale predictions. So go me?

• Also Mara makes this really awesome friend at school called Jamie. But as soon as she and Noah become a couple, JAMIE IS  DITCHED FROM THE STORY. I’m annoyed because he had potential but his precense now seems pointless. Also I hate when heroines can’t have friends once they get a boyfriend. Meeerp. There is life apart from your OTP, Mara.

I solidly loved the intense mystery and creepiness of this book! YAYAYAYA. The second I finished, I was on my library website reserving the sequel! (Which I’m lucky they had because they did NOT have the first book. Libraries…gah.) I do love a good paranormal flavoured murder mystery. Now if you’ll excuse me I need to go check under my bed for monsters.

THANK YOU TO SIMON AND SCHUSTER AUSTRALIA. The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (#1) by Michelle Hodkin was published 2011

Mara Dyer believes life can’t get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.
It can.
She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed.
There is.
She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.
She’s wrong.

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have you read this one?!?! did you like it?! are you a fan of a smidge of paranormal-ness in with your murder mysteries?