PENGUIN The Last Hours: Chain of Gold

The book is beautiful!!!!

I hate to give this book 3 stars because I love the Shadowhunter world, but, in my mind this book deserves it. I have a litmus test for giving a book 5 stars. First of all it has to be written well. I can't deny CC's talent as a writer and that is why this sits at 3 stars. Secondly, I must not be able to predict important plot points and thirdly, the book must affect me emotionally. Chain of Gold failed the last two. Sorry kids, but I knew exactly why James was in love with Grace. It was very obvious. For a character who is so smart and clever, it should have been obvious to James Herondale, too. Alas, it wasn't and now the reader will have to suffer through the obstacle to the real love story in this series. Kinda like the reader suffered through Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn until it reached a totally contrived and starnge reconsilliation. I bet I can predict the tropes/story in the next two books of the series, too. I am so disappointed.I truly anticipated the release of this series. I'm not angry. I'm just sorely disappointed that after waiting a while, CC had to fall back on a formula instead of writing something new-ish.I found myself not caring. This is the death knell for fiction for me. The only emotional response I had, other than frustration, was evoked when parts of Will, Tessa and Jem's story were referenced. I still contend that The Infernal Devices is her best set of books. Those books had it all. By the end of the book, I just didn't feel strongly enough about James and Cordelia to want to subject myself to two more books' worth of frustration as they figure it out. I wish she had spent as much time on Lucie as she did on James. (By the way, Lucie is spelled Lucy in at least 2 places in the book. I'm sure those are typos.) Lucie has great potential, and like the other characters have overlooked her in the narrative, so, too, has Clare.I did like that in making Cordelia of Persian descent that Clare has been able to incorporate some of her native culture into the tale. I really found that part interesting. I'd like to see more about the Carstairs family, their origins and their singular brand of shadowhunter. What other traditions do the Carstairs family have? The parallel telling of the Persian tale of Laila and Majnun is a very nice touch. It reminded me of how Rick Riordan incorporates mythology in his books.My feelings about this book are not going to dissuade the die hard Shadowhunter fan. To them I say, please read it. I know you'll enjoy it. Truth be told, I will be reading the next two when they come out because I am a fan of the series and I can't leave a series unfinished once I've started it. I just hope that CC sees my review and maybe changes some things around in the subsequent volumes so that I am totally wrong about how I believe the story will play out.

I’d almost given up on Clare after her last book but I was always a bigger fan of the Infernal Devices series so I thought I’d give it a shot.It’s...fine. Compelling and easy enough to read that I got through it in just a few days but not something I’d reread or recommend to others who aren’t already fans of her work.There’s too many characters, so many that it’s difficult to even really work out who the main protagonist is supposed to be. So many characters also makes it difficult to distinguish personalities. In her other books the characters had clear personalities and you could imagine how different people would react to different things. There’s some of that here, some characters are well defined but others are kind of cookie cutter and very easy to mix up.The mystery of the plot was mediocre, I didn’t even realize there was supposed to be a mystery or a twist until it happened.The retconning is insane. Clare clearly did not plan to add more to the Infernal Devices and has changed a lot of things (including claiming that a family tree included in one of the Mortal Instruments books is a fake). If you know the other stories well it’s a little bizarre.My biggest pet peeve by far is how underused the LGBTQ characters are. There are 5 gay/bisexual characters in this story...set in England in 1903...and other than one or two asides from “bad” characters, nobody seems to care. Everyone shows a level of acceptance that doesn’t even exist today outside certain bubbles.I want to be clear: I don’t have a problem with the inclusion of the these characters. I have a problem with the fact that their sexuality and gender nonconformity is not explored within the text. It would be so fascinating to see a character struggle between their love for their gay brother and the societal norms they were raised in (Huck Finn anyone?). But no, every single “hero” character is open and accepting without any question, without even any shock.And I know that the Shadowhunter world is not more accepting that mundane because a gay character literally says that in her very first book, set in the 2000s!One of the charters is obsessed with Oscar Wilde, he’s referenced often...but nobody ever mentions that he was tried and imprisoned for sodomy, became ill in prison and died in exile. That’s the world they live in, it should be part of the narrative. And frankly, that would make for some much more interesting and complex plots than some of the love story nonsense in this book.It almost feels like Clare wants the credit for including these characters but is afraid that her readership will reject a hero character that struggles to accept someone else’s sexuality.

Chain of Gold is the first book in the new Shadowhunters series, The Last Hours, and if you like fantasy, you need to read it. I absolutely loved it!There has been a Shadowhunters family tree going around for years that say that a certain couple were the ancestors of Jace Herondale. Then if you read "The Midnight Heir" (and some of Cassandra Clare's comments) you might wonder how this will all come about. And I have to answer... very well. The ships in this book are complicated, but that shouldn't be a surprise, as Clare is also the author that wrote about Tessa/Will/Jem and Cristina/Mark/Kieren. I'm left at the end of CoG wanting Chain of Iron just to find out about the ships alone!Then you have the characters. The main characters are the children of all the characters in The Infernal Devices. You don't have to read TID to enjoy CoG, but as the worlds are so interconnected, I think you'd appreciate them more if you do read them. I have a little trouble remembering which parent belongs to which kid (at least where the Lightwoods are concerned) but that doesn't matter because the parents are in the background. I especially love Cordelia. She's kind and brave.The plot is excellent and I was wondering for the longest time who was behind all the evil-doing. You don't find out until the very end what the true source of evil is, however. The book sets itself up very nicely for Chain of Iron, the next book in the series, but not with a Lord of Shadows moment where you're so frustrated that you have to wait a whole year to read the next book.I loved this book and highly recommend it, along with all the other Shadowhunters books. Clare builds such intricate and complex worlds, it always impresses me. Read it!