Welcome to Shadowhunter Academy - by Cassandra Clare and Sarah Rees Brennan

Published: Feb 2015

Publisher: Margaret K McElderry Books

Pages: 78

Copy Provided by: Borrowed

Summary: Goodreads

Summary:

After living as a Mundane and a Vampire, Simon never thought he would become a Shadowhunter, but today he begins his training at Shadowhunter Academy.

Review:

Welcome to the Shadowhunter Academy is part of a series of 10 novellas written by Cassandra Clare and her fellow author friends.  They continue along the same vein, after the Dark War.  So if you have not read all 6 books in the Mortal Instruments series then it will definitely be difficult to follow along. 

****  THERE WILL BE SPOILERS **

So Simon is going to go to Shadowhunter Academy to try and find himself after trying to figure out where he stands after the war.  With all of his memories wiped from his head, he is finding it hard to fit back into real life with the friends and relationships he no longer remembers.  There are so many expectations of him yet he doesn't know how to react.

It was so sad to see Simon no remember anything but feel the onslaught of emotions and not understand them.  There was a quote from the book that phrased it perfectly - "...having emotions without the memories.  Simon felt like he was insane to have all of these feelings about strangers, without having them properly backed up by familiarity and experiences he could actually recall."

Early, after arriving at the Academy, Simon does connect with his roommate, George.  He has finally met someone who might be as geeky as himself!  Minus the t-shirts with geeky quotations and sayings.  While reading about the Academy, it felt vaguely like Hogwarts but with swords and deadly weapons rather than spell-casting.  Oh, and Hogwarts seemed to have a much better menu in the mess hall.

One character keeps coming into Simon's life - Isabelle. It was nice to see and I would love to see more of Isabelle's character come to light.  She is beautiful and cold and closed off but deep down she seems quite passionate and they make an interesting couple with weird dynamics that work.  Beauty and the Geek.  I hope the next few novellas bring her out a bit more.

Overall, an excellent start to this off-shoot from the series.  Yay Simon!

- Christinabean