Book Review: The Bane Chronicles


3,5 stars (I liked it) for The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare

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Fans of The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices can get to know warlock Magnus Bane like never before in this collection of New York Times bestselling tales, in print for the first time with an exclusive new story and illustrated material. 
This collection of eleven short stories illuminates the life of the enigmatic Magnus Bane, whose alluring personality, flamboyant style, and sharp wit populate the pages of the #1 New York Times bestselling series, The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices. 
Originally released one-by-one as e-only short stories by Cassandra Clare, Maureen Johnson, and Sarah Rees Brennan, this compilation presents all ten together in print for the first time and includes a never-before-seen eleventh tale, as well as new illustrated material.
Source: Goodreads


Now, let me start off with the fact that I am aware that Cassandra Clare seems to be a pretty strongly discussed topic. People either love her series or hate them, there's no in between.
I personally am a very strong lover of the TMI & TID series and I think that is my right, just like it is other people's right to dislike it. I don't like every series or book I read either.
Yet, where most series seem to be discussed with mutual respect from both lovers as haters, Cassandra Clare and her books seem to be getting a lot of hate and bullying. Just scrolling through some of the goodreads comments shocked me and I'm not easily shocked.
I just wanted to use this space to say something on that subject before I continue with my review.

It's an author's right to write about what they love and like. It's their right to create more books and even create new series or books in a certain series.
It's your right to like or dislike these books but it is in no way your right to abuse the person responsible for writing these books! It is disrespectful and more over classifies as online bullying (I will address this topic more in this blog post)

* * *
This is not a spoiler free review
* * *

As I said, I am totally in love with the TMI and TID series, they have ripped apart my heart and made me cry more than any book aside from Me Before You has ever done.
So when The Bane Chronicles came out I had high hopes and expectations for the book. It almost pains me to say that they weren't fully satisfied.
My relationship with this book is complicated.

The Bane Chronicles were originally released as a series of short stories in the form of e-books. Eventually they were wrapped together into one book. The stories are as following:

  • What Really Happened in Peru
  • The Runaway Queen
  • Vampires, Scones and Edmund Herondale
  • The Midnight Heir
  • The Rise of the Hotel Dumort
  • Saving Raphael Santiago
  • The Fall of the Hotel Dumort
  • What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything (And Who You're Not Officially Dating Anyway)
  • The Last Stand of the New York Institute
  • The Course of True Love (And First Dates)
  • The Voice-mail of  Magnus Bane

Even though this book was a bundle of short stories it was actually very easy to get into it and neither did I struggle to remain into it whenever one of the stories finished. Though maybe I would've preferred it if the stories had been completely chronologically. They started off that way but then near the end all of a sudden that changed and a few stories were no longer logically following each other but maybe that's me being picky (and the fact that I have the tendency to ignore dates in books. A weird thing I do)

But what really bothered me in this book is that instead of giving you answers and only raised more questions, and I think that is the main reason for my complicated.

The fact that the first short story is called 'What really happened in Peru' and ends in with the following sentence: "To this day, whatever it is that actually got him banned from Peru is -and perhaps must always remain- a mystery"
That sums up everything that frustrated me throughout the rest of the book. No real answers.

Cassandra Clare has amazed me throughout her previous series that she can hide little details in a certain book and bring them back up much later. She mastered the way of building an intricate web of information hidden between the lines that made sure you stayed attentive as a reader but The Bane Chronicles lacked that little extra. Cassie Clare managed very well in raising questions in the TID series that got answered in the TMI series and vice versa. It was satisfying and made me as a reader amazed about how clever she was as an author but it is that what TBC missed.

A lot of questions raised throughout both TID and TMI were mostly answered but then there were others questions that have still gone unanswered and I felt like TBC was going to give us the answers we craved but none of that happened with exception of one.

Even worse was that not only answers from the previous book remained unanswered but also questions that were raised within the book were never explained. It frustrated me quite a lot.

In several stories Magnus thinks back about the rough break-up between Camilla and himself, allowing us to know that it had been painful and complicated. When this fact gets mentioned several times in more than one of the stories, you tend to wonder what exactly it was that happened. Yet, this is never explained or even mentioned in anyway.

In The Midnight Heir we meet James Herondale, a tormented boy that is trying anything to destroy himself. The source of his behaviour is a girl known as Grace Lightwood, who is described in such a way that she doesn't come across as simply human or a normal Shadowhunter. Besides that we have a murderous mother that calls upon the warlock to kill off certain Shadowhunters. The story ends with Magnus walking away. I ended up with more questions than answers for example: what eventually came to be from James? What kind of creature is Grace Lightwood? What happened to the murderous mother? Nothing gets answered or even remotely referred to in the later short stories.

One of the more satisfying stories was Saving Raphael Santiago. It was one of the few stories that actually explained the back story between Magnus and Raphael (to which was hinted previously in the book series). It gives answers and actually feels like a solid, well put together short story but it was one of the few. But this is exactly what I had expected from the other stories too, this is what I had expected from this book but instead that never happened.

Not to mention that there are certain questions from the TID&TMI series that I had expected to be answered in TBC and none of them were in fact addressed. The most pressing one (for me personally) being: Why did the witchlight change colour in City of Lost Souls?

I am aware that a lot of the issues I have with this book might be of a personal matter but what it really comes down to is that Cassie Clare has been so clever in her previous series, both series complimented each other but this time it was like TBC was written completely separate and without much thought of what was written before. It almost felt like it was written by a stranger with no knowledge of anything that had previously happened.


On the plus side, one of my favourite couples in the book series was Malec (Magnus & Alec) and I was treated to three more stories that gave me more insight in their relationship and even treated me to a story of their first date. It was cute and charming and it made me happy to read more about my favourite couple.

All in all, I liked the book. Magnus Bane is one of my all time favourite characters and he has some really nteresting friends, especially the immortal ones. I just expected more.




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