Chain of Thorns by Cassandra Clare

Chain of Thorns by Cassandra Clare

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Chain of Thorns is the fifteenth Shadowhunters novel by Cassandra Clare and the final novel of The Last Hours series, and I think it is time for me to say farewell to the Shadowhunters while I still have fond memories of them. I have reviewed all the previous Shadowhunters novels here, and my comments on the series from that review still stand. But my biggest complaint about Chain of Thorns is how bloody thick the book is (it is the second longest Shadowhunters novel at 778 pages). It is cumbersome to hold, and cumbersome to read. I cannot believe I am writing this, but there are too many main characters and too many subplots. And the problem with the subplots is that they are all very similar. There is just too much relationship drama in The Last Hours series, and I am too old for this shit now.

WARNING: There be spoilers ahead if you have not read the first two The Last Hours novels.

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Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

Age of Vice by Deepti Kapoor

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Age of Vice opens in New Delhi, India, with a car accident involving a speeding Mercedes that jumps the curb, killing five itinerant workers who sleep in the streets, including a pregnant woman. When the police arrive, it is not a rich person that they find behind the wheel of the Mercedes, but rather a rich person’s servant. But is the servant really the one responsible for the horrific accident? If not, then who is he protecting? Age of Vice is an Indian mob story about the great divide between the ultra-rich and the working poor. It is not really my type of story with its crime and violence, but I found its Indian setting to be fascinating.

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Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

Hamnet by Maggie O’Farrell

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I recently read Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, which I think is a great novel. Hamnet is O’Farrell’s last novel before The Marriage Portrait and was published in 2020 to much acclaim, so I decided I had to read it as well. If you were required to read William Shakespeare’s plays when you were in high school, you may recognize the name Hamnet. Hamnet was Shakespeare’s only son and he died at the young age of eleven. Hamnet is a sad and moving story about how the death of Hamnet affects his family.

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Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum

Atomic Anna by Rachel Barenbaum

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If you are fascinated by stories about time travel, then I think you may enjoy Atomic Anna. I find time travel to be fascinating, and I love debating the ethics of time travel (since it is still a theoretical concept). But Atomic Anna is not merely a story about time travel, it is also a multigenerational story about a family populated by strong, brilliant women. If you are expecting some pulpy sci-fi story, you are not going to find it in Atomic Anna. Atomic Anna is better than that.

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Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley

Cult Classic by Sloane Crosley

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I came across Cult Classic on a BuzzFeed listicle of books to read. It sounded interesting enough to me that when I later found it on the BookOutlet website, I decided to add it to my order. I needed something light to read after Demon Copperhead, and the blurbs on the back over of Cult Classic describe it as “funny” and “romantic”, so I thought it would do the trick. After a slow start, I found Cult Classic to be an interesting read, but not the rom-com I was expecting. I did not find it very funny, more like mildly amusing.

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Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver

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Demon Copperhead is a modern take on Charles Dickens’s David Copperfield – they have a similar narrative structure and many of the characters have the same names. Demon Copperhead is set in the 1990s and early 2000s and is about an orphaned boy caught up in the opioid crisis in the poor mining communities targeted by Purdue Pharma (the makers of OxyContin). The protagonist is Damon Fields, nicknamed Demon Copperhead because of the copper-coloured hair he inherited from his father who died before he was born, who grows up in Lee County, Virginia. Demon Copperhead, like David Copperfield, is a likeable character that you want to root for, but unlike David, Demon tends towards self-destruction instead of striving to change his situation, which is understandable growing up in a part of the country that has been ravaged by opioids and made the butt of many hillbilly jokes. Demon Copperhead is a heavy read, but I think it is a great novel.

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Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

Hell Bent by Leigh Bardugo

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I re-read Ninth House by Leigh Bardugo just before reading its sequel, Hell Bent. I still love it, and you can read my review of it here. I have been waiting over two years to read Hell Bent; unfortunately, I am on the fence over whether it was worth the wait. I did enjoy reading it, but certain elements have been introduced into the series (the way that Hell Bent ends, I am sure Bardugo is turning it into a series) that I could do without.

WARNING: There be spoilers ahead if you have not read Ninth House.

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Spare by Prince Harry

Spare by Prince Harry

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I am an anti-monarchist, but I am also not squarely Team Harry and Meghan. I have a ton of sympathy for Meghan Markle, though, who does not deserve any of the racist abuse that has been hurled her way since she began dating Prince Harry. But I think that Harry and Meghan should ditch their Duke and Duchess titles if they are serious about the damage the Royal Family has caused them (It actually would make a difference, Harry). Still, I knew since the day it was announced that Harry would be publishing a memoir that I was going to read it because I am curious about what it was like for Harry to grow up in the Royal Family and because I wanted to know what happened behind the scenes to make him and Meghan relocate their lives to North America. Spare, it turns out, is a fascinating memoir about a toxic family.

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Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater

Greywaren by Maggie Stiefvater

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Greywaren is the third and final volume of The Dreamer Trilogy. I love Maggie Stiefvater’s novels, I enjoyed the first two books of The Dreamer Trilogy, but unfortunately, I found Greywaren to be an underwhelming conclusion. SPOILER ALERT: do not read further if you plan on reading The Dreamer Trilogy. Even though Greywaren is the weakest link, I still think the trilogy as a whole is worth reading if you enjoy YA novels.

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Babel by R. F. Kuang

Babel by R. F. Kuang

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Well, my 2023 reading is off to a good start. I was not sure what to expect of Babel, but it was one of Indigo’s picks for best books of 2022, which intrigued me enough to read it. I enjoyed every second of reading this novel. The novel’s full title is Babel or The Necessity of Violence: An Arcane History of the Oxford Translators’ Revolution. If you do not mind a bit of magic mixed into your historical fiction, I highly recommend that you give this novel a shot.

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