Review: Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy by Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson and Robin Wasserman

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For the last 10 months, Cassandra Clare, Robin Wasserman, Maureen Johnson and Sarah Rees Brennan have been treating us with Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy. A set of short stories that follows one of Clare’s heroes, Simon Lewis, as he tries to learn how to be a Shadowhunter. I wrote about it a little but after the first book, Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy, came out.  This week marked the release of the tenth and final story in the series.  For those who are not familiar with Simon or Clare’s Mortal Instruments series, let me catch you up.  *Spoilers* When we first met Simon in City of Bones he was just a normal teenage boy in love with his best friend Clary.  Throughout the series, he goes from normal boy to normal boy among supernaturals beings to becoming a supernatural being himself, a Vampire, saving the world and then returning to a normal teenage boy with no memory of the supernatural world or his friends.  That is where we are now.  Simon, has been once again become aware that vampire, werewolves, warlocks, fairies and Shadowhunters exist.  After the wars of the two Mortal Instruments books are over, the Shadowhunters are depleted in numbers so they have reopened their academy and invited children of Shadowhunters as well as a few Mundanes to Ascend and join their ranks.  That is what Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy is about.  In 10 shorts stories, we follow Simon and his fellow students as they learn how to fight like a Shadowhunter and how to be like a Shadowhunter.  Special appearances from other characters from the Mortal Instruments as well as Clare’s other series, The Infernal Devices and upcoming series’ The Dark Artifaces and The Last hours, we learn more about the history of the Shadowhunters but also clues into what to expect in her new series.  It’s really just a good excuse to fill in a few gaps between the end of The Mortal Instruments and beginning of The Dark Artifaces. Also to give Clare’s readers something to read since the last book, City of Heavenly Fire came out last year and Lady Midnight doesn’t come out until Spring of next year.  However, I don’t think you are going to hear much complaining from fans.  They were fun, quick reads that give more insights to how the Clave, who govern Shadowhunters work, also gave us more time to hang out with one my favorite characters, Simon.  As expected with a collection like this not all the stories were good.  I felt some they didn’t know what to they put together a quick story with a couple of fan favorites and call it a day but others I felt were worth it.  One story I liked a lot was Bitter of Tongue.  In it, Simon is kidnapped by fairies and is saved by Mark Blackthorn, who has been stuck with faries since the last book.  Mark, who is half Shadowhunter and half fairy and because of this and what happened in the last war, the Shadowhunters have left him there and banished his sister, Helen to exile.  When Simon comes back he goes to Helen’s wedding.  It’s a heartbreaking story as they are being punished for no other reason then an accident of both.  Truly relevant to what is going on in the world.  It also gives Simon more motivation to become a Shadowhunter and make a change from the inside.  You can buy all 10 stories individually as ebooks or you can wait until next year where they will be combined together but for fans for Clare’s work it’s a must.