Chain of Iron (The Last Hours #2)
Chain of Iron Book Review by Cassandra Clare
You know, I was actually really irritated when this book came out because once again, the Dark Artifices seems to be shafted for this new series (that nobody asked for) to shine, but fortunately I wasn’t as bothered by it as I predicted I would be.
In case you are in the small minority of people who haven’t heard of Cassandra Clare and her millions of Shadowhunter books, Chain of Iron is the next nephilim installment in Clare’s never-ending series.
Chain of Iron is the sequel to Chain of Gold, and the series as a whole is a sequel to the Infernal Devices series, but a prequel to the original Mortal Instruments as well as the Dark Artifices which is the sequel series to the Mortal Instruments.
I would be surprised if you weren’t baffled right now.
I’ve said this before for other Shadowhunter installments, but these books are not user friendly for new folk. You genuinely need to have read the other series to get full enjoyment and understanding of these books.
If you do read them without having read the others, I'm sure it would still be enjoyable to a certain extent, but a large case of ensemble character and relationships will be lost to you and a big portion of these novels are the relationships within them.
To delve right in, Chain of Iron has our main cast of friendly teenagers nicknamed the Merry Thieves (which I just abhor, sorry, not sorry) return from Chain of Gold after fighting one of the princes of Hell, Belial, and now with Cordelia and James being married as to avoid a scandal of Cordelia’s reputation and James’ criminal record.
In addition, there is a new serial killer on the loose murdering shadowhunters at dawn and stealing their runes. Most of the book is dealt with trying to catch the culprit, the Consul and Inquisitor along with the whole of adult shadowhunter authority being inconsequential and inept as usual (how these people became parents are beyond me as they never have any sort of clue what their children get up to) along with side plots including raising Jesse Blackthorn from the dead and romance galore in typical Clare fashion that makes you want to rip your hair out because if everyone just communicated and was honest there would be no issues.
The beginning of the novel is molasses slow.
I’ve come to expect this with Clare’s books. Actually, I think I’ve figured out the formula entirely. Here is is:
Mostly nothing of consequence happens for nearly 400 pages except for character building and small instances of plot
Intersperse some random demon attacks for flavor
Everyone is beautiful, everyone is in love, and love is the most groundbreaking, earth shattering thing in existence
Get into the last 200ish pages and shit hits the fan with action, misunderstandings, and confessions
Nobody is honest with anybody and lying is commonplace
End the behemoth on a cliffhanger so that the audience is kept in suspenseful anxiety until the next installment
You can’t see me, but I am bowing right now.
Genuinely, that is how 90% of Clare’s novels pan out. Obviously, as she has a very successful and long-running book series, the formula works.
That being said, there are some vices and virtues to it.
For this book, the beginning was slow. Almost nothing of significance happens for most of it and it's a dredge to get through.
However, it’s mundane to get through in the same way that reading fanfiction of your favorite characters is mundane. What Clare does for 400 pieces of paper is build up her characters and their relationships. Normally, you would do this interspersed with plot, but not in this case.
It’s not very conventional, but it kinda works?
I definitely struggled connecting with the characters from this series more than any other of Clare’s novels. The Mortal Instruments, as the original, were beloved if a little cheesy. Then came the Infernal Devices with witty Will, soulful Jem, and intelligent Tessa. Then we got the Dark Artifices, which to me, is still the best as Julian, Emma, Mark, Christina and the others are the most flawed in any of the series and I enjoy that.
I enjoy that they’re not perfect, I enjoy that they’re devious and conniving. It makes them more interesting and more worthwhile to read about.
Instead, the main characters in Chain of Iron and the subsequent series are mainly James, Cordelia, Matthew, and sometimes Lucie. I would argue that no one else matters in the book and are just added in for some sugar, spice, and everything nice.
Some of you might be outraged at this statement. What about Grace? You might say. Or Jesse? Or Thomas, Christopher, Alistair, Ariadne or Anna?
They don’t matter.
They matter in a very small, plot convenience, fluff ensues kind of way, but not really in any way of substance. Or, at the very least, that’s how I feel.
Anna is just there to be cool, Thomas is a gay gentle giant with literally no personality, Christopher is so basic and is essentially the Trader Joe’s version of Henry who was better and more interesting as the first, Alistair is a redeemed bully, and Ariadne is an orphan who loves Anna.
The end.
Once again, sometimes Clare bites off more than she can chew and I wonder if she just throws these characters in there just because it makes her happy.
As for our main protagonists, they’re mediocre. Matthew is definitely the most interesting in the bunch and I was jubilant to see him get more screen time this time around. The increasing realization of his alcohol abuse, his feelings for Cordelia, his nonplussed attitude.
All of it is intriguing. I still don’t like him as much as other protagonists from other installments, but he is by far the winner of this triad.
James is too perfect, too beautiful, and a worse version of his father. If I wanted more Will I would have turned to fanfiction of the Infernal Devices instead of imagining up his son. The only interesting thing about James is his demon connection which is not even something he does, but rather something that is done to him.
Cordelia is banal. Once again, she’s too perfect, too brave, and too kind. Literally nothing is wrong with her. She’s level headed, intelligent, forgiving, and fierce.
Basically, she’s boring to the brim.
I do think Clare did a better job this time around to include more of Cordelia’s Persian heritage, but it still mainly fell to the backburner of her lackluster and blank personality. In fact, I think James made more of an effort for Persian food and culture than Cordelia did, but I digress.
Also, a small note, but still with weight, why does Cordelia have eight names??
It bugs the living daylights out of me that in a single sentence she will be called Cordelia, Layla and Daisy.
Clare. Give the girl one name. My god.
Actually, as a side note to this side note, Clare is talented at many things, but nicknames are not one of them. EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER IN THIS NOVEL has a nickname and all of them are horrible. I have never in my entire life known a Matthew that has gone by the nickname Math.
What. In. The. World.
Anyways, the only other character of note is Lucie. I like and dislike Lucie. Lucie is also boring and her novelist passion is aggravating to me. However, I did like her turn with necromancy and her increasing desperation to save Jesse that drives her to work with Grace and lie to her friends and family was a much-needed note of interest.
Overall, this book did make me like the characters more than I did in Chain of Gold, but it took a lot of blood, sweat, and tears to get there, more than what I think should have been afforded. If you need to kill 400 trees in order to make me like your main characters, that’s a problem.
Whatever the method, I do care about them more than I did previously so I suppose mission accomplished. I do think some of the strongest relationships in the book are the romances, but then also the parabatai bond between Matthew and James.
Matthew and James have one of the best relationships in the book and I’m equally frustrated and intrigued how things will play out with Matthew now having confessed his feelings for Cordelia.
I do feel like female parabatai get shafted in a lot of Clare’s novels compared to the boys. The coed pairs often do well like Clary and Simon or Emma and Julian. Otherwise, the boys far outrank the girls in terms of bond and friendship.
Even in this novel, the “friendship” between Lucie and Cordelia is laughable. They barely talk to each other or spend time together and when they do is shallow. Whereas Matthew and James seem much more involved in each other’s lives.
That being said, if you noticed I didn’t speak much of the plot it’s because for me plot comes very much second in a Shadowhudenter novel. It’s there of course, and it’s entertaining, but I do enjoy the characters and their relationships more than anything else which makes Chain of Iron better than its predecessor but still worse in my view than any other of Clare’s novels.
Plot just doesn’t compare to the soul crushing love and friendships shown between the pages, for better or for worse.
Recommendation: The Dark Artifices > Infernal Devices > The Mortal Instruments ...and The Last Hours fall somewhere after the Mortal Instruments and the trillions of side novels that Clare has co-written with other authors and all seem to be about Magnus Bane.
Score: 7/10
