Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare (2016)

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It’s been five years since the end of the Dark War the took place in Cassandra Clare’s previous series, The Mortal Instruments. Since then, Julian and Emma, who were last seen at age twelve are now both seventeen and Julian basically runs the Los Angeles Institute. Now, the two of them are parabatai, sworn to serve and protect each other. Even though it’s been awhile since the Dark War, Emma and Julian are still reaping the consequences of it. Julian now is the head of his family and Emma is on a mission to figure out who killed her parents. When bodies start showing up in a similar fashion to Emma’s parents, Emma is given another strand of hope. Julian wants to be supportive but he has his own battle: he’s in love with Emma, something forbidden under parabatai codes. Regardless of his feelings, he has to help Emma because it seems that his family are involved in the murders, which is a puzzle to all.
A round of applause to me, who got through this massive, 700 page book in a reasonable amount of time. The length of this book scared me and it took more than a year of owning it for me to get to it. While physically reading it, I also listened to the audiobook on the bus, so I was in this world all the time and I loved it.
I am a devout Cassandra Clare fan. I’ve been reading her books for half a decade and know the Shadowhunter world inside and out, a world completely unique to her. All of her books are in this world and they all connect. That being said, Lady Midnight should not be read without both The Infernal Devices trilogy and The Mortal Instruments series being read. At some point, even though I love the Shadowhunter world, I hope to see Cassandra Clare write something different.
Because this book connects to so many other series, there were a lot of updates on other characters that I’ve read in the past. At first, it was fun to see Alec and Magnus, Jace and Clary, and Jem and Tessa, but after awhile I felt it was overdone. Basically, they all ended up having the most perfect lives with the most perfect happily-ever-afters, and I thought it was almost unrealistic. It took away the focus from Emma and Julian and it didn’t feel like it was entirely their story.
I’ve also been noticing a lot of similarities between all of Clare’s work. In all three series they all have a forbidden romance, a peculiar warlock, and you guessed it, the characters end up saving the world. On the other hand, there are some things they all share that are important to have in the Young Adult literature world. For instance, all of them have a diversity of sexual orientations and discuss issues that present itself when there are biracial characters and interracial friendships and relationships. As another review pointed out to me, there was also neurodiversity between the characters.
As always, I loved the characters. Somehow, Clare is able to make me believe that not all boys are jerks. Julian was a joy to read. I loved how honest he was with his family situation, that he didn’t try to hide how tired he was. It was also pretty sweet how much this boy just loved Emma. Emma was also a pretty cool character. Unlike the other series, it was nice to have a female character that knew what she was doing and was confident in her powers. There were so many wonderful side characters too. My favorites were Ty and Mark Blackthorn.
Concerning Emma and Julian’s romance, I don’t know how I feel about it. On one hand it seems like it was really built but on the other hand it feels super rushed. Okay, so obviously Julian has been in love with Emma forever but for Emma it felt like there was a switch. One minute she had (almost) no feelings for him and then she was in love. Then their relationship went super fast. I still don’t know how I feel about it.
Despite some problems, I absolutely loved reading this book as I do with all of Clare’s other books. Her world is so developed and thorough and her writing is fabulous. These book are addicting to the point where I actually appreciated the audiobook because I wanted to be reading it all the time. I am definitely going to read the sequel, Lord of Shadows, and might even reread The Mortal Instruments.
4 Stars

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