Please note: This review has spoilers for City of Heavenly Fire. If you haven’t read it yet then I suggest not reading on until you have!
Summary
Simon Lewis has been a human and a vampire, and now he is becoming a Shadowhunter. But the events of City of Heavenly Fire left him stripped of his memories, and Simon isn't sure who he is anymore. He knows he was friends with Clary and that he convinced the total goddess Isabelle Lightwood to go out with him… but he doesn't know how. And when Clary and Isabelle look at him, expecting him to be a man he doesn't remember… Simon can't take it.
So when the Shadowhunter Academy reopens, Simon throws himself into this new world of demon-hunting, determined to find himself again. His new self. Whomever this new Simon might be.
But the Academy is a Shadowhunter institution, which means it has some problems. Like the fact that non-Shadowhunter students have to live in the basement. And that differences—like being a former vampire—are greatly looked down upon.
Review
Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy (TftSA) is one of my favourite Shadowhunter books. If you don't know, it is a series of ten stories from Simon's POV (mostly) as he goes through the Shadowhunter Academy after the events in City of Heavenly Fire. It follows him as he tries to remember what went on before he had his memories taken and who he is now and into the future. Many of the characters from the other books in the Shadowhunter world walk through the stories. My favourite story involved Magnus and Alec!
I spent a lot of my time giggling my way through the stories. It has a lot of the humour that we love in Cassandra Clare's books. It didn't help that I tried to read George's dialogue in a Glaswegian accent (99% of the time, I failed!).
I was glad that I read TftSA before I started the Dark Artifices. It fills in some of the information between the end of The Mortal Instruments and the beginning of Lady Midnight, and it just made it clearer for me.
I did get a little bored of Simon consistently mentioning his 'demon amnesia', it got to the point where I was like, we know Simon! Also, everyone kept telling him, and he told himself too, that it didn't matter; who he is now is different from who he had been.
My favourite of the stories was Born to Endless Night. I was laugh-crying as I read it.
It was fantastic to get a couple more tales from some of the characters' histories while also setting the scene for what could come about in the future.
I would suggest reading this after The Mortal Instruments series but before reading The Dark Artifices.