The Shadowhunter’s Codex
Rating: 5/5
Buy or Borrow: Buy
Source: Bought
The essential guide
for all young Shadowhunters. Since the thirteenth century, the Shadowhunters'
Codex has been the one and only manual for Shadowhunters looking to brush up on
their demon languages, learn proper stele use and discover just what exactly a Pyxis
is. This is Clary's copy, and as an artist herself, she's sketched pictures of
her friends and family throughout the book, and scrawled helpful advice in the
margins. Of course, she couldn't exactly stop Jace or Simon from adding their
thoughts either. Read all the sensational books in The Shadowhunter Chronicles:
The Mortal Instruments, The Infernal Devices, and Tales from the Shadowhunter
Academy, The Bane Chronicles and The Shadowhunter's Codex.
If you know me, you’ll know that I’m an
absolutely huge fan of anything that
Cassandra Clare touches so this could lead to my review being slightly biased but I’ll try my best not
to be. This is a strange book to review, as it’s not really a “book” as such,
but I’ll do what I can.
The Shadowhunter’s Codex is a guide that
you’re supposedly given when you come of age and need to be enlightened on all
things Shadowhunter-y. (That’s not a word but we’ll pretend it is). As soon as
I saw the front cover of the book, I got excited. It’s simply beautiful and I’d
imagine if you got it in hardback (which I’ll probably invest in, in the
future), it would be even better. I’d say you should probably at least read the
first book in The Mortal Instruments/The Infernal Devices/Lady Midnight but it’s
not essential. The thing I love about these books is I’d say there’s not really
a specific target audience; like Harry Potter, the covers usually say
children/young adult but honestly? I’m 22 and I love these books just as much
as I did when I was 17.
The way in which this is written, is much
like a history book (sounds dull but stay with me…I hate history too!). It’s
brimming with information about the Shadow World and let’s face it, that can
never be boring but the best part of this book is the “revisions” that have
been added by Simon, Jace and Clary (3 of the main characters from Cassandra’s
series The Mortal Instruments).
Their side notes throughout the book are
downright hilarious. I’m not really one to laugh out loud at TV/movies/books,
but this had me giggling away to myself in my flat, on my own. To understand a
lot of the jokes, I’d suggest reading TMI first because honestly…it’s funny. I
was going to add a quote here but I don’t want to spoil a thing.
Anyway, let’s get into the content. It’s
divided into 8 sections: Introduction,
Treasury, The Arts, Bestiaire Part 1: Demonologie, Bestiaire Part 2:
Downworlders, Bestiaire Part 3: Angels and Men, Grimoire, “Sed Lex, Dura Lex” and Geographie. Each section is then
divided into subsections such as “What is a Shadowhunter?”, “What are Demons?”,
“The Forsaken” etc. I think this is the best part about the book as instead of
feeling like I had to read it in order, I just turned to the parts that I was
most interested in and read it that way.
I have seen a few negative reviews on this
book because of “spoilers” and “most of this you’ll learn from the books”. Yes,
there are spoilers. As I said, I’d read the books first but if you want to have
a quick read of what the series is based around, I think it’s a great idea and
yes, a lot of what’s in The Shadowhunter’s Codex is included in the series but
there’s so much more detail in here, along with the most beautiful illustrations
.
.
I would definitely
recommend this book as it’s informative, funny and based upon one of my
favourite series of books. Two words to describe this book: Shadowhunter Encyclopaedia…what
more could you ask for?
Side note: I have to add this whilst
I’m talking about TMI. In January, TMI was released as a TV series called
Shadowhunters…it’s one of my favourite TV/movie adaptations I’ve ever seen on
screen and I’d definitely recommend it…especially if you enjoyed this book.
No comments