Friday 7 December 2012

Review of Shadowhunters and Downworlders: A Mortal Instruments Reader by Cassandra Clare and others.

Pages: 256
Currently Reading...Publisher: SmartPop
Release: January 2013
Thanks to the publisher for this ARC copy

Summary:
Join Cassandra Clare and a Circle of more than a dozen top YA writers, including New York Times bestsellers Holly BlackRachel Caine, and Kami Garcia, as they write about the Mortal Instruments series, its characters, and its world.
Inside you’ll read:

-A cinematic tutorial on why the best friend (Simon) always loses out to the bad boy (Jace)
-The benefits (no, really!) of incest . . . at least in literature
-What we can read between the lines of Alec and Magnus’ European vacation
-The importance of friendship, art, humour, and rebellion
-And more, from the virtues of Downworlders to the naughty side of Shadow hunting

Good Points: Okay this book is really good if you are super obsessed with TMI and need something to read by Cassie until Clockwork Princess comes out (which b.t.w is already my book of 2013). The book contains a series of essay's written by different authors and edited by Clare discussing the roles in which the characters play, themes explored within the series and basically just about anything TMI.
When I first started reading I was quite surprised, I liked where it was going, kind of tying in philosophical elements and a bit of Psychology- think one of William Irwin's pop- culture- inspired philosophical texts, yet Mortal Instruments themed. Some of the essays I enjoyed more than others, the one about Tattoo's at the beginning was particular interesting. But then...

Bad Points: It seemed to get a little...boring. To be honest it was like somebody telling you the entire plot of a series you have already read again, in detail. Like a lot of detail. To be honest I may as well have read the books again, I think that the topics weren't really explored in a way that made them great essays. I would have liked more on what Cassie thought or why she chose to do certain things within the series rather than some other author guessing as to why. The chapter on the 'benefits of Incest in literature' speaks for itself really, though at least the word gross was used to describe it and I have to agree with the writer that 'everyone loves a good taboo'.

To Sum Up... To be honest if I hadn't of gotten this book for review copy I probably would never have read it. Though I love Cassandra Clare's work I do think maybe it is time to draw The Mortal Instruments series to an end, which before you start hating I know she is doing. But I think I'm going to have to be, for now, one of those whiney book-traditionalists (?) and say The Mortal Instruments should have remained a trilogy.
This book although contains some good essays describing every detail of TMI you could possibly want, in my opinion just takes away from what reading the books again can give you. The whole point is to explore and question these topics yourself while you read them and not for some other author to tell you how it is. I'm not saying everyone thinks this but personally I just like to keep the books and stay clear from now on of the 'Readers'.

3 comments:

  1. Oh wow! :)
    You are so lucky!
    I want this so bad.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just got the off NetGalley and I'm really interested to see what it's all about. I'm a self proclaimed TMI addict so I'm curious to see what other authors think of if.


    Teresa @ Readers Live A Thousand Lives

    ReplyDelete
  3. I just received this book for review on NetGalley. I'm definitely still going to read it because I love the TMI series but I won't get my hopes up for anything spectacular! New Follower :)

    ReplyDelete

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