Review: Queen of Air and Darkness

Queen of Air and Darkness by Cassandra Clare
Narrated by James Marsters
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed this, but I didn't love it. It was far too long for starters and there were way too many plot lines going on, some of which never get resolved in the series which really bugs me. This is the final book in a series, but we don't get resolution on alot of things, so I was left wanting at the end of all of it. I understand there are more books coming, but when a series ends, I want it to end and stand on its own. This kind of ends on a cliffhanger, which I don't like only to find out that we might find out more in a different series. I think the upcoming books are going to be great, and I'm looking forward to them, I just didn't like how this ended. The things that get resolved were just too convenient and easy. There weren't repercussions to some of the questionable actions that were taken. They kind of just got swept under the rug because worse things happened. I feel like this could have been broken up into 4 or 5 books like The Mortal Instruments to clean up the the characters and the plot lines so we could have gotten a more comprehensive series to set us up for the next ones.

There are alot of character arcs that seem to have significance, but not in this series. It is all a set up for the next series and I didn't appreciate that. If they had been introduced earlier or played a bigger role maybe I could get onboard, but it just feels like a bit of a marketing plot to sell more books later. I like Cassandra Clare's writing and I enjoy the Shadowhunter realm so I'm going to read her books, but I don't need some random set up to pull me in to some spinoff later. As for the main characters, I loved some of them and just wasn't invested in others. I think that comes from having so many characters and so many plots to follow. I didn't feel that way with the original series.

I will say there are some creative things in this book that you don't expect. I really do enjoy twists and turns in books, but some of them just didn't seem to make sense.

As far as a book summary goes...Julian and Emma are still trying to figure out how to deal with their feelings for each other and avoid the parabatai curse. I'm with many other reviewers on this that this was resolved much to conveniently. This was a major plotline of the series and I wasn't happy with how it played out in the end. I was never really invested in their romance from the beginning so all of their drama was just overkill for me. The Clave is back to its old ways of shunning Downworlders and that charge is being led by the new Inquisitor and his lackeys. Some of the fight was political and some was physical. We see some of the strategic moves made on the page, while others are mentioned and handled in the background. I think some of the resolutions were well played out, while others are still to be determined and I think we'll see them resolved in the future. That takes me back to the beginning of this review where I feel like much of this story still has yet to be told. I still feel invested in the story and the characters to find out what happens next.



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