For anyone wondering about the whole Cassandra Clare ‘controversy’, here’s a handy (and incredibly long) link detailing a lot of the shitty stuff that happened.
This chapter is called ‘Shadowhunter’, which sort of feels like Cassandra is hitting me over the head with her plot, but I’ll let it slide.
They get to ‘Jimmy Bob’s Coffee Cafe’ or whatever the hell it is to hear their friend read poetry and we get this absolutely delightful description:
Eric was already onstage, swaying back and forth in front of the microphone with his eyes squinched shut. He’d dyed the tips of his hair pink for the occasion. Behind him, Matt, looking stoned, was beating irregularly on a djembe.
OH MY GOD. We all know this guy; WE ALL KNOW THIS GUY AND WE WERE INVITED TO AT LEAST ONE SHOW LIKE THIS.
I’m actually rooting for Fairy at this point, because she says
This is going to suck so hard,” Clary predicted. She grabbed Simon’s sleeve and tugged him toward the doorway. “If we make a run for it, we can still get away.
Which, I feel you.
Sidenote: What a weird word to use to denote her speech—predicted? This seems more like her passing an opinion than making a guess. It’s silly but that seems like the total wrong word for this situation. Again, this is the whole, 'is the narrator omniscient or is it third-person-omniscient' and it's confusing.
Anyway, Simon goes to get them coffee and Fairy finds them a seat, and this happens:
The blond girl leaned over the side of her chair and tapped Clary on the shoulder.
“Excuse me.” Clary looked up in surprise. “Is that your boyfriend?” the girl asked.
Clary followed the line of the girl’s gaze, already prepared to say, No, I don’t know him, when she realized the girl meant Simon. He was headed toward them, face scrunched up in concentration as he tried not to drop either of his Styrofoam cups. “Uh, no,” Clary said. “He’s a friend of mine.”
The girl beamed. “He’s cute. Does he have a girlfriend?”
Clary hesitated a second too long before replying. “No.”
The girl looked suspicious. “Is he gay?”
And I rolled my eyes so hard they went into my head and started beating the part of my brain that remembers reading this book.
This trope is so fucking tired. I’m sick to death of it—I’M SICK OF READING ABOUT GIRLS ONLY FALLING FOR THEIR BEST FRIENDS BECAUSE ‘COMPETITION’ IN THE FORM OF ANOTHER WOMAN PRESENTS ITSELF. IF YOU WRITE THIS, FUCK YOU. This stupid trope perpetuates the idea that woman probably always want their friends but just don’t realise it and need encouragement—it perpetuates the stupid stigma of ‘the friendzone’ and I am sick to death of reading about it.
How is this still happening in 2014? How is a published author still writing a scene where someone assumes something about a person’s sexuality because they’re not dating the person they’re with? Why can’t men and woman be friends without anybody asking questions about it?
If you need an NPC to come into your story to spell out the obvious ‘love story’ to the protagonist, your story probably sucks the big one. If you need to rely on tired tropes to further your story along, you need to work on your writing.
PS, of course she’s blonde. I see you Bella/Ana. I see you.
So she tells Simon that the girl finds him cute, which is awesome, and we have all the regular “but ugh why don’t I want him to know that, ugh what’s wrong with me, I guess he’s attractive” inner monologue and all I can think is Jesus Christ Fairy, buy a vibrator, or ask him to be a fuckbuddy so I don’t need to hear this.
Eric has some pretty hilarious ‘spoken word poetry’ happening in the background, and it’s a shame that it’s taking place at the same time of this clichéd scene between Fairy and Simon.
“Oh.” Clary lifted one shoulder in a shrug. “Oh, I don’t know. Ask Jaida Jones out,” she suggested, naming one of the few girls at St. Xavier’s she actually liked. “She’s nice, and she likes you.”
“I don’t want to ask Jaida Jones out.”
“Why not?” Clary found herself seized with a sudden, unspecific resentment. “You don’t like smart girls? Still seeking a rockin’ bod?”
[ ... ]
“Because I like someone else,” Simon said
Why do I get the feeling that even if Fairy actually liked other girls at her school, all of them fucking hate her?
FAIRY IS REALLY IRRITATING. Look, I have had two of my best friends try and ask me out when I wasn’t really into it: trust me, you can tell these things. There is no, “jee, I wonder what they’re going on about?”
And of course Fairy again re-iterates the stupid question of asking Simon if he’s gay. And his fucking response breaks my heart because I knew if he got more page-time Cassandra would ruin him for me:
Simon’s greenish color deepened. “If I were, I would dress better.”
WHY ARE YOU PEOPLE READING THIS? DID YOU ACTUALLY LAUGH AT THIS SAD EXCUSE FOR A JOKE? DID SETH MACFARLANE GHOST WRITE THIS WHOLE SERIES?
Simon’s trying to declare his love for Fairy and she suddenly sees Jace out of the corner of her eye, and of course he’s laughing at the two of them, so she’s all ‘I know you’re having emotions and shit but mine are more important so I’ll brb’ and leaves to CHASE AFTER JACE WHOM SHE SAW KILLING SOMEONE LIKE LESS THAN 20 PAGES AGO.
So Jace is all broody and standing against the wall of the coffee shop:
In the rapidly falling twilight, his hair looked coppery gold.
Ah, if only we knew what his actual hair colour was at this point. He has yet to be described to me, BECAUSE HE IS ACTUALLY DRACO.
So they have the nauseating back-and-forth people think passes for ‘flirting’ nowadays and then we get to a reveal so frustrating I want to bang my head against the desk:
“I told you before, my name is not ‘little girl,’” she said through her teeth. “It’s Clary.”
“I know,” he said. “Pretty name. Like the herb, clary sage. In the old days people thought eating the seeds would let you see the Fair Folk. Did you know that?”
Easter eggs like this? They shouldn’t be spelled out in the book. The thing I loved most about Harry Potter was that the names were like little nuggets of knowledge that you discovered later on—the whole Black family being named after galaxies, Lily and Petunia named after flowers, all of the marauders’ names meaning something—they were things to obsess over and speculate about, things that you’d sit bolt upright at 3 am and shout ‘OH MY GOD! SIRIUS IS THE DOG STAR AND SIRIUS’ ANIMAGUS IS A DOG!’
As a reader, to come across Clary’s name and know what it means is like a nice little inside joke, and then you (as the fan) get to share that with the rest of the world. When the author themselves inserts the fun little tidbit that maybe no one might have picked up on (after all, it’s not important to the plot to know what Clary’s name means or its folklore), they rob the readers of the experience of discovering that for themselves.
“You don’t know much, do you?” he said. There was a lazy contempt in his gold eyes.
OH MY GOD does everyone just make fun of Fairy this whole book because there might be a light at the end of this tunnel.
It’s worth noting that at this point I’m imagining Jace as one gigantic blob of molten gold until told otherwise because apparently that’s the only colour he is. I bet we get a food metaphor sometime soon, too.
Jace keeps calling her a ‘mundane’ which is totally not code for any other word and Cassandra definitely didn’t hit “Find + Replace” (hint: she did, hint: that word is ‘muggle’).
We learn about their ‘runes’ or whatever, like tattoos the Shadowhunters get when they’re younger that are supposed to help with their fighting. I’m honestly not following this very well, because I haven’t had anything explained properly to me—like, I know that Fairy’s fucking name has medieval folklore but I still can’t tell you anything about the plot of this book.
So Jace has been ordered to bring Fairy to ‘the institute’ and then he info dumps everything on us—Fairies and Demons and Zombies and Vampires and Werewolves exist in this universe. But don’t you worry! They all have cutesy nicknames, because that’s exactly what I was waiting for!
Obviously we knew Shadowhunters take care of these things, but it’s just so, so lazy and dumb of the author to just throw all this information away in a quick conversation between these two: there are so many possibilities and fun ways for her to reveal to Fairy and the readers that these creatures exist all over, but instead she’s chosen straight-up exposition through a character mouthpiece and I’m left feeling totally bored with this book again.
Of course, we have some good ol’ fashioned threats to the main female protagonist’s life because that’s romance you guys!
“What if I don’t want to see him?”
“That’s your problem. You can come either willingly or unwillingly.”
Clary couldn’t believe her ears. “Are you threatening to kidnap me?”
“If you want to look at it that way,” Jace said, “yes.”
HOW ELSE IS SHE SUPPOSED TO LOOK AT IT? What kind of bullshit is this? If a guy said that to me I’d kick him right in the nutsack and go back inside to my friends.
Anyway, this is kinda brushed aside because Fairy gets a phone call from her mother where it’s pretty obvious her mom is getting attacked, and Fairy is like “MOM WHAT’S HAPPENING” at which point it’s all I can do to not try and reach through the screen and smack her because really.
Her frantic question was cut off by a noise Clary would never forget—a harsh, slithering noise, followed by a thump. Clary heard her mother draw in a sharp breath before speaking, her voice eerily calm: “I love you, Clary.”
The phone went dead.
 |
| apparently it is this movie |
IS ANYONE ELSE PICTURING NAGINI? NO? Right, moving along.
Understandably, Fairy loses her fucking mind as most people would at possibly hearing their mother die on the phone, and accidentally drops her phone on the pavement, which apparently shatters it so that it’s unusable which... Fairy, girl, get an Otterbox or a LifeProof case if you have an iPhone because that seems totally unreasonable.
Better yet, all YA heros should just be required to have Nokia phones so this doesn’t happen.
 |
| I still have my mom's old phone somewhere and it still turns on |
Anyway, she scrambles for Jace’s phone and tries to grab his out of his shirt pocket and he’s all, “nah that’s not a phone” and it is at this point that I was 100% convinced Jace was a fucking nerd. So this happens:
“Tell me what happened first.” She tried to yank her wrist back, but his grip was incredibly strong. “I can help you.”
Rage flooded through Clary, a hot tide through her veins. Without even thinking about it, she struck out at his face, her nails raking his cheek.
 |
| bonus: Julianne Hough |
THIS IS THE SMARTEST THING SHE’S DONE THE WHOLE BOOK. I CHEERED OUT LOUD.
Sidenote: how long are her nails that they’re raking his cheek when she hits him? Fairy, cut your nails, jesus.
The chapter ends with her booking it for her house even though her mother just died there (probably) and also explicitly told her not to come home so... you know, I guess she gets one intelligent moment per 100 pages or something. That also means that she has no phone, and her best friend is inside worrying about her and will probably continue to do so all night.
Why didn’t she just go back inside and use Simon’s phone? Ugh.
This was a short chapter, y'all! See you next time!
I have a very strong desire to read along with you. Literary Mystery Science Theater.
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