review of the dark artifacts: queen of air and darkness- a shadowhunter novel

Review of Queen of Air and Darkness by Author Cassandra Clare

Rating: Five out of five stars

Warning: This review contains spoilers. Read at your own risk.


City of Bones: 5/5
City of Ashes: 4/5
City of Glass: 5/5
City of Fallen Angels: 3/5
City of Lost Souls: 4/5
City of Heavenly Fire: 5/5
Lady Midnight: 5/5
Lord of Shadows: 4/5
Queen of Air and Darkness: 5/5


“‘At the edge of everything, love and faith have always brought me back, and back to you.’"

Recently I read the last book in the Dark Artifacts trilogy: Queen of Air and Darkness.  Let me just say how heartwrenching this book is! Reading Qoaad was such an emotional rollercoaster and a beautiful ending to a well written spin off series. I must say Cassandra Clare really improved her writing skills a lot since her Mortal Instruments days! In her original series, she lacked characterization buildup but she greatly improved on that in the Dark Artifacts! From the well written development in lovable characters to the amazing plot, she truly outdid herself! Even though Cassie’s writing lacked in the original series, I still loved it The Mortal Instrument’s plot. I never thought that any other shadowhunter series would beat it or that any other shadowhunter character would steal my heart just like Jace did. I stand corrected! The Dark Artifacts is the best shadowhunter series and Julian is the best shadowhunter. After him, I’m a sucker for all the characters equally! Emma, Christina, Dru, Mark, Diana, Kit, Ty, Livvy (here come the tears), Helen, Aline, Tavvy and Gywn have my heart. The worst part of this book was turning the last page and realizing I wouldn’t get another book with these characters, save for Dru, Kit and Ty, as the leads.

Characters:
The characters in the Dark Artifacts were strong, well written characters! Cassie did a great job of making me fall for each one! Here is my top ten characters and some honorable mentions!

• 1. Julian Blackthorn- “Please don’t leave me in this world without you.” -Julian.

I can’t even form words for how much I love Julian. My sweet Julian makes pancakes for his children, calls Dru his “baby girl”, and loves Emma with all his heart! His love for Emma is beyond comparable! Julian is so caring yet he will burn you alive if it means keeping his loved ones safe. He loves his family and Emma unconditionally and I find that so admirable. That reminds me, in the ending when he realizes he has to let Ty grow up on his own and that he couldn’t always baby them, I just started tearing up. Julian’s so young himself and circumstances forced him to grow more mature. Now he has to watch his children go off on their own one by one. :( Julian is my all time favorite shadowhunter character and nobody will be able to beat him.

• 2. Emma Carstairs- “As long as you exist and I exist, I will love you.” -Emma. Ahh where do I even start with Emma? I love her. I love her sassiness, sarcasm, witts, and her savageness! To be completely honest, I get tired of books with female characters that are all adventurous and tomboyish and don’t like anything girly. Emma isn’t like that. She’s fierce and aggressive, but also classy.

The one thing I love about Emma is that she’s brutal to her enemies but so loving to those she cares about. She loves the Blackthorns with all her heart and they, her. At this point she is as much of a mother to them as Julian is their father. I live for Emma and Julian protecting their siblings like they are their own children. It’s so heartwarming to see. Emma is one of my favorite Shadowhunter characters EVER! She’s so amazing!

• 3. Cristina Rosales- “As we all have an infinite capacity to make mistakes, we all have an infinite capacity for forgiveness.’‘” -Cristina. How do I describe her? Christina is just that girl. She was the glue that held Emma together during hard times. She was so strong, pushing aside her own grievances for the sake of her friend. Now that’s true friendship right there! Can I just say how awesome her and Emma’s friendship is?! She deserves the whole world!
• 4. Mark Blackthorn - “I am no faerie. I am Mark Blackthorn of the Los Angeles Institute. It doesn't matter what they say or what they do to me. I still remember who I am.” -Mark.

Ever since Lady Midnight, my heart fell for Mark! He’s just so pure and wants everyone around him to just be happy! He loves Christina and Kieran with all his heart (and can I just say how unique it was for Cassie to add a polyamorous relationship? I didn’t know much about them until this book and it was very eye opening!). You can clearly see Mark’s development from book one to the end of book three. Mark’s not a oblivious little cinnamon roll anymore. He’s stronger, less reckless and can take care of himself. He loves his family fiercely!

• 4. Drusilla Blackthorn - “Don’t remain silent about what you want, or you may never get it.” - Drusilla.  I couldn’t pick between Mark and Dru, so they are tied for fourth! I love Dru so much! She has arguably the most character development in the book! Throughout the trilogy, we all watched her grow from the too young to do anything sibling to a strong, young woman with a purpose! Even though Cassie needs to let go of the Shadowhunter series, I admit I’m SO EXCITED for The Wicked Powers where Dru is a main character! I could not get enough of her! I was so proud when she freed the prisoners like Diego and Jia out of jail! Also I don’t know who I ship her with? Jaime when she’s older? Maybe Ash and her? We’ll have to see!
• 5. Diana Wayburn: “I am who I am because I've been part of your family. Never forget, Jules. The choices we make, make us.” -Diana.

She’s incredible, brave and so, so strong. Throughout all the obstacles in her life, she still made it through to the other side. She loves the Blackthorn kids and is practically family! Her courage and dedication to her passions are so inspiring! She didn’t care to stand up for Faeries in the council hall! What a queen!

• 6. Kit Herondale: “‘You think you can’t survive without Livvy, but you can. We will go through it together.” Kit’s face was cold; he realized he was crying. “I love you, Ty. I love you.’”

Oh boy here come the waterworks… Kit and Ty were perfect for each other. Kit was there when Ty needed a shoulder to lean on, he dried up Ty’s tears and did whatever made Ty happy. Their ending was so sad (I but it was satisfying. It was a reminder that not all good things last. On a side note, Kit’s powers are so awesome!

• 7. Ty Blackthorn: My poor Ty. It killed me when he broke down once Ty realized that Livvy was truly gone. I wonder if the Wicked Powers will be about the unbalance that Ty set after he brought Livvy's ghost back. Maybe? Anyways, Ty was a total master at protecting his loved ones with a slingshot during the war. You go Ty!
• 8. Thule Livvy: “I love you, I love you, I love you” -Livvy. *Sniffle sniffle*

Thule Livvy’s letter was the end of me. Poor Livvy, she lost everyone she loved. However, even through this, she managed to be rock hard, relying on herself. She got back up, fighting for a cause. “I’ve got to make Cameron’s death meaningful”. Even when she had the chance to give up and go to an easier life, she chose to stay. For her world, her fighters and for her Cameron. She is just so independently strong and I admire that so much.

• 9. Tavvy Blackthorn: “‘Jules,’ he said, his small voice clear and ringing. ‘Carry me. I'm tired. I want to go home.’” - Tavvy. This quote says it all… :(
• 10. Aline:

“‘It’s what's for breakfast and since I’m not Helen, I don’t care if you starve or eat cheetos for every single meal. (...) all she wants is to be with you guys, and you are not going to make her cry again. Understood?’” -Aline
She deserves more love. She fiercely loves Helen and would travel to the moon and back for her if it made Helen happy. What I love about her is her passion and her attitude. She won’t back down, not if it’s something she really believes in. Way to go Aline!
“‘That was pretty cool,’ said Dru (...) ‘I like the way she stood up for Helen’” - Dru.
Dru took the words right out of my mouth.

“‘Emma. Emma, come back. Emma we can do this. We’ve melted stone. You’ve saved my life. We can do anything.’”

What I didn’t Like:

• How the Final Battle had no Casualties: I hate it when book characters die but I understand that without it, the book wouldn't be realistic. Absolutely no characters other than villains died in the battle. I mean come on! This is the last battle in the trilogy! It should be worth more! There should be more at stake!

Even though Julian and Emma are my favorite ship in all things Shadowhunter, I wish instead of turning into giants, they would have burned together. “‘No.’ Emma had begun to smile. Her eyes were all fire now. ‘Let us burn’”
That would have been such a sweet ending. Instead it’s weird how after turning into giants, the only thing they lost was their parabatai rune. This seemed like Cassandra Clare was just lazy and turned the book’s ending into a perfectly wrapped gift! In my favorite book series, “The Unwanteds”, at the end of the final battle, multiple loved characters had died and the main character, Alex, now had his dominant arm dead forever. That means that he could never move it or use it. Now he couldn’t perform everyday tasks that he couldn’t do. (I couldn’t stop crying for days when this happened).
I expected to see something similar to happen to Julian and Emma instead of them just conveniently losing their parabatai runes.

• Too Much TMI Characters and The Ending: I loved in Lady Midnight how we had a brief appearance of “The Mortal Instruments” characters. I was expecting the same to happen in this book.  Instead this should have been “The Mortal Instruments #7: The City of Why Are You Tormenting Us Cassie?” First of all, she should have just made the TMI a trilogy but NOOOOO. City of Glass ended perfectly but she decided to add 3 more books to the series. On top of that, she makes them have a major role in Qoaad. She needs to let go of the shadowhunter world. Even though I’m excited for a series with Dru as the main character, I could have lived without it. It makes everything so washed and wrung out. Nothing is unique. I’m not excited for Cassandra to write another spin off series! This is too much! For all the loose ends in the end of this book, she could write so many more spin off series. The end of a series should wrap up loose ends, not unravel them even more! This was a 900 page book but we made no progress. Christina, Keiran and Mark can only meet in a cabin once a week, Emo Jace and Ash are back, Zara is still rampaging in Alicante and everything is a mess. This could have been a shorter book!
• Missed Opportunity with Annabel: Come on Cassandra! She’s an awesome villain yet she dies so early on in the book. She dies so easily too! I mean, she’s on the cover and the title is basically her! So why does she have basically no role in this book? What a missed opportunity!
• How Stupid Clary’s Vision Was: Her vision was about Thule and it had no effect on her or the story at all? It was builded up so much throughout the 1st and 2nd book and I was excited to find out what it was. However, it was a huge letdown! Her vision should have been about something bigger like the final battle. For example, she could have been gravely hurt during the final battle and it wasn’t sure if she would make it or not. Her vision was so disappointing and I felt embarrassed for her. She blew off Jace’s proposal for nothing.
• There’s Clace, Malec but no Sizzy?!: Why? They had 2 scenes. Yet there so many scenes of Clace. There was plenty of Magnus and Alec, but I won’t complain about that since they deserved their time. But Clary and Jace? They already have their own series, so why do they have such a big role in Qoaad? I would have much rather read about Simon and Izzy, which, tied with Malec, was my favorite ship in the original series. It also gutted me how we didn’t get to read about Sizzy’s wedding. Oh well, at least we got that Malec wedding we’ve all been waiting for!

What I did Like:

• Julian and Emma: “‘There is fire inside us, Emma, and as it blazes, it burns us, and the burning causes pain—but without its light, I cannot see to draw.’” -Julian

I can’t even explain in words how much I loved this ship!  They were the cutest couple in the entire shadowhunter series! Yup, I said it! They have the purest relationship, and know each other so well! Even though I didn’t like their ending, as I said before, I loved their relationship throughout the book. In Thule, Julian loves Emma so much, he’s willing to give her space, even if it means that she never forgives him.
“‘I still love Emma more than I ever thought was possible. I love her more every day, and more every time I try to stop. I love her like I'm being ripped in half.’” - Julian

• Lots of Developed Main Characters: Another aspect of this book that I liked was how many characters there was. A lot of the characters were a huge part of the book, yet Cassie developed them all well and made us fall in love with each and every one of them. I found that very impressive. It’s so hard to balance a book, juggling about 10 main characters (not including the villains). My favorite development was in Dru and Ty. Dru grew up to be a strong, independent woman and Ty realized that his sister is gone forever but at least he has Dru to share his grief with. I applaud Cassandra for her great work on that!
• How Kit and Ty’s Relationship didn’t work out: I know everyone’s going to hate me for this but I’m glad Kit and Ty don’t have a happy ending just yet. Don’t get me wrong, I was sobbing when Kit left Ty and I loved their care for each other. However, especially since in the final battle, no one dies and Emma and Julian get a happy ending, some sort of sacrifice must happen! Otherwise, the book’s ending would truly be a gift all wrapped up in a nice ribbon. We do have Zara and Emo Jace to be cautious of but it doesn’t affect any of the main characters directly. I believe Kit and Ty’s relationship ending was the perfect sacrifice. Besides, their relationship will be all fixed in the next spin off series Cassandra writes.

Overall, I give this book a five out of five mainly because I love Emma and the Blackthorns with all of my heart! I couldn’t stand to give them four out of five because they are the reason why I kept reading this book, despite the many plot holes there are. I would give my heart out for Julian, Emma, Christina, Mark, Dru, Kit, Ty, Helen, Aline, Diana, Gwyn and so much more! The saddest part of ending this series is saying a final goodbye to most of these characters! It truly was a well written book with well written characters! The Dark Artifacts is the best shadowhunter series to date and I can’t wait to see what the future shadowhunter books bring!

“‘I’ve loved you all my life, Emma. And when I felt nothing, I realized— without that love, I was nothing. You”re the reason I wanted to break out of the cage. You made me understand that love creates far more joy than any pain it causes.’ He tipped his head back to look up at her, his blue-green eyes shining. ‘I’ve loved my family since the day I was born and I always will. But you’re the love I chose, Emma. Out of everyone in the world, out of everyone I’ve ever known, I chose you. I’ve always had faith in that choice. At the edge of everything, love and faith have always brought me back, and back to you.’” -Julian