spookysoto's reviews
1172 reviews

This collection started fine and went downhill.

We are supposed to be experiencing Simon's path in becoming a shadowhunter, and his adventures in the academy, but we get instead a bunch of stories from other characters mostly as a fan sevice. I liked some of those stories but in focusing on that we don't get any development of this new Simon and his new friends. Most of their interactions and growth happens off screen, we don't see them. In one story he isn't friends with anyone but George, in the next story he has more friends out of nowhere. Two year pass and we only get glimpses of his actual time in school.

Simon was one of my favorite character in this universe, but this one is whiny, angsty and extremely insecure. There were nothing interesting about him. This collection lost the opportunity to develop him beyond a side comic relief character. We got George Lovelace, who is basically Simon from previous books, aka the friend and comic relief, and he was the only character I cared about.

Spoiler

So I don't understand the choice of killing him, beyond manipulating us into feeling something the book didn't achieved through 9 stories. I was sad for George but I wasn't devastated because even though I liked him, I wasn't interested in this story that much.

I rated each story like this:

Welcome to the shadowhunter academy 3/5
The lost Herondale 3/5
The whitechapel fiend 2.5/5
Nothing but shadows 3.5/5
The evil we love 3.5/5
Pale kings and Princes 2/5
Bitter of tongue 2.5/5
The fiery trial 1/5
Born to endless night 1/5
Angels twice descending 1/5

If you are a super fan of the shadowhunter world, go ahead and give this a try, I would recommend the audiobook. But if you don't read it, you aren't missing much.

This collection spoil the mortal instruments and the infernal devices. It not essential to read before the dark artifices.

Había escuchado mucho sobre este libro y tenia muchas ganas de leerlo. Me lo encuentro sobrevalorado, no es original ni sorprendente ni adictivo. Es una historia ligera, de amor juvenil, un poco cursi y vainilla para mi gusto.
Se lee bastante rápido, y tal vez lea los otros dos libros.
Lo recomiendo si quieren algo simple para pasar el rato.

Esta historia gira alrededor de un "misterio". Mi problema es que el misterio que planteaba no me resultaba interesante, me lo encontré repetitivo y un poco canson, siento que le sobran unas 100 paginas y que le faltó dinamismo. Tiene giros, que resultan fáciles de prever, al menos puedes tener una idea de lo que se trata, y eso es lo único interesante de la historia. Finalmente, en la ultima parte mejoró pero ya demasiado tarde. Está muy sobrevalorado.

This is coming of age story. It's also a "come out story" and has homosexual characters, so beware if you don't like that, maybe skip this one out.

I liked the family dynamics and relationships of this book. I love the message of tolerance that this book has without being preachy or to much "gay agenda-ish".

I didn't like Aristotle, and all his angst. I prefered Dante.
One thing that bothered me, and I don't know if it is just in the edition I had, was the spelling of some Spanish words that were misspelled.

Overall I liked the story, the family relationships, and the treatment of the homosexuality.

Beware of the hype monster, it is highly overhyped and overrated, in my opinion.

Ugh
Boring, a big borefest.

We see The shadowhunter class ascend.

Spoiler

And Geoerge died, the only interesting character :/

Zzz Zzz Zzz
This one is abot Alec and Magnus and a warlock baby.

Este libro me pareció de lo más meh, no conecté con ningún personaje y la historia nunca me llegó a interesar. Lo terminé porque lo escuché en audio y porque es el libro del mes de mi club de lectura.

David es un idiota, Nora es una idiota, Paul es un idiota, Caroline es una idiota...

No puedo decir que sea un mal libro, es solo que la historia nunca me conmovió ni interesó y me quedé esperando que pasara algo. Definitivamente no es un libro para mí.

Si te gustan las historias de familias, que abarcan largos años y tocan los problemas existenciales de sus miembros, tal vez este libro te pueda gustar más que a mi.