Better in Black

I’m always happy to return to Clare’s Shadowhunter world, so Better in Black was a real treat. It offered the chance to catch up with familiar faces from across the various trilogies and timelines, while revisiting the vast world of the Shadowhunters: a secretive race of human-angel hybrids tasked with protecting humanity from demons and maintaining peace among supernatural beings. Longtime readers will find plenty of references, cameos and callbacks to appreciate.Naturally, there were some stories and characters I enjoyed more than others. There are certain characters I’ve always wanted to spend more time with, and the London Institute era remains my favourite part of the Shadowhunter world. Seeing some of those characters again, and later glimpsing their children in other stories, genuinely made me smile. It felt like catching up with old friends.That said, I did struggle with Will’s story. I just couldn’t quite believe he would do what he does, and the resolution felt a little too neat and rushed for me. Framing the collection as a chance to briefly time travel through different moments in the Shadowhunter world helped me accept it more easily, but his actions still didn’t feel entirely true to the character I came to know in The Infernal Devices.I think this collection is perfect for readers who love this world and are feeling a little emotional about its eventual conclusion with the upcoming final trilogy. It’s a lovely opportunity to spend a little more time with beloved characters, and you may even find yourself seeing some of the less popular ones in a different light. For me, that character was Luke. I often found him frustrating in the main series, but here I felt far more sympathy for him and came away with a better understanding of why he made some of the choices he did. There are stories that I didn’t necessarily like, and there were some I wanted so much more about because I felt that magic again as I was reading – like James and Cordelia entering Lucie’s The Beautiful Cordelia.I am so glad I got to go back for a little while with Better in Black and will at some point, re-read the many Shadowhunters books so I can be fully immersed in a world where magic lingers just out of reach.