ŷ������

We already had the stuff with Helen so wasn't that enough advertisement for Dark Artifices? Apparently not.

And so the lady kept her boy close to her side, kept this beautiful creature who swore his fealty to her, and when her sister lay claim to the other, the lady let him be taken away, for he was nothing.
Is this supposed to endear her to us?
The lady set the useless brother free and allowed him to believe he had freed himself.
Wow....

But I know your blood doesn’t define you. What defines you is the choices you make.
Sorry, not based on what was presented in this series.But if this weren't enough, we get some narrator story that basically says that everything Helen knew about her mother was wrong, that some other faerie tortured her uncle and she truly loved her father. But you know "lie to protect him."
BS!!!!!

Helen just exploded in front of Simon with her emotional baggage... and Magnus telling private stuff to strangers in COB was considered dumb. Also "If you really loved Aline, you would do everything you can to hold on to her" is confusing obsession with love.
And the title is from a poem by Keats, that is quoted here and includes I saw pale kings and princes too... so... where were they here?

Like I’m remembering two different things at the same time. Sometimes one seems more real, sometimes the other does. Sometimes everything is blurry.
That is not how memory loss works. Not to mention that he remembers Jordan but not Isabelle. And Isabelle's "of course you remember Clary" is idiotic as well as she knows they were best friends. Plus Clary actually put in some effort here.

“This stupid weapons-shopping idea. Last time I take dating advice from Jace.��
Ok, this is not Isabelle and that is not Simon. This is totally OOC for both. She even states dating Jace would be disgusting when in COB she said the direct opposite. Not to mention that of course this story had to bring up the great love between Jace and Clary. That and the idiotic Naruto and D&D reference.

Simon had always considered himself a man of words, as opposed to a man of deeds...His mother liked to say he could talk her into almost anything.
Really? Are we sure, this is the same Simon from TMI?
And I am not sure what the "trying to defend J. J. Abrams to a hard-core Trekkie: hopeless" is supposed to to with Isabelle's statements about why so many Shadowhunters don't trust faeries except for ridicule?

So Simon is already "proficient with every weapon she’d named?" And apparently back home he was for gun control and had many rants about it? Well that was never even hinted at before. And if Clary is as passionate about her sword as Isabelle is about her whip, maybe there is something in the genes.
And why does the seller in Idris wear "spiky Mohawk and a faded Arcade Fire T-shirt"?

animals in Idris behaved differently from how they did back home, almost as if they could understand what their humans wanted and, if you asked nicely enough, were willing to deliver
When did that became part of Idris? It was never mentioned before, not even the Codex...oh right, someone tries to be "magical" here by making this up as they go along.

“Too many memories is not exactly my problem.��
Really? Could have fooled me there.
And you could have fooled me in thinking that Alicante would not be neutral dating territory. Or fooled me into thinking that Catarina Loss would rather do hospital work than be a teacher, then again, using her is easier than creating a new warlock, right?