You guys, you guys, you guys.  This chapter has music lyrics. 

I’m not one to belittle fanfiction as a medium, as I write it myself and absolutely love doing so.  There’s a difference between fanfiction as a writing style and fanfiction as a medium.  One is just writing a work of fiction based on something else; the other covers a whole range of things.  The fanfiction style, in broad not-to-be-taken-as-gospel-for-every-fic-out-there terms, tends to do things like be focused on relationships over plots and skip characterization, mostly because canon covered that already so why retread old ground?  The style also tends to include…well, stuff like song lyrics in the text, endless amounts of filler, banter for every line, and cliffhangers for every chapter.  It’s a very distinctive style that, usually, is kept out of published works.  Why?  Because it belongs in fanfiction.  There’s certain things you can do when everyone reading already knows the characters, and there’s certain ways you can write and themes you can explore when you’re narrowly focused in on one part of some else’s plot.  And there’s certain amateur literary elements you can include when everyone involved in process acknowledges that they’re reading someone’s hobby, when everyone says “yeah, this is kind of supposed to read like this, so I’ll roll with it.  Everyone likes a twinkie now and then.”

But this is not fanfiction.  This is a published book.  And it shouldn’t read like fanfiction.  The first couple of books did better (slightly) because they had been run through an editor first, but at this point, we’re seeing pure, unfiltered fanfiction-cum-novel.  And it’s pissing me off. 

Anyway, Magnus and Alec and Simon and Isabelle are driving up to Luke’s farm to summon an angel.  Magnus has the radio on, thus we get treated to the song lyrics.  Along the way they spend many words angsting about Alec’s dad not being perfectly accepting of his coming out.  I can’t really fault the fact that this is included, because no one says anything wrong, I’m just…bored.  This would be fine filler if the whole book up to this point hadn’t been 95% filler.  It’s a nice message, but shoved in amongst so much other crap that it’s easy to get lost.  Or just sleep through it.  Or just skip over the page while screaming “GET TO THE DAMN ANGEL SUMMONING ALREADY!” 

“It’s not like it’s one big bad thing. It’s a lot of little invisible things. When Magnus and I were traveling, and I’d call from the road, Dad never asked how he was. When I get up to talk in Clave meetings, no one listens, and I don’t know if that’s because I’m young or if it’s because of something else. I saw Mom talking to a friend about her grandchildren and the second I walked into the room they shut up. Irina Cartwright told me it was a pity no one would ever inherit my blue eyes now.” He shrugged and looked toward Magnus, who took a hand off the wheel for a moment to place it on Alec’s. “It’s not like a stab wound you can protect me from. It’s a million little paper cuts every day.”

See?  It’s nice.  It’s just so…lost in this book.  I wish this message actually had room to breathe. 

—

Clary wakes up from her nap and overhears Jace and Jonathan talking.  Jace went to go get the new cup from Magdalena, and I think he killed her for it because he talks about wanting to wash off the blood and go see Clary.  Then there more Jonathan-is-incesty-and-jealous comments.

Jace goes in and Clary pretends to be just waking up.  Then there’s some more bullshit about Jace being real-Jace or fake-Jace, which continues to just confuse me because he’s not that different in this novel.  He’s not fake.  He’s not a mindless automan.  Only a few parts of him have been influenced.  But apparently if you change anything at all, that means you’re suddenly a fake person and no one will “really” love you.

He tells Clary that he’s…um, unmindcontrolled?  I guess?  Apparently he’s the “real” Jace now, but for all the angst that gets thrown around in this book, I can’t tell what this means.  I mean, it’s not like he’s acting any different from before, here.  Clary has to sneak up to his room to spend the night with him, because he doesn’t want Jonathan to know that they’re together at night.  For…some reason.

For a moment their skin touched, and she shuddered—just a brush of the hand from this Jace was almost as powerful as all the kissing and tearing at each other they had done in the club the other night.

Have I just been innocently brushing the wrong hands, or something?  The over-the-topness of shit like this never fails to make me roll my eyes.

Something about [the stele], its cold hardness, seemed to focus and sharpen her thoughts.

Stop writing “something” in there and then immediately afterward explaining the “something”!

She wondered if Sebastian appreciated music, or any sort of art. It seemed such a human capacity.

And he is, in fact, mostly human.  He’s every bit as human as you are angel.  Really, why is this even a thing?

She gets to Jace’s room and finds him all injured and covered in blood.  Apparently he’s “himself” because Lilith’s rune was damaged in the fight by some super-special blade, which is why Jonathan doesn’t know about it.

And then they go on an everlovin angst fest about real Jace and fake Jace.  Again.  I mean, it’s not like Jace is unaware of what he does while mindcontrolled.  It’s not like he’s a completely different person.  Frankly, his morals aren’t even that different when he’s stuck to Jonathan.

Alright, I do get it.  It is mind control we’re talking about here.  Of course it’s a valid thing to angst over.  But the insistence on treating him like a completely different person is so brain-breaking that I just can’t take it seriously.  Well, that and the overload of every single kind of angst imaginable that’s been shoved into this book.

She breathed him in like air. He smelled of blood and sweat and ashes and Marks.

“It’s you,” she whispered. “It’s really you.”

Like this, for example.  …what did he smell like before?  Why do these particular smells indicate he’s “really” real Jace?

So they start making out.  While Jace is covered in blood.  Without him taking a shower first.  Ew.  The get hot, heavy, and half naked before Jace puts the stop on things.  He doesn’t want to have sex with her when he could turn back into mind-controlled Jace at any moment.  Okay.  Cool.  Valid point and decently handled.  Too bad I had to sit through hundreds of pages of teenaged makeouts to get to one valid point about sex.

And, hey, Jace, while we’re in the middle of all this angst, how about angsting over the sexual assault at the club?  They bring it up several times but no one has a single moment of crying over the fact that, when mind-controlled, Jace was totally willing to sex her up while she was high.  If we’re going to have sex angst in this book, at least include that.

God, they’re still angsting.  I’m so bored.

Ah, finally, something.  He shows Clary the copy-cup and admits the he did, in fact, kill Magdelena for it.  Jonathan ordered it, because he didn’t want Magdelena around to tell anyone what she’d done.  Well…yeah, that makes sense.  I mean, I don’t condone it, but I don’t see why it’s being treated as such a big shock.

Jace also manages to tell Clary Jonathan’s real plan.  (Also, for some reason, he won’t remember being “himself” after Lilith’s mark heals, but he does remember being not-himself right now?  Uhg, it’s all so arbitrary.)  Seems Jonathan’s real plan is to raise Lilith and create a race of backward shadowhunters for realz, he’s not just using that story as trap so he can kill demons.

And…all well and good and such, but it would be really helpful if we knew just what kind of powers these backwards hunters would have.  I mean, they drank angel blood and all that came from that was the ability to not die from marks.  In fact, a big point of the third book was that angel power was a pretty crappy power, and that’s why they went along with being connected to downworlders.  So…so they drink demon blood, so what?  What’s going to happen after that?  Why would they suddenly turn into an powerful army?  Jonathan has demon blood in him, but he’s not exactly shown off any uber-cool powers.

Clary wants to go to the Silent Brothers and get them to help, and also to tell the Clave Jonathan’s plan.  Jace says if he goes to the Clave they’ll kill him.

“It’s not a matter of punishment. It’s practicality. Kill me, Sebastian dies. It’s no different from sacrificing myself in battle.

Again I say…yeah.  Do it.  This fucker is going to basically destroy the earth.  I still am not on board with this whole “keep one person alive at the expense of millions of others” attitude the book seems to have.  I mean, sure, it sucks and no one wants their loved ones to die.  Of course Clary and the others would look for a way to solve this without Jace dying.  But there’s a point at which you have to at least admit that it is an option.  Where you have to cry about it being unfair and painful, not cry about how you refuse to consider doing it.

Jace, it seems, agrees with me and says it’s best if he go to the Clave and get killed.  Yay!