Review: The rise of the hotel Dumort

The Rise of the Hotel Dumort by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 1 of 5 stars

The problem with those chronicles is that, apparently, someone decided that “it has Magnus in it” was enough effort.

I love Magnus, he’s one of the most interesting characters in Cassandra Clare’s chronicles so far but why, why, WHY do the Bane chronicles have to be made of 80% useless filler, 10% pseudo-romantic subplot and end up with things that are *nothing* like what the summary/book advertizes?

This is supposed to show the rise of the Hotel Dumort as we saw it in City of Bones, aka how it became a Vampire lair… Yet Magnus spends a grand total of two pages in or near it, with a pseudo mystery that gets solved in about three lines, and we still learn nothing about how Camille’s lot took it over.

Speaking of her, WHY WOULD YOU END A BLODDY SHORT STORY ON A CLIFFHANGER??? This isn’t a fic chapter, or a TV series episode or heck, even a novel chapter! I could take that from a novel chapter, if there was any chance of that cliffhanger being resolved, but there *isn’t* and that’s just a sign of poor authorship.

Anyway, as usual, there’s the potential for something interesting (let’s not kid ourselves, Magnus could be one of the most interesting character in YA, and I’m down for reading about vampire wars in the 1920s) but instead we go from cliché to poorly thought-out plots through purple prose. Boy do I have to like these characters in order to keep reading this.

Review: Saving Raphael Santiago

Saving Raphael Santiago by Cassandra Clare
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The best of the Bane Chronicles so far.

Sarah Rees Brennan’s influence on the writing is undeniable, and it’s very welcome.
The story is pretty consistent, it does what it says on the tin, and while there are still elements of it that make me cringe, it’s still considerably better than the rest of the chronicles so far.

Hey, they even manage to make Magnus sympathetic again! And it gives depth to Raphael’s character! It’s an additional short story done (somewhat) right! :D


Still has flaws, but I was able to overlook them enough to enjoy the overall thing. Or maybe it was just the happy ending ;)

More details here

Malec meta

Let’s be very real here for a sec: Malec is probably one of my unhealthiest ship. I love them to pieces, I really do but Magnus is so bad for Alec I can’t even.

Like, literally, we side-eye Edward Cullen for dating 17yo Bella Swann but when Magnus dates 18yo Alec we (and I include myself in there) gloss over it because… er… Alec is legal?
Except, you know, Alec is probably even less experienced than Bella was –he’s only known two people his own age for most of his life (discounting Aline Penhallows, who no one sounds close to throughout the books) lives in a (informedly) highly homophobic society and family and seems to have the social skills of a potato.

Yet Magnus passive-aggressively pressures him to reveal their relationship (I’m talking, for example, about that time in City of Ashes where he all but tries to slut-shame Alec into admitting they’re dating –right after Jace outed Alec, btw- or that other time in City of Glass where he stops talking to Alec without warning because Alec isn’t jumping on the whole “out and loud and proud” train right alongside him) (you know, the centuries old powerful warlock with no family to disappoint and no society ready to kick him out in a foreign world if he farts in the wrong direction)

Magnus says he would never pressure Alec into doing anything he doesn’t want to do but he does, constantly. And when Alec messes up (badly, but not as much as Magnus makes it sound imo) instead of doing the adult thing and talking things out, Magnus dumps him like a dirty sock and completely refuses to take his share of the responsibilities.
And when you consider that, if not for Cassandra Clare completely missing the point with the City of Glass coming out and its complete lack of realistic fallout (no, I’m not over that) Alec would be left almost completely alone with no efficient support system, it’s even worse.

And let’s be frank, Alec is far from the only person Magnus is a butt to –not that I don’t understand his pont of view sometimes, but that doesn’t make it okay.

And I just… honestly sometimes I think maybe the main reason why I ship them is because they’re a canon queer couple in a mainstream piece of media aimed at young people, because whenever I really think about them critically all I can think of is how they need to take a huge, huge break and tons of therapy before they even consider getting back together.

And whenever I do, I can’t help but be torn because on the one hand I am so, so glad that young readers get to have easy access to characters who are like them in terms of sexuality (also Magnus and Aline are queer characters of color which is important as fuck too) but on the other hand this is such a shitty level of representation on so many levels I can’t even.

There was an attempt, you can’t deny that and I won’t try to –and judging from the fact that Malec became a major selling point of the series for readers and in the way C. Clare handled the COHF promo, Malec resonnated for a lot of readers- but the attempt fell frustratingly, damagingly short and that’s not something any of us should forget.

Posted on : Tue 2 Dec
with : 20 notes

My Posts The Buttholes Chronicles We could have had it all TMI Meta Malec Meta Magnus Meta My Meta Magnus Bane Alec Lightwood Malec Hello friends if you follow me for this fandom you definitely need to brace yourself for this kind of post every so often because honestly they're necessary