Saturday, 21 March 2015

The Infernal Devices by Cassandra Clare

Ready for an unpopular opinion? Well read on.


After the loss of her aunt, Tessa Gray moves to London to be with her brother. Only, she doesn't find her brother, just a world of trouble filled with warlocks, demons and Shadowhunters. And what is it about her? Why do these people want her? And who is the Magister?

I can't say that I enjoyed this series. There are so many things I could say about why I didn't like it, and although it is really tempting to go into all those million reasons, I can't guarantee that anyone would be interested in reading it. So I will keep it short.

Love triangles bug the hell out of me, especially when it is obvious who is supposed to be together. This one was less a triangle and more a straight line with a detour bump on the side for the majority of the story. Maybe some folks will disagree. It does redeem itself near the end. But, blurgh, by then I was fed up.

The plot was predictable in every single way possible. The other thing was that the plot seemed to take the back seat to everybody's love lives, and I mean everybody. At some points I felt that the plot was just an excuse for the romance. I just don't get excited about teen romance.

I felt that Henry Branwell was a fanfic copy of Arthur Weasley. I also felt that far too many pages were wasted on characters that I didn't care about, in the attempt to make me care about them. I didn't. On the positive side, there were strong female characters. They just weren't really distinguishable from each other, personality wise at least.

While I can see what the appeal is for YA readers, I did not go gagga over this series.  Am I being too harsh? So many people love this series. Is it age? I am sure I would have loved it if I was 16. But I know other adult readers who thoroughly enjoyed this series. I think I need to give YA a break. Either the majority of the YA I have picked up recently are substandard, or else my real life is interfering with my reading and robbing me of all forms of idealism and 'happily-ever-afters'. They all feel fake and unrealistic right now.

I gave these books 3 stars each on Goodreads, because they were OK.

These were the 10th and 11th books completed for the 2015 TBR Pile Reading challenge!

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