Book Review: Chain of Iron (The Last Hours #2)

Chain of Iron

Cassandra Clare

4/5

This is the sequel to Chain of Gold, which is the prequel to TMI and TDA and the sequel to TID. It's so complicated that I don't recommend them to my friends at all because I know they would just get confused. It starts up four months after the conclusion of Chain of Gold and immediately jumps into the action and drama. Will James and Cordelia actually make it to the alter? Will Belial come back? What part does Tatiana really play in all this chaos? A ton of questions and fifteen years of backstory to contemplate as you go. 

When I think about it, I don't even know if this was a 4 star read I'm just really attached to the characters. I think that she did great on the whole story line with James and Cordelia, no spoilers but they were a lot easier to get behind in this book than in the last. But I think that she took on too many characters and most of them didn't feel like they had enough time to get truly developed in this one. 

I liked Chain of Gold because I felt as though she had branched out to a different story line, a more interesting one. But I feel like a lot of things were dropped and a lot of random things were picked up. I think that it's probably easy to run into repetition when you spend so long in a singular universe and you've seen a certain idea succeed so comprehensively that you want to try to replicate it on another bracket in the family tree. I just didn't vibe with it, it all needed more exposition for it to be as significant as she really thought it was. 

Again, I don't really recommend this to my friends because it's too complicated but if you're already invested then it's not that bad of a read. Minus, and this is a spoiler so proceed with caution, the continued and somehow casual references to incest. Like Cassie, you can't keep getting away with this why would you even write that in as a plot device. Sure, it's supposed to represent the villain and evil and all that but you've really done enough with that during your literary career and I would appreciate if you dropped it. Other than that though, the third book has the potential to be a lot better if she doesn't fall into her old habits.