City of Bones

Cassandra Clare

The Mortal Instruments #1

Summary:

There is a world hidden within our own.

Clary Fray is seeing things: vampires in Brooklyn and werewolves in Manhattan. Irresistibly drawn to the Shadowhunters, a secret group of warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons, Clary encounters the dark side of New York City – and the dangers of forbidden love.

In One Word: Controversial? (apparently I’m behind on the gossip about this book...oh well...)

Plot:

So, apparently you’re either supposed to love or hate this book, the haters are mainly angry because of some plagiarism problems in relation to Harry Potter. I did not know about this, nor did I notice it while I was reading, so honestly I don’t care about any of that. I was expecting this book to be a let-down after the Infernal Devices (which I loved), since that seems to be the overall opinion. I will say this, I do prefer the Infernal Devices (because, no matter how hot Jace is, he’s just no Will Herondale, I’m sorry). The story was okay, it wasn’t all that interesting, and I guessed the ending (again....do I have a superpower for guessing book endings? UGH!), but it wasn’t extremely hard to get into. The writing wasn’t as good as in the Infernal Devices, but it was easy to read and enjoyable enough. I will continue this series, because I think it will be interesting to see how the two series tie together.

Characters:

Here’s where my real problem with this book came in. Now before I say this, I do realise that this book was probably written before the Infernal Devices, so these are probably the original characters, but still. Jace and Will, they’re so similar, it’s kind of scary. Only I fell in love with Will, I merely found Jace entertaining. Then Clary and Tessa, they're also similar, only Tessa kicked butt, while Clary just seemed to hang around. Isabelle also reminded me of Jessamine. And so forth. I do like Alec, I think he’s a very interesting character. It was really nice to see Magnus Bane again, one of my favourite characters from the Infernal Devices. Overall I liked the characters, but they weren’t nearly as memorable as the ones in TID.

Who should read this:

13+, for language, violence and some mild sexual content. If you already read the Infernal Devices then don’t expect too much, if you haven’t and you’re looking for something easy to read and fun, with some action and humor then maybe you’ll enjoy this one. I will however suggest reading the Infernal Devices instead.

My rating:

I know I draw a lot of comparisons to the Infernal Devices in this review, but it did really remind me of that, only it wasn’t as good. I did enjoy it, I didn’t feel like not finishing it, but it just wasn’t as good as I know Clare can write. 3/5

Quote:

“If you were half as funny as you think you are, you'd be twice as funny as you are now.”