All posts tagged Cassandra Clare

Get Lost in City of Lost Souls

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

City of Lost Souls coverCity of Lost Souls is the fifth book in Cassandra Clare’s series, The Mortal Instruments.  I didn’t want to put it down.  This series just continues to get better and better.

Because this if the fifth book in The Mortal Instruments series, there may be spoilers for the first two books.

As the story begins, Jace is missing.  Along with Sebastian’s body.  The Clave is looking for them, but other, more pressing matters pop up, and the search for them loses priority.  Clary and her friends are not going to give up on him, however.  Especially Clary.

We find out that a demonic force has bonded Jace with Sebastian.  If one is hurt, then so is the other.  Even though Sebastian has evil plans in mind, he can’t be killed without Jace being killed.  The search turns into a quest to separate the two and eliminate Sebastian.

I love the relationship development in this book.  Jace and Clary make this series for me.  Although Jace isn’t quite himself for the majority of this book, they still love each other and have some great scenes together.  Simon and Isabelle seem to be working their relationship out as well, which is nice to see.  I also like to see Jordan and Maia, a couple of newer characters in this series, as they work towards rebuilding a relationship that they once thought was over.  Alec and Magnus are having difficulties in this book, but that’s pretty typical for real relationships.

Sebastian has nice character development in this book.  We know that he’s evil, but evil people usually don’t think that they’re doing wrong.  His mind was obviously twisted by his father and by his demonic blood, but we also see that he’s a lonely boy who is trying to do good (although he’s going about it the wrong way).  He also seems to have a strange fixation with his sister.  While Jace and Clary fought against their attraction when they thought that they were siblings, Sebastian seems to disapprove of Jace and Clary and seems to want Clary for himself.

Clary also develops as a person in City of Lost Souls.  She has to make some difficult decisions throughout the book.  Jace asks her to go with him in the book, and she chooses to go with him.  She sees it as the only way to save him, even though she knows it might be dangerous.  Later on in the book, she makes a selfish decision that could have turned out disastrous.  In the end, she chooses to put someone else’s wishes above her own, even though it might not have worked out for her best personal interest.  It was also great to see her developing skill as a fighter.

I loved reading City of Lost Souls, and can’t wait to read the final book in the series.

I Fell For City of Fallen Angels

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

City of Fallen Angels coverAfter waiting for several months, City of Fallen Angels became available at my local library.  It is the fourth book in Cassandra Clare’s series, The Mortal Instruments, and the wait was worth it.

As with any book that is not the first book in a series, this review may contain spoilers for previous books.

City of Fallen Angels begins a few weeks after City of Glass.  Everybody is back in New York, and it seems like life is getting back to normal.  As normal as life can be when you’re a shadowhunter, at least.

Clary and Jace are having problems, and they won’t speak to each other about it.  For much of the book, we don’t know why either.  They both love each other, and it’s apparent that whatever problem is going on is affecting them.  They’re both having trouble sleeping and even eating.  This leads to one of my favorite lines in the book.  Simon is wondering whether Jace wants to break up with Clary, and his response is “Break up with her?  Are you insane?”  Okay, so that’s not the problem.  We do find out later what is wrong, but in the interest of not giving out spoilers, you’ll just have to read the book.

Simon is having his own issues.  After being that nerdy kid for most of his life, he now finds himself interested in two girls.  Neither of them know about Simon’s relationship with the other one.  Oops.  And they both expect to go with Simon to Luke and Jocelyn’s wedding, which is rapidly approaching.  As if girl problems aren’t enough, he’s being tracked down by people who want to kill him, and his mother discovers that he’s a vampire and he has to leave home.  What a mess!

Valentine might be dead and gone, but there are still other monsters to contend with.  Throughout this story, we find out what is bothering Jace, who is trying to murder Simon, and what else this new villain is up to.  Our story doesn’t completely end with a happily ever after, but that’s why this series has a fifth (and sixth) book.

I loved this story.  This story, like many of the other Mortal Instruments books, incorporates myths and Bible lore into its story, and it makes it quite interesting.  If you’re reading this far into the series, you probably are already invested in the characters and care about what happens to them, and of course, I wanted to find out more.  Even though I was supposed to be reading another book to review at the time I was reading City of Fallen Angels, I couldn’t put it down.

I absolutely love this series, and I’m looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Other reviews in The Mortal Instruments Series:

City of Glass was Magical

By Brookelorren on Leave a Comment

City of Glass coverI recently read City of Glass by Cassandra Clare.  This story was great.  I bought this book used off of Amazon.com when I realized that I was #5 on the waiting list at the library, and all the books after this on the waiting list were going to become available sooner.  So I spent a few dollars for my own copy rather than waiting for this one to become available, and then waiting several more months for this story to conclude.

While this review doesn’t contain spoilers for City of Glass, it may contain spoilers for the first two books.

My experience was probably different than someone reading it in 2009, when this book first came out, because I had the benefit of being able to look up online what was going to happen between Clary and Jace.  I won’t say here what happens because I don’t want to include spoilers, but the whole incest issue between the two of them does resolve itself.  In this book.  So if you’re thinking “eeew” as you read this book, don’t worry about it.  It will get fixed.  In about 400 pages.

When we last left these characters, Clary had discovered that there was a way to cure her mother, but it required her to travel to Idris.  Jace doesn’t want her to go, however, thinking it’s too dangerous.  Fortunately, Clary has a mind of her own and isn’t about to let her brother tell her what to do.

Due to a few things that happen, both Luke and Simon end up in Idris as well, and they’re not supposed to be there.

There are bigger things to worry about than that, however.  Valentine still has the Mortal Cup and Mortal Sword, and he still wants to use them to root out what he sees as corruption in the Clave.  At least, that’s how he puts it.  Part of him just wants to take over the world.

By the time you get to the end of this book, secrets will be revealed and people will die.  We also meet new characters.  Even though I did look up spoilers to find out what was up with the whole Jace/Clary thing, reading the books up to this point clarified quite a few things.

One of the things that I appreciate about these books, that I haven’t mentioned before, is that there is a lot of Bible and historical literature in these books.  For example, Clary wrote Mene Mene Tekel Upharsin at one point, without realizing what that meant.  I recognized it as what “the handwriting on the wall” was in the book of Daniel.  We also see lines from Milton and some Latin.  These certainly aren’t theological books, but I find the references to be clever.

I also love it when books have themes to them.  The Mortal Instruments books seem to speak about corruption.  How people use power wrongly.  How people take advantage of laws to benefit themselves, even if by doing so they are acting immorally.  Through the character of Valentine, we even see how evil can package itself in an attractive manner.  These details make me enjoy the books more.

I absolutely could not put this book down, and read it in two days, despite having to work and do other things.  If you haven’t read City of Glass yet, you should continue with this story.

City of Ashes was Outstanding

By Brookelorren on 4 Comments

City of Ashes CoverI recently finished reading Cassandra Clare’s second book in the Mortal Instruments series, City of Ashes.  I thought it was great.  You may recall that I read City of Bones a few months ago and I said that it was just good, but I expected better from books after that, since that was an early book of hers.

As this review is the second book in a series, it may contain spoilers for City of Bones.

I was correct in thinking that, because I thought that this was a great book.  My problems with City of Bones was that there were a few occasions of infodumping, and I found the reaction of the characters to some of the situations they were facing to be unrealistic.  I didn’t see those problems here.  I did see one paragraph that seemed like a little infodump, but it didn’t affect my thoughts of the book at all.

As City of Ashes begins, the character’s lives have been upended.  Clary and Jace seem to have feelings for each other but are evidently siblings, their mom is in a coma in the hospital, and their father, Valentine, is causing trouble.

Jace’s adoptive mother is having trouble believing all that happened in the first book, and calls upon the Inquisitor to find out the truth.  The Clave can use the Mortal Sword to force him to tell the truth.  But… dun dun dun!  Valentine seems to have stolen it.  Will he cause even more problems?

The Inquisitor seems to have a thing against Jace from the moment she sees him, and tries to make things difficult for him.  Unfortunately, Jace and his friends are also the only people that see what’s going on, and they have to overcome both Valentine’s forces and the Clave’s representative in order to put things right, or at least as right as they can be.

Meanwhile, Jace and Clary still obviously have non-brotherly/sisterly feelings for each other.  Clary reacts to this by forming a love relationship with Simon.  I personally didn’t like them together.  They didn’t seem to have more than friends chemistry.

I love the characters and the world in this book, and although I can’t keep all the different types of demons and blades straight, I doubt that there will be a quiz on it later.  I definitely think that City of Ashes was a great second installment to the Mortal Instruments series, and I’m looking forward to reading the next book.

City of Bones was… Good

By Brookelorren on 16 Comments

City of Bones CoverSo I’m late to the party.  I just got around to reading City of Bones by Cassandra Clare, which is an 11 year old book.  I found it to be… good.  It’s not great, but it’s good.

I saw this book while looking through Goodreads 2018 releases, and found that Clare’s Queen of Air and Darkness is listed as highly anticipated.  I can’t start in the middle of a series, of course, so I clicked around and found this book which started it all.  Fortunately, my local library had it (although now I’m waiting to read book #2 and I’m tenth on the waiting list).

The book is about a girl, Clary, who stumbles upon a murder that only she could see.  Shortly after that, her world is completely upended when she discovers that the world that she believed to be true isn’t all there is.  Not only are there demons, werewolves, Nephilim, and vampires, but her family is a part of that world.  Over the course of this book, she discovers the truth about this world around her, and about her family.

I did enjoy this book.  Enough that I immediately got on the waiting list at the library to read the second book in the series.  I’ll probably end up reading all of the books, although that might take a while, since there’s quite a few books in this series, and there’s a waiting list at the library for most of them.  I didn’t enjoy the book enough to go out and buy the entire series.

There were a lot of things I liked about this book.  I liked the characters and their relationships.  I liked the imagery and the world-building.  I enjoyed the plot and kept wanting to read more.  The mythology was interesting.

There were some things that this story could have done better, however.  This wasn’t one of those books that sucks you in and grabs you and won’t let you go.  I’m not going to be fangirling over this book years from now after I’ve read it for the fourth or fifth time.  There were a couple of things that I found a little odd — the main character’s life was uprooted over the course of 24 hours, nearly everything she had is gone — you would think she would have a stronger emotional reaction to it.  The mythology was a little mishmashed, and that could have been better.  The final thing that I think could have been written better was, towards the end, where the characters are finding out these big revelations and… I would think that their emotional reactions would have been a little more pronounced.

This being one of Clare’s earlier works, I’m looking forward to continuing on with the series and seeing her develop as an author.  Since I’ve waited so long to read the first book, I can quickly catch up.