Queen of Air and Darkness (Dark Artifices, #3)

by Cassandra Clare

I really wanted to like this book, just as much as I loved the previous two books in The Dark Artifices. Unfortunately, I did not. There was nothing wrong with the story itself, yet there were other factors that made this book one of my least favorite of the Shadowhunter world.

There were too many point of views to make this story relevant. Normally, I would always encourage multiple POV, but in this book it felt like we had twenty different POV and half of them were not relevant to the story in any way. They were used only in a way such that the reader could see a bit more about characters that they loved before. Characters that did not contribute to the story of this book. If these irrelevant stories would be cut out of this book, it would have been a lot shorter, which would have made it more pleasant to read. Now, it felt as if we were just reading about characters because there was nothing to tell, as if this book was a filler to a next book, or a last homage to all the beloved characters, instead of the end of a series of the Shadowhunter world. I would not have minded it as much, if this had been the last book in this world, but it isn't. It was not necessary to drag this story out, namedrop every character that was ever in the series, just because they could.

I also did not like the way Cristina, Mark, and Kieran were portrayed in this book. As if their relationship defined them. There was not a single scene that they were just our beloved characters. Every single scene they had to bring up their love for each other, no matter if they were held captive, if their family was in danger, every single time their love between each other overshadowed the scenes that their personality could have been portrayed in. I have always loved these characters, yet in this book I found myself trying to rush over their POVs, because I knew that their personality seemed to be gone in this book.
Now I come to think of it, this could be said about a lot of characters in this book. With Emma and Julian I understood why the majority of their scenes were about their romance, because of the parabatai curse. Yet other characters, like Diana, only had scenes that always referred to her relationship with Gwyn, which seemed really unnecessary to me. These characters have always meant so much to us, and now they are reduced to their relationships. The same goes for Clary and Jace, Isabel and Simon, and more. Almost every time they are mentioned, so is their significant other in a way that they a lightly touching them or expressing love, which just does not seem realistic. Not every couple is expressing how much they love each other all the time.

It also felt as if Cassandra Clare did not really knew how she could solve the problems she had created in this story, so she just send Julian and Emma to this other world called Thule, where they magically got all the answers handed to them and their enemy creates a portal for them to flee back to their own world? And fighting Sebastian, again, really? As if her imagination was stuck, and she just wanted to revisit old characters over and over again, instead of trying to make a new interesting plot.

This book could have been so good. I really wished it was, but the length of the book was just unnecessary. Cassandra Clare could have better made yet another book just about revisiting every character and how they were doing, instead of putting it all in this book, losing content that would have been highly appreciated. I would have loved to see more scenes of Cristina / Mark / Kieran which were about their personality, not their relationship. I would have loved to see more of Dru and how she felt, not only about how she felt in regards to Jaime and not being able to connect with Ty. I would have loved to see Helen and Aline more bonding with the children. I would have loved to see their personalities more. I would have loved to see more of Tavvy, because he was just someone who was there, nothing more. Just someone.