You know what? I think Cassandra Clare should be proud she shat out this atrocity to the name of literature. I say this because she's inspired so many beautiful, hilarious, positively vitriolic reviews - nay, essays on the subject of this insipid, overly-elongated monstrosity, which are far, far more thorough and captivating than this novel was. I don't even want to refer to it as a novel. It's more akin to a brick - a characterless, mind-numbing brick. I could murder a small rodent with this thing merely by accidentally dropping it, only I don't endorse murdering animals in any situation, and if I were ever outright forced to do such a thing, I would consider it an insult to the poor creature's modesty to have it slaughtered by this book. 
 Where do I begin? 
 Firstly, this book is bigger than my face. I don't consider that a good thing. It's like that dumb joke people did in primary school where some poor, gullible kid would fall for the "if your hand is bigger than your face you're really intelligent!" trick, and then inadvertently slap themself in the nose at the mercy of a cackling peer. Honestly, you'd do the equivalent of such a thing just by putting yourself through reading this book. Just slap yourself in the face for all seven-hundred-and-thirty-three pages this thing comprises, then shed a little tear for the poor trees that were sacrificed (probably to Satan) to get it printed. 
 Yeah, I didn't like it very much. There are definitely a couple of reasons it has taken me eight months to drag myself through it. 
 At points, I could see the appeal. It was kind of like seeing a diamond ring a dog had eaten, just glinting very slightly in its subsequent glistening turd. It's easily accessible fantasy babble, and I can get down with some fantasy babble, believe me. But I jam with the good fantasy babble: fantasies that grip me, and that make sense, and that create a world that doesn't appear in my mind as fuzzy and discoloured, like old dishwater at a campsite. I hark to another fantasy series: Discworld, by the late, great Terry Pratchett - funnily enough, one whom Clare previously plagiarised the works of. His novels are snarky, clever, and mind-bogglingly original. His books tell true, good ol'-fashioned adventure stories. Clare hasn't a hope in hell of achieving such a thing; she's too busy writing about Jace's abs, and Jace's skin, and Jace's ten-inch schlong. 
 Clare really should've taken the advice my high school History teacher gave us when it came to our exams: KISS. Keep It Simple, Stupid. 
 I know it's supposed to be the epic final battle with a load of tension and drama and all that bullcrap, but she didn't deliver. If you're not creaming yourself for Jace, or for the all the yaoi drawings of Malec that are inevitably on DeviantArt, and if you don't buy into Clary and Izzy's "girl power" bullshit (much like myself), it does nothing for you. It was like the Star Wars prequels in many regards: a bunch of pretty people stand around pouting dramatically and talking about what they're going to do without ever actually doing so. It's bland. It's heartless. It fails miserably at being captivating in the slightest because it's so all over the place. I barely even knew who half the characters were, and that doesn't make for the grandest attention span in the world on my part. 
 Also, every paragraph ends with some kind of wham-line that's probably supposed to get you hyped for when that plot point eventually gets dredged back up again later (KISS, Cassie, KISS), but it's just unnecessary and forced. Confiscate all writing tools from this woman, please, for the sake of humanity. Plus, she uses the phrase "British accent," and I hate this with a passion. There is no such thing as a British accent. Britain is four separate countries. The accent you are looking for is probably an English accent, more specifically the Received Pronunciation of the London-Cambridge-Oxford triangle as is presented in the international media most frequently. It's really not that difficult, and for someone who's written a book series set in England, these kinds of discrepancies should not fly. 
 That's another thing: the grammar is atrocious. Or should that be "The grammar is atrocious" with a capital T? Because this book could not bloody decide whether it wanted capital letters after colons or not. It changed every single goddamn time there was a colon - and fuck me, there were a lot of bloody colons. 
 The entire thing read like Clare was just writing fanfiction about her own characters. It was all fanfiction and fanservice and bullshit which shows no creative integrity to me whatsoever, because from what I gather, she tied everything up nicely enough with the third book. So why did she write another three? Was it for those six-figure damn paychecks, perchance? I'll admit, I skipped editions two to five, but can you really blame me? I don't want to fuel a corporate money laundering scheme, so feel free to punch me if I so much as touch one of these abhorrences again. 
 Heavenly Fire didn't even read like it was proofread, either. Some of it just didn't make any bloody sense at all. The only parts that seemed as if some effort had been put into it was all of the goddamn ~sexy times~ scenes, further promoting my point that Clare published fanfiction she wrote about her own characters. She's making millions and she doesn't even know how to creatively integrate new characters into a book. She just slaps them straight on top, makes it r e a l l y o b v i o u s she's gonna write a new series of overly-long trite about them, and probably pats herself on the back and goes for a coffee break. 
 I loathe anything with a lack of creative integrity. If your story is finished, leave it. If you tied everything up, leave it. If the only other story you could tell is stretched out and diluted to the point it doesn't function as a story, then fucking leave it. This book is soulless, consumer-driven garbage, written for the sole purpose of getting those damn six-figure paychecks, and that pisses me off. Should we allow this, really? There are a million stories out there waiting to be told, but who fucking cares when you can buy yourself a gold-plated toilet seat and wipe your arse with the megabucks your devoted and delusional fans freely give to you, even though you've built a career on never even creating your own original characters? Seriously? 
 And if I had to force out one positive? 
 Cassie uses the word "blaze" a lot, so you can make funny and immature cannabis jokes. If I gave enough of a fuck, I'd try and find an example from the piece of shit book to quote here, but I'm not opening that horrific object ever again in my life for fear of inducing a brain haemorrhage. 
 Half a star for the easy weed jokes. This book can burn.