God, “Handbook For Mortals” is such a good title... just for a different book. When I hear that title, I imagine a story about an immortal who’s been around for a long time and resents it (which is a common trope common), and for whatever reason they’re writing this (in universe) memoir/guide/whatever about all the things they’ve seen throughout humanity, and what they think the rest of the population, the mortals, should do or know or focus on or something. Things like keeping your loved ones close, or pushing through in the face of adversity, that sort of thing. All of the tips/notes/observations/whatever could frame the actual plot which is... something. Or maybe they’re all attached to memories/anecdotes that this immortal has lived through, and this story tells us about the immortal main character through that. I dunno. Something to think about.

the more books he reads, the mightier his throne becomes. truly, the king of books.

An adult woman, in her adult book, for adult readers, wrote the phrase "H-E-double-hockey-sticks."

Excuse me, did you mean "My Immortal", the BEST fanfiction ever written? Stop flaming, prep.

She... made out with... a younger version of her dad??

Book: *Builds tension* Me: He's her dad. Book: *Builds tension* Me: He's her dad. Book: *Builds tension* Me: He's her dad. Book: *Builds tension* Me: He's her dad. Krimson: He's her dad. Me: YoU dOn'T sAy?!

Mary Sue and Gary Stu fight: All three of Onion's protags vs. Empress Theresea vs. Zade GO

This book gives me “40 year old woman babbles about what she wishes her 20’s were like because she never got to leave her small home town in Missouri for the big city like she truly wanted to in her heart” vibes.

"Because everything spelled with a k is that much better" - Yes, KrimsonRouge, yes indeed.

Happiness is KrimsonRogue verbally tearing apart an awful book

"Stop flirting. Your daughter is dying." is what I would say if I cared.

The saddest thing is "Handbook for Mortals" would've been a great title for a Terry Pratchet-style comedy.

"And they live happily ever after...OR DO THEY??" I'm crying. Why the hell did she think that'd be a good way to end the book?

You know... Realizing this was originally a screenplay makes sense with the long character introductions. They're notes for auditions, most likely, crammed in.

Krim: "There's a little ritual to revive Zade" Me: "Oh god, don't say they turned the thermostat up again..."

Zade: my mother is an amazing storyteller Me: then why didn't she write this book

As a 25 year old all I think about are boys too... they just happened to be dogs

Don’t forget, Carrot Top is in this book

I have to say, I can’t imagine interacting with my father in ANY way that someone could misconstrue as romantic, and my father and I are exceptionally close. That isn’t usually an easy mistake to make, so either Zade and Charlie have a SUPER creepy relationship or Mac jumps to conclusions with VERY little, or most likely, Sarem is a super shitty writer.

"..and Zade steps out. ...sigh... STEP FOURTEEN" you fucking got me with that one my dude

that isn't ancient text, thats really shittily google translated (serbo-)croatian. im appauled and i wanna cry.

when he read bad books written by bad writers they all sound the same, because good books read different from each other.

I looked her up and she looks exactly like Zade on the cover, hair and everything. It’s... creepy. She’s trying to make her own self insert fanfic movie.

The Grimoire of Controversies... "Claw of rat, wing of bee, Boil on the pot and you will see. From the salamander, fingers three, And cancelled on twitter you shall be."

I think she meant a foot- popping kiss, like in The Princess Diaries, but got it confused with knees buckling.

Her knees popping? I think she means her FOOT popping, as in popping it up in the air. Also THE PRINCESS DAIRIES ALREADY DID THAT BIT AND DID IT BETTER!

Remember, men: Make that spine snap or she won't call you back.

okay, this book is altogether awful, but are you telling me that Zade actively gets kissed by the teenage version of HER FATHER in this illusion that THEY PLANNED TOGETHER????

MAC DESERVES BETTER! LET HIM DATE HIS BUDDY! SOPHIA DESERVES BETTER!!! She was a performer and one of the big ones before Zade marry sued herself into the situation!

After Step 13: "Holy crap, what the heck was any of that?!" Step 14 "Wait... *we're not done yet?!"* After Step 19 "That was no magic trick: that was an interpretive improv version of MadLibs! What the heck was any of this?!?!"

It's so weird that she basically wrote Jackson Rathbone, a real person she worked with, into this book. I can only assume she had a crush on him. Does he know about this? This is more cringey than Anna Todd publishing a Harry Styles fanfic where he's an abusive asshole.

In all honesty the title "handbook for mortals" sounds like a book i'd enjoy writing. You take the perspective of a young adult who temporarily moves to an old house in the middle of nowhere for the low costs and to focus on his art and other hobbies before his first year of college. Considering the isolation his breaks from practice consist of exploring the woods and the house. In the attic and guarded in a large chest is a book detailing a mortal girls experience being raised by a witch and learning how to see the magic hidden in plain site and all she encountered. The young man soon finds that he can't look away from its pages and finds cracks in what he thought was reality. I'm sure there's a story that can be written off this lol

“That’s why murder mysteries are so great, that’s why cop shows.... keep getting made.”

Note the deep descriptions of every male in the book along with Zaid herself, and there are barely any descriptions of the other women, besides being jealous or vain. Not to mention the infamous lemonade scene where Zade bullied a teenager.

A thought I had about the BIG SHOW is they could had her mom come and we get her pov. Have her realize the chaos magic is at work and noticing her anchor was gone. The building panic as crowd cheers would have been interesting

Missed opportunities: - Mack mispronounces the spell during the ritual and Zade turns into an eldritch monster, multiple eyes, tentacles, toxic drool, the work. But Zade can't understand not being the prettiest of the pretties so the rest of story stays the same. So you get to imagine the stupid dialogues and cheesy ending but eldritch Zade. You're welcome. Or: - We discover that all the useless yet too present secondary characters (shop girl, the show magician, Sofia, etc) are in fact members of a secret organisation trying to gather proof of Zade-magical-girl-the-best-ever-heart-emoji careless use of magic to get her thrown in magical jail. Or or: - The ritual works but the cost of saving Zade is that she looses her magical appeal to men. Which sounds stupid but could make for some good character development. Bonus idea: the second is the love story between Lamborghini girl and (possibly tetraplegic) bicycle dude.

*10 years time, the throne has become the entire room and all you can hear is a muffled review of an off brand version of a KZfaqr's book.* also 44:00 was a bigger red-herring than the entire book...

The ancient text is actually in croatian and most of it is not nonsene. In fact in english it reads as, "with this dagger, permeated with the magic of the ancients, and my faith, may love reverse the curse I resurrect the spirit, soul and body Via Gardrich Verdicy" the last three words mean absolutely jack shit.

I would say Zade has the IQ of a brick but that's insulting bricks.

It's such a small point but I truly cannot get over Mac's replacement guy being named Cam. Like that's just his name backwards.

the book throne expands and so does my love for krimsonrogue

And now the Handbook for Mortals review is finally over . . . OR IS IT?

I got a quote to open this book: "If you promise not to expect anything, I promise not to disappoint you." - Lani Sarem

I can’t help but notice that the author’s appearance in Trailer Park Shark is exactly how she describes how her self insert character looks in this book (so dull that I cannot even remember her name and I’m too bored of this book to search around the video again to hear it) but older. So my headcannon is that Trailer Park Shark takes place in the same universe as Handbook for Mortals and that’s just what happens to her after the end of the book.

"you heartless bint" man that insult is way underused these days, good to hear it again

I’m not going to admit to how long I thought his shirt said ‘The Rock was better’

So the whole reason that Zade got a guaranteed job at the theatre with the audition as nothing but a formality was nepotism? Uh-huh, got it.

I'm still losing my mind over the fact that Sarem seems to believe that the word "mortal" is equivalent to "not magic." No. It's not. "Mortal" means "able to die," hence its antonym, "immortal," or "unable to die." A better word would be something along the lines of "mundane," but of course, "Handbook for Mundanes" sounds far less snappy, no? (Sidenote: the perspective of an immortal person who's had to watch centuries go by and everything around them wither and die only to be replaced is actually a really cool narrative. Too bad Sarem can't open a dictionary. Or write.)

Thanks to how KR does dialogue, I am now picturing Zade as Empress Theresa. What? They both have an obsession with their hair.

Me: Alright, it’s 2AM, better go to sleep *Handsome nerd Jesus uploads* Me: Sleep is for the weak

A group of online friends and I riffed this book around when it came out on Google Docs, and I have a whole thing of other notes. * I've done research on tarot, and can confirm that most of the tarot allusions via the chapter titles don't match up with their contents. The only one that really does is the Tower for the _massive_ chapter that starts the third act. And yes, they are out of order; the Hermit is number 9. * One of us did theater in college iirc, and confirmed that most of the stage stuff done in the book is just wrong. Among many _many_ other things, the grid is _not_ the best place to watch the show, because the _grid_ is in the way. * Another one of us used the fact that Charles and Mac are names in the book to make a lot of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia" jokes. * Our favorite character was Lamborghini Girl (though due to the sequence of jokes, we called her "Liquid No"). The fact she's sequel bait helped, because the author couldn't then ruin the awesomeness of her attacking Zade and getting away with it. I'm especially fond of her because her Lamborghini was my favorite color. * We concluded the time period of this book is half-past negative 15 o'clock, because by the time iPhones came out, the Plain White Ts already had a label and at least two albums. It took ten minutes of Google to figure this out. * We did _not_ catch on to the relationship between Mac and Zade paralleling his previous relationship as it looked more and more like she was dating Charles. Though we did catch that the Creation trick included Zade kissing a teenage version of her father. Also, I was surprised you didn't mention in their last conversation before said trick, Zade namedrops Mac's last relationship in, in this new context, the absolute _worst_ way. We were split about whether or not the trick going wrong was Mac's fault, with me on the side of it wasn't, and this just makes it more obvious it's not. Witches in this universe are just utterly incapable of clear communication. * You want to see the author ramble on, you should see the acknowledgements section at the end. We used the default paper size in a 10-point font, and it took up at least _five_ pages before we even added riffs. With some names being _repeated_. Despite being the only part the author said she edited.

I once solved the murder in an episode of “Rizole & Isles” from the scene before the credits started. I had who he was, how he was connected to Rizole, who killed him, why they killed him & how they killed him. Mum was shocked & said “you should be a detective”. I replied with “No I shouldn’t. I don’t know anything about murder, I’ve just watched a lot of TV”. That feels like the thinking behind this author “I represent creative people so I’m a creative expert person too!”

Now that your book throne is almost complete, when will the construction of your book court hall and keep begin?

Krimson, for the love of god and everything that's holy, you NEED to make a collab with Caleb Joseph one day. Your approach to books may be a little different, but you're both reviewing them in such a refreshing, yet sophisticated and funny way, I need to see this happen one day. Please, with cherries on top. Edit: I actually realized you namedrop him at the end - well, you have no excuses now.

Why the hell did Sarem choose "Handbook for Mortals" as the title for her book that very clearly is not intended as a *handbook for mortals*? What a waste of a nice name. And of a nice idea, too.

When books like Twilight, 50 Shades, and After all got movie deals and this poorly written self-insert fanfiction didn't, you can come to the safe conclusion that Hollywood does indeed have a threshold for poorly written self-insert fanfiction.

The book throne grows as the quality of the reviewed book plummets

WRITING FOR THE KRIMSON ROGUE! BOOKS FOR THE BOOK THRONE!!! In all seriousness, books like that (and Onision's "writing", and many, many others) have at least some positive quality: they made me lose any insecurities concerning my own writing. I know that existence of poor books doesn't excuse shoddy craftsmanship and giving up on self-improvement, but still: things like THAT get published. I could legitimately name hundreds of better fanfics.

28:28 ah yes, my favorite way to "teach a lesson" to someone that was rude, attempted homicide

Right as a Brit the term "pop" is more like when something dislocates rather than her knee bending as I think it being described, so I'm just here screaming until that was clarified...

The red herring even has a plot hole all to itself: If Charles is her father, then why does she refer to him BY NAME? Not "dad"? Plus, Zade mentions that mages aren't allowed to mix. But Spellman isn't a mage. So...it's already been done. Unless mages are born randomly and not genetically, in which case, what's the harm in mixing?

So you're telling me that Zade's trick goes as far as to bring a new person nobody's seen before from the ether or the past or whatever.... and nobody in the show itself questions who it is? Let alone props like the wardrobe. Wouldn't someone like Mac question where Zade actually keeps the infinite wardrobes and statues of herself? Like the magic excuse works for the audience, but the people in the show have to set all this stuff up beforehand. Wouldn't they think it's weird that the longest trick involving the most intricate props having none of said props literally anywhere and requiring no setup whatsoever? Depending on how often the show is done Zade should have a massive closet just filled with wardrobes, statues, and even fully grown trees. The "yada yada it's real magic" shtick doesn't work when the people who are supposed to be the behind the scenes have absolutely no idea what's going on. Like... even if Spellman is her dad, is he just gonna tell everybody to not worry about the most expensive trick in magic history? Let alone who the random teenager who shows up is? And that's not even going into what'll happen if anybody looks into safety measures or company salary when they're down a person 99.99% of the time. Shock and awe is all well and good but given the world building (or lack thereof) this is supposed to be just like the real world from the perspective of all the behind the scenes folk and workers. And all the things pulled (quite literally) out of Zade's ethereal ass raise questions to the Nth degree that can't be solved by Spellman just saying "Don't worry about it she's cool you guys." If all the men weren't rendered incompetent by her presence and all the women degraded to window dressing by the author then she'd immediately get kicked out, have the show shut down, or expose magic is real.

You know, this only occurred to me just now, but the last quarter of the book - the part when Zade is in a coma - would've been a bit more interesting if the story had established some sort of astral projection ability. Like Krimson said, the fact that Zade "pulled memories" later down the line gives away that she survives the ordeal. If Zade could project her astral body outside her physical body, that could allow her to continue narrating in real-time and maintain some amount of suspense. There would still be a looming possibility of her dying. Maybe her astral form is invisible to everyone else and can't directly interact with them. Sure, this would mean giving this bitch yet another superpower, but imagine the possibilities this would've opened without killing the tension!

I had the fortune of running into the author at a convention. I had no prior knowledge of her book and tend to be a very quiet peruser in the vendor's hall. The cover art drew me to her both like a fly to a trap. The moment i walked up it felt like i was at a used car lot being sold a car with questionable mileage, Words fell out of her mouth so fast all I could do was nod as i tried to read the book's summary. She told me "Its currently in production to be a blockbuster, If you buy a book today I'll sign it and It'll be worth a lot in the future!" I just nodded, put the book down and walked away. This happened THIS YEAR.

How do you make a book about magic and witches where NOTHING happens? That's the biggest sin of this self-insert drivel. Not that it's bad, but that it's BORING! The big climax is trying to get the protagonist to quit taking a nap!

Wait, did I miss something? Zade said something about not "mixing" with mortals, but has Spellman (her father) been labeled as a Magi? Isn't that breaking the 'code' Zade thinks super important? Edit 2: Spellman ISN'T a Magi, so mommy dearest "mixed". That could've been a more interesting idea to follow as to why Zade's powers are wildly inconsistent. Edit 1: an illusion that takes more than 5 steps should be illegal, and it had nothing to do with "creation" Edit 3: Ugh, that ENDING...!!

This book has the same problem as Twilight, where there are magical people living in the modern day world who are so ridiculously powerful that it doesn't make sense why they would bother living in secrecy because no one would be able to threaten them if they were revealed.

“Definition: 'Love' is making a shot to the knees of a target 120 kilometers away using an Aratech sniper rifle with a tri-light scope. Love is knowing your target, putting them in your targeting reticule, and together, achieving a singular purpose against statistically long odds.” This was spoken mind you by an unfeeling assassin droid. Better definition of love than a published author’s.

Rough translation of Mac's incantation when reviving Zade: "With this dagger, permeated with the magic of the elders and my faith, let love turn this curse around (and resurrect the spirit, soul and body Via Gardich Verdicy.)" This seems like a mix between Serbian and another slavic sounding language. The text in parentheses is an estimate, because it doesn't look gramatically correct. The Via Gardich Verdicy is totally lost on me...

The spell at the end is in serbian. But veeeery bad serbian, google translate kind.. And it doesn't even make sense.. I've never heard of serbian being used for any kind of magic casting, really weird if you ask me..

i literally thought of a better magic trick to build up then the 3 page long one that they did, and it would be a trick that would require magic to work. They do a levitating trick, but instead they levitate the audience. Not only is that a huge feat and would absolutely amaze everyone there, but its also a trick that can't be done any other way.

It's hilarious how much Zade acts like a fourteen year old girl despite the fact she's supposed to be in her twenties 👀

I knew there was gonna be a jojoke at the beginning of the “The World“ chapter xD

The depressing thing is this could’ve become a hit, just because a book sells a ton of copies doesn’t mean it’s good. The New York Times bestseller list isn’t always a measure for literary quality.

25:30 WHAT?? That would be such an incredible plot point! Imagine Zade and Rene accidentally discovering each other's magic and bonding over it! Talking about how hard it is to keep secret and sharing techniques! They could become each other's confidantes, able to trust each other more than anyone else and connect on a deeper level! OR they could become rivals, Rene could also be attracted to one of the love interests/get a bunch of attention because magic! How does this only get a single throwaway line?!?!

I read tarot cards pretty frequently, and ironically using the major arcana for each chapter name could have been a fantastic tool for figuring out what each chapters tension or plot would be. She was so close, yet so far.

As a scriptwriter, I can vouch that even as a script this would be badly written because you're not allowed to be that demand or direct on how you want the actors to portray the character or so specific about what they look like, those are generally directions that need to be left up to the director/producer.

At this point I'm starting to think Krim is just a masochist.

I'm so mad because not only did she wreck my favorite trope in life (the defrosting ice king/queen - seriously that is the entire point of hating to befriending characters like Mac and Sofia) but like this isn't a terrible concept for a book I'd read about some naive southern Belle witch girl going to the big city Las Vegas in search of her true father, while performing in a magic show to disguise the fact that she actually has magic while some bigger event is hinted in the background Like I write those types of stories for my 'pilot' books I love them,

The author of this book reminds me of a little girl whose daddy told her that she would be a movie star when she grew up and so the next day at school she excitedly told all of her classmates and teachers that she was gonna be a movie star.

The way Sarem writes is treating us like we just woke up from a coma and she's spoon-feeding us literally every detail or else we'd be completely lost.

The unreadable text is partially understandable in southern Slavic languages. It can be translated to: "With this dagger, imbued with ancient magic, and my faith, may the love remove the curse and arise spirit, soul and body" Via Gardrich Verdicy. The "Ja" threw me off until I remembered that "i" in southern Slavic languages means "and" in English, while "Ja" means "I" in English, and Google translate is not always reliable, as when I wrote some school papers for German, it first translated my text to English and then to German, which looses some context.

So... The big twist of the book is that she ran from her mother house and instead of living on her own, she got a job at her dad show . It does explain why no one bat an eye to her magic and got no repercussion to using it for weeks in a way...

Zade and Theresa need to pair up in the ultimate Mary-Sue crossover.

So during a rare day where I actually access my Facebook, I looked up what Lani Sarem was doing considering she's there promoting her book too. Apparently she was going around ren faires and seemed to be strongarming people to pose for photos with her book.

"Chaos magic?" What is she, the Scarlet Witch?!

I love "Grievous tone." His tone is causing great harm? It is a grievous injury to dialog? It is said in the tones of a deathly ill four-armed cyborg?

"Until my knee popped." As someone whose knee easily dislocates, that is NOT "a very good thing."

Ok, so I’ve noticed something while watching these reviews. Sarem’s book is written EXACTLY like a Wattpad book. To a T. The “show don’t tell” thing, over explaining things, fully writing out the lyrics of a song they’re singing, and terrible love triangles happen all the time in those books.

The only other time I've ever seen Show And Tell this common is The Room. I've never seen it in a book before. Fascinating.

The only thing that makes me truly mad about this book is its title. It's a truly great title and a shame that she used it only for a throw away line at the very end. When I think of a title like Handbook For Mortals, i think of a book that starts out as a handbook, perhaps with notes in the margins that start to tell a story, one person giving tips to another. Until it turns into a diary of sorts, either for the person or as the author's only way to tell their story before they'll be killed for their Magik or some other offence. Not some 20 something stringing along several men and being lavished with praise she didn't really earn. There is literally No mention of any actual handbook.

Maybe it's just me, but I think a better way to handle the big misunderstanding would have been something like this: For the next few days, as we made final preparations for the grand illusion, Mac had been acting... strange around me - _off_ . Any time I walked up to him to strike-up a conversation, he'd always be too busy for a chat - more focused on his work than on anything else (even on jobs that seemed too trivial to put so much attention on). Other times, he would completely ignore my existence, and always change the subject whenever I begin talking. My suspicions were confirmed when he up and left the area when I joined into a conversation he was having with one of the stagehands. He _had_ been ignoring me - purposely, even. But why? Had I upset him in some way? Mac had always been volatile - always wearing his heart on his sleeves. Was he still upset about my dinner with Spellman? Was he jealous of me spending more time with Jackson? He made it no secret about how he got burned from last relationship - how he was used by the girl he thought the world of. Part of me wanted to believe we had moved passed that. Had I truly done something wrong, or was Mac seeing things that weren't there? I had to know for sure. I managed to catch him in the dressing room. He was putting costumes away, trying to look busy. As I closed the door behind me so he couldn't escape, I took in a deep breath, mentally preparing myself. "Can we talk, Mac?" I asked in a firm tone. His whole body tensed at my voice, fully turning his back to me. I could tell he had crossed his arms, closing himself off to me. My frown deepened. "You've been ignoring me for the past few days. What's up?" His body tensed even further, sticking his nose up in the air like he was too good for my time. I was starting to lose my patience, but I couldn't let myself make the situation any worse than it already was. I took a careful step forward. "Could we please talk like grown-ups for 2-seconds?" "Why?!" Mac growled as he spun around towards me, pain and rage flashing behind his eyes. "Just so you can lie to me about you sleeping around with everyone else?" I took a step back. I felt as though I had been slapped in the face. "S-sleeping around? What are you talking about?" He scoffed, pointing an accusatory finger at me. "Don't pretend I don't know what's going on with you and Spellman, Zade! The two of you have been spending alot more time together than normal - having dinner together when you said you were working." "He's our boss, Mac," I pointed out in a blunt tone, "and I don't think it's unusual if he decides to take one of us out for dinner." "He was more than just your boss in his office!" "What are you talking about?" "Are you kidding me?" Mac exclaimed as he rolled his eyes. "Just the other day, I saw the two of you kissing and making-out in his office. His little 'Starlet', remember? How he loved you more than life itself, remember?" He leaned forward, expecting some reaction out of me. I broke my gaze from him, looking off to the side in thought. What was Mac talking about - me kissing Spellman in the office? Suddenly, it dawned on me. I knew exactly what he was talking about, now. "It's not what you think it is," I assured him, placing a hand on his arm. He bristled at my touch. "Oh yeah?" he questioned, raising a skeptical eyebrow. "Then what is it, Zade? If there's nothing else going on between you two, what reason would you have to use tongues?" I nearly choked at the imagery Mac was suggesting. "That's disgusting! Why would you say such a thing?" "Because it's true!" He was fuming at this pointing. "What other reason would you be able to get a position in the production?" "It's" - I hesitated for a moment, shaking, and unsure how to proceed - "complicated." "It can't be _that_ complicated, Zade!" "Mac, please!" "Tell me! How is it different?!" " *HE'S MY FATHER!* " I finally screamed in his face, shutting him up. Silence fell upon us soon after, furthering the gap between us. I may try and write a bit more for this scene if people want.

She's supposed to come from a real small town, right? If you take that as her not having many friends, or having friends "by default" (there's no one else to hang around with), you could do something interesting with her character with regardless arrested development and not having a lot of experience with any kind of relationship outside the familial. How many times have you known someone who seemed stuck up, full of themselves or cold, only for you to get to know them better and find out that they're actually just very shy or [socially] awkward? I actually feel like her character could be very easily salvaged if the author played up her lack of self-awareness and, upon understanding the consequences, trying to make amends. We're already partway there; the whole situation with the "mean girl" already reads as Zade not fully understanding or appreciating how lucky her break was and upon realising it trying to help out someone else. And so much about the situation with the guy could be resolved (or rather make sense *and* provide dramatic tension) as her not having a great understanding of boundaries and lacking experience with friendships. That would make a relationship between them, romantic or platonic kind of interesting and something they both have to work at and have conflict with; she's trying to respect his boundaries without overcompensating and he's having to manage his expectations and reactions to certain things. Like, she might be jerking him around without realising that she's doing it, but it's still hurtful. But him just lashing out at her/telling not to do certain things isn't necessarily going to help her understand why it upset him.

1:07:53 "I don't have time to sugarcoat this." Dela said firmly. "I'm going to give you a knife and you need to stab Zade." "There isn't really a way to sugarcoat this, but..." Dela took a breath to calm herself. "We need to sacrifice my daughter at midnight." Dela looked between Zade and Charles, looking uncertain of herself for the first time since Mac met her. "We... I'm going to give you a knife--not a knife, it's magic--but I'll give it to you--" "You need to stab my daughter." Charles interrupted. Dela's expression hardened. "Charles, go get the red tome from the left shelf. You," she pointed at Mac. "Have a lot to learn in the next two hours if you want to save my daughter." How hard was that? All of Dela's wordiness just detracts from the scene's tension. Get to the point Sarem!

You put more work and effort in reviewing this book than there was initially writing the thing.

Also, gotta love the way that Lani credits herself as 'Hotel Guest', 'Conventioneer' and (chortle!) 'Siren' on those three films where she was purely an EXTRA. Talk about delusions of grandeur...

I legit wanna play a D&D game with Krimson, he seems like he'd be fun to play with. Bet he plays rogues.

You're going to be tackling Midnight Sun next? You are one brave soul.

Actually pretty easy to understand why nobody warned Zade against using chaos magic. Whether they admit it or not, they all hate her and want her dead. I can relate.

Fan of the Mortal Instruments book series here to clarify. The first book in the series, City of Bones, sets up the relationship between Clary and Jace but at the end it was revealed that Jace was Clary's brother. In the third book, City of Glass, it's revealed that Jace is not actually her brother, Valentine (Clary's dad and main villain of the first three books) lied. The whole reason these twists exist is to put drama on the relationship. Throughout the second and third book, Clary is confused on whether her feelings for Jace are romantic or sibling based. And when she believes her feelings are romantic, she tries to get over them because she knows it isn't right to love your sibling. That's why revealing the twist in the movie is bad, because it takes away all the drama in the relationship. There is a lot more that goes into this, I'm just simplifying it. Their romance also suffers in the later half of the book series, when it's just them struggling to have sex for magically reasons (I literally can not remember because their struggles just become so boring). Anyone else who's read the series, feel free to comment, I could be misremembering things. Alec and Magnus are the best relationship in the book series and that's just the tea.