Buenos días!! ❄️ I hope you are all having a wonderful day! If you aren’t, I really hope that it turns around ☺️ Can you guys believe that we’re less than TEN days away from Christmas?? This month has gone by so quickly, and this year for that matter. It’s actually been a strange combination of fast and slow, because so much has happened, but nothing has. It’s a weird conundrum 😕 Still, I really hope that you are finding things that make you happy and bring you peace 😌 Before I begin explaining today’s post, let’s do our Advent Calendar!!

The objective of this Advent Calendar is to get to know each other better and learn about some of the things we love to do this time of year! I really hope that you guys decide to participate, and I can’t wait to read your answers as well. If you want to check out the upcoming questions go to this page.

We’ve talked a lot about the best holiday songs, but what is a Christmas song that makes you cringe?

I’ll be honest, I think Michael Bublé’s It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas is probably one of my least favorite Christmas songs 😶

On today’s post, you will be–once again–witnessing me sob about strangers not liking my favorite books 😁! Obviously everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but it’s still very hard to see someone destroy and criticize something that you love so much. Despite that, I’m very excited to do this again 😅!

Though, before we begin, I want to clear up a few things.

• I’m limiting this to only 2 star reviews.
• I’m linking all of the original ones in the quotes.
• I will not be including reviews of people that DNF the book. I don’t think people should rate books that they didn’t finish.
• I will be reacting to the content and tone of the review (I will possibly weep a little as well).
• I am not trying to ‘trash’ or undermine the authors of these reviews in any way, and even if I get annoyed I will always try to be as respectful as possible.
• I’ll try to make these as spoiler free as possible, but there might be some spread throughout the post. So proceed with caution.

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The book I have picked this time around is Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare. This is the last book in the Dark Artifices trilogy and has an average rating of 4.36 stars on Goodreads.

[Goodreads]

Having this many shifting POVs and subplots (Emma, Julian, Cristina, Mark, Kieran, Kit, Dru, Diana, Helen, Diego, Manuel – completely unnecessary and not very convincing as a rather cowardly psychopath, I am surprised Church didn’t get a say in this) makes for a dull and highly predictable read, because, if not handled properly, it simply repeats things over and over again.

Ana’s Review

I do understand where this reviewer is coming from. I think that sometimes (specially in The Mortal Instruments) there are way too many perspectives at once. However, that didn’t really bother me on this particular series (maybe because I loved all of the characters so much). What I don’t understand is why it would make everything dull, so much activity makes it more entertaining… Right 🤨? Still, I think this review was very well made and it made some good points.

Kit and Ty’s sub-plot was honestly just so cliched and predictable.

Cristina, Mark, Kieran, I’m sorry – I just did not really care for this sub-plot and love triangle at all.

Catherine’s Review

NOOOO!! I LOVE KIT AND TY 😢!! I honestly don’t understand how someone could not like them. I know this person’s opinion is valid, but I really don’t think they were cliché or predictable. Both characters are so unique and well developed. They have been through so much and they’re young. I can’t wait to read more about them in The Wicked Powers.

Though, I’ll give them the Cristina, Mark, and Kieran thing 😬 I’m not the biggest fan of love triangles and the way that Cassandra Clare handled this… It was interesting and very unusual. It didn’t bother me that much (though I wasn’t that interested either 👀), but I understand why it would bother other people.

The ending was ridiculous, I’m trying to forget that whole battle scene and how cringy everything was, terrible writing I felt embarrassed for Cassandra Clare, so so so bad. 

The ending was anticlimactic and not exciting. It’s nice when one of the characters from her previous books makes a cameo, a small appearance, but in here they practically steal their thunder of a perfectly fine cast of characters, GO HOME CLARY, JACE, ALEC and MAGNUS! I’m sick of you all. 

Radha’s Review

🤣🤣🤣 I will completely agree that the ending was bit (a little tiny bit) ridiculous. I remember the first time I read it I was extremely confused. It was a kind of weird and very literal solution to the problem 😬 And I saw so many people that were annoyed with the cameos of other characters. Why? I don’t think they upstage our main cast at all, though it’s understandable that most don’t want them there cause it’s not their story anymore. But this review was hilarious, I actually enjoyed reading her thoughts 😄

IM FREEEEEEEE. WORST EXPERIENCE OF MY F*CKING LIFE.

Falling Asleep Reading’s Review

I just included this one cause I thought it was funny too 😂😂

Lady Midnight was a very good book, mainly because the two main characters were. It still had its problems – the same things that always annoy me in Clare’s books, too many POVs, too many meaningless subplots, too much romantic drama, too low stakes. Lord of Shadows was worse. I was not invested and the only thing that I actually remember from that book was the ending.

But Queen of Air and Darkness was the weakest in the series by far. The focus shifted away from the main characters too much. Characters from past books played too important roles and out-staged the TDA characters, unnecessarily in my opinion. Big mysteries and obstacles from past books were resolved too easily

Cath’s Review

As much as I love romance, I do think that Cassie introduces way too many romantic subplots in her books 😓, and I also agree that Lord of Shadows (as much as I loved it) was a bit forgettable. But only because the ending was so eventful and devastating that it kind of overshadowed everything else that happened. I don’t think Queen of Air and Darkness was the worst of series, but, again, I agree that some of the obstacles were resolved kind of easily 😕 Even though Lady Midnight is the best of the series, the only reason I prefer the former is because I love finales so much 😉

I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as me! I really don’t know what’s wrong with me that I think it’s a little fun to read people butchering books I love 😅 This time around it wasn’t that hard to read all these because, as much as I love the Shadowhunter world, there are many things about Cassandra Clare’s writing that I don’t like that much. Still, I would love to know what you guys think!

Have you read this book? Did you like it or not? What do you think of the reviews I included?