This review was originally written and posted in July 2014.

Over in New York, we meet up with Jordan teaching Jace to meditate.  Apparently being imbued with holy fire has made Jace rather antsy, he’s looking for a way to calm down, and physical exercise couldn’t do the trick.

There is, of course, much banter to go around as they try and think of something ‘calming’ for Jace to focus on and Jace snarks at all suggestions and carries on about how killing things is his only hobby.

I’m not sure if I’m supposed to feel bad for him or not here, because all I really feel is annoyance that he’s such a flat character.  He literally has no interests outside of his character’s “class.”

Also, martial arts – the practice part at least – isn’t necessarily aggressive.  There’s plenty to be said for the peacefulness of repetitive motion, and perfecting a set certainly grants satisfaction to those who enjoy it.  Just because you like to hit things doesn’t mean it has to be screaming and fighting back.

Clary shows up, and I guess we’re done with meditating now.

Since the heavenly fire had entered his body, he’d tended to drift off more into his head.

So is that the excuse you’re going with for these hideously long passages of exposition?

We suffer through several pages of mush to learn that Jace and Clary are still shmoopy and Alec and Magnus are still broken up.  To be fair, given how quick the couples form and disband at the will of the dramallama, maybe the establishment was necessary.

Finally they get around to talking about the events of last book.  And we find out that…everyone’s just been talking about the events of last book.  *yawn*

“They’re not Shadowhunters anymore,” she added in a low voice. “They’re not people.”

Well aren’t you a barrel of sunshine?

“They’re not wrong that if Sebastian cares about anything, it’s about Clary,” Jace said, and Clary felt a cold shiver at her spine, a mixture of disgust and apprehension. “He doesn’t really have emotions. Not like we do. But if he did, he’d have them about her. And he has them about Jocelyn. He hates her.”

Uh, that sounds pretty emotional to me.  What part of that is supposed to be special, exactly?

Somehow, it takes a frack of pages to describe to us in exacting detail just how much isn’t getting done since last book.

“Don’t Shadowhunters do … you know, Christmas?” She thought back suddenly to the rather distressing Thanksgiving dinner at Luke’s when Jace, on being asked to carve the turkey, had laid into the bird with a sword until there had been little left but turkey flakes. Maybe not?

That’s…not really a holiday thing.  That’s more of a “how do you food” thing.  And a common sense thing.

After they all split up from…that, Clary and Simon go Christmas present shopping.

*sigh*  I feel so bad for the actual fans of this series.  A whole year of waiting and this is what they get?

Blah blah blah, so much talking about presents and mushy relationships.

I understand why Magnus did it, but Alec is so wrecked. I feel like if someone loves you, they should forgive you, if you’re really sorry.”

I don’t even know what to say except for…well, we should have expected this after Jordan/Maia.

Jocelyn finally shows up to break up the Chat Fest of Inanity, and she’s frantic to make sure Clary is okay.  She comes ‘this’ close to talking about something actually interesting, but then we have to cut-scene again, because if there’s one thing Clare is good at, it’s giving her readers literary blueballs.

Jace goes to see Magnus, and he continues on with the oh-so-delightful guilt trip.

Can we just officially call this plot line Robin Thicke-ing?

“I care about Alec,” Jace said, fixing Magnus with an unswerving gaze. “I care about him more than I care about myself.”

I think you had like one scene with him in the entire last book.

There’s an aweful lot of banter going on as Jace moves away from Thicke-ing and instead starts armchair-psychiatrist analyzing instead.  For once, I don’t mind the banter, because I think if it had been handled more subtly throughout the series, these two characters would still be snark-masters.  There the only two where this sort of conversation actually feels natural between them.

But before that can get going anywhere, Isabelle calls and tells him to come back to the Institute.

You know why you’re here, don’t you, breathed a soft voice in the back of her head. She knew it wasn’t really there, but that didn’t help. She hadn’t seen her brother since the fight at the Burren, but she carried him in some small part of her mind, an intrusive, unwelcome ghost. Because of me. You always knew I hadn’t gone away forever. I told you what would happen. I spelled it out for you.

Thanks to the overabundance of weird wordage in this series, I can’t tell if that’s supposed to be literal or not.

When everyone finally arrives, they announce what we learned in the prologue: Jonathan is attacking places and turning people.  In addition to getting LA, though, he got five other Institutes. 

The Clave’s grand plan is to…pack everyone up and run off to Idris.  Well, they are the strawman “ineffectual government” trope of this book; I guess that makes sense.

Still, that was an absurdly long chapter to get one thing happening, and even that one thing was just an announcement of a move to be happening next chapter.  I get the desire to catch up your readers and let them get reestablished in the ‘verse, but this is ridiculous.