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City of Bones (Mortal Instruments, Book 1)

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This review was written for my blog, so the hyperlinks and strikethrough text got erased when I posted it here, but I think you get the gist.
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I'm finally getting around to reading Cassandra Clare's City of Bones (first book in the "Mortal Instruments" series) and I have so many conflicted feelings about it, I'm actually having a hard time just reading it. Nevertheless, this post is actually a review of City of Bones. IT HAS SOME SPOILERS. Not that there's much to spoil.

First of all, I've been familiar with Cassandra Clare's work for quite a few years now...of course, what I mean is that like thousands of other people, I knew her from her LOTR and Harry Potter fanfiction days, under the penname "Cassandra Claire." She would probably be the most stellar example of what's known as a BNF, or a Big Name Fan. She wrote the "Very Secret Dairies" for LOTR and the "Draco Trilogy" (Draco Dormiens, Sinister, and Veritas) for Harry Potter. They've been translated into various languages and most likely if you read any Harry Potter fanfiction at all, you've probably heard of Cassandra Clare. Unsurprisingly, there was also some controversy and accusations of plagiarism involved, since she paraphrased or "forgot to cite" a lot of phrases and quotes that she used in her stories, which she'd taken from other famous works/fandoms. You can read all about it at her very own Fanlore page <here>. As I recall, she may or may not have been gifted a laptop by fans when hers was stolen - though this is apparently one of the myths that got deleted off websites like Fanlore.

Anyway, all this is just background context, but it's important context, and you'll see why. So basically after this highly successful fanfiction stint, Cassandra Claire became Cassandra Clare, the best-selling author of the YA "Mortal Instruments" series, which finally brings me back to City of Bones. With that said, City of Bones is more or less the Harry Potter world reimagined, and what I mean by that is that basically almost every single concept and phrase and description in this book seemed oddly familiar... But that's kind of to be expected, since naturally a writer's style can't change overnight. Still.

Here's now the series works. Clary Fray is your normal teenage girl - for about fifty pages, anyway - and basically she starts seeing things that other people can't see. No, it actually isn't a book based off the ever popular faerie mythology. Clary sees three teenagers covered with weird markings kill someone they claim is a demon. Turns out, there's a whole "Shadow world" out there, where there are vampires, werewolves, faeries, and so on. One of those marked teenagers turns out to be a young Shadowhunter named Jace, who happens to have all the same mannerisms and characteristics as Draco Malfoy, especially the Draco Malfoy portrayed the Draco Trilogy. In other words, he's arrogant, wealthy, sarcastic, blond, and he even comes with a back story with some kind of stern father who teaches him that "to love is to destroy." The father spoiled his son with luxuries (they live in the Malfoy - well, a manor - after all) but the father also died. Jace is a Shadowhunter, meaning he's been trained since birth to kill demons and whatnot. A Shadowhunter uses a stele (which is a wand-like object, Clare's description, not mine) to draw runes, i.e. they use this "tool" to do magic. Cool, right?

Okay, Jace is actually pretty appealing (well, why not? He's basically Draco) but the similarities don't stop there. See, about 16 years ago in this magical world, this guy named Lord Voldemort - er, I mean Valentine - decided to get rid of everyone who he felt wasn't pureblooded enough, which in this case means anything nonhuman. There's actually quite a bit of snobbishness going on between the Shadowhunters and the Muggles - er, I mean mundanes - that don't know about this magical world that's hiding in plain sight. Anyway, 16 years ago, "Valentine" failed and everyone thought he and his wife and child died. His supporters, the Circle (okay, fail, Death Eaters sounds so much cooler), either died during the Uprising or turned themselves in and are somewhat co-opted back into the government, but exiled.

Clary, of course, turns out to be mysteriously connected to He Who Shall Not Be Named, who turns out not to be dead. Like you didn't see that one coming. Anyway, Valentine sends demons after Clary and manages to kidnap Clary's mom. Clary's dad conveniently died around the time she was born. Hmmmm. Valentine used to be this popular and handsome Shadowhunter who, you know, didn't start out evil but gradually became obsessed with killing all the Downworlders (those nonhuman, part demon whatevers) and using this thing called the Mortal Cup to create more Shadowhunters from regular humans. Problem is, only like 20% of the converted humans survive, but Valentine's not going to let that stop him. He builds up his followers - the Circle - which basically consists of the parents of all of Clary's new Shadowhunter friends. By the way, the Shadowhunter names are all things like Blackwell, Pangborn, Lightwood, Fairchild. Just so you know. No sense of deja vu, of course.

Also, in a twist you so couldn't see coming, Valentine turns out to be Clary's mom's husband, which makes Clary...right, his daughter. Oh no! To help you (and Clary) keep track of everyone, there's this old picture of the Circle when they were young, y'know that group of friends who were all together...too bad the picture isn't animated, right? Let's keep going though. So V's after the Mortal Cup, which Clary's mom has hidden, so Clary and Jace try to find it while some action and unrequited love pads the story. The relationships are painfully similar to what was in Draco Trilogy, but I guess you can't really plagiarize from yourself. On the romantic front, I won't spoil it completely, but just think Leia and Luke Skywalker. Uh huh, another classic. Jace also has an "I am your father" moment.

All right, all this said, despite all of the above, City of Bones is a pretty good book, in the same way that I thought that the Draco Trilogy was pretty fun to read. Incidentally, the Draco Trilogy can be downloaded as a PDF from a variety of places. Both the Trilogy and this "Mortal Instruments" series have lots of Latin inscriptions, lots of references, and lots of funny moments. It's only irritating because the whole thing constantly makes me think "wow, I've seen this before," to the point that it was really distracting. There wasn't a single part that I felt was all that new, but everything was pretty well done and well written. Clary is almost unbearably a Mary Sue, but I was way more distracted by the shoutouts to Jaida Jones (another famous fanfic writer turned published author, who actually did write a novel I liked, Havemercy) and Holly Black. Regarding the Mary Sue issue, though, can we please get rid of all these fantasy heroines who never seem to realize they're beautiful until their romantic interest tells them? Cliche much and annoying much? Please, you're telling me a 16 year old girl somehow never realized her own level of attractiveness. Really, now.

Unsurprisingly, the "Mortal Instruments" series has been a big hit and might be being made into a film. Lots of people are saying it's the next Harry Potter. In my opinion, it's more like a Harry Potter rehash, but given how much HP has sold, if Cassandra Clare can take even 5% of the market share, that would be a pretty big success. Would I recommend it to others? Hmmm. I think as an avid reader of YA novels, I have far better series to recommend to my friends. You could definitely do worse, but you could also definitely do better. For those who like fantasy and heroic fairy tales, try Kristin Cashore - though her books are very well rounded and definitely deserve all the YA awards they've won, so try her even if you don't usually go for fantasy. For those action-minded, try Suzanne Collins' Hunger Games trilogy or Ann Aguirre's Enclave. If you're looking for a more grown up, but still teenage epic action/romance series with vampires, try Richelle Mead. If you like stories about futuristic technological dystopias, try Scott Westerfeld or Robin Wasserman. Leaning toward epic fantasy or consider yourself a fan of Tamora Pierce? Try Allison Goodman's Eon.

Update: The "MI" series ARE being made into films and the hype is already that it'll be the "next big thing" when Twilight ends. All I can say is, that's almost as predictable as the book.

I have not read Cassandra Clare's fan fiction, although I do know that she started in fanfic. You can tell. For a fanfic, I would consider this to be very good, but I expect more out of a published novel.

Clare's writing style is nothing to get excited about. It moves the story along, but does nothing to add to it. I give her props for not abusing fragments (a pet peeve of mine) as a lot of YA writers do these days. However, she writes like someone who has just started getting into creative writing--she has figured out how to string words together, but she hasn't figured out how to use them to tell a story. Instead, she tries to find out clever ways to describe something or pulls out a thesaurus where none is needed.

However, everything in this book--plot, characters, settings--is cliche. This book has been written many times before and better. Since you know how everything is going to play out from page one, there's really nothing to get excited for in City of Bones.

She goes out of her way to reference things in anime and fandom which I assume is supposed to be cute, but I find it obnoxious. In fanfic, that might be acceptable, but not in a published novel. She also distracts from the plot by having her characters have a lot of "witty" banter. For the most part, I didn't find it particularly witty or funny, and it's never a good sign when another character in the book has to remind the other characters (and you) that the plot is still happening. That's very sloppy writing.

I really did not care for the main characters. Jace, the Love Interest, is one of your typical "Bad Boy" types who we are repeatedly told is "charming." Over and over, Clare will tell you that he is charming, oh so charming. To quote The Princess Bride, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." Perhaps as a 14 year old I might have been fooled into believing Cassandra Clare that her character is, indeed, just so charming, but as an adult... His actions, his attitude, and the way he talks do not make him a charming or attractive character. If I met Jace in real life, I would think he was a rude, obnoxious brat.

Then there's Clary. It is painfully obvious that Clary is a self-insert of the author herself. This is not inherently a horrible thing. I would be perfectly willing to overlook it if the book and character were better written. The trouble is, Clary is not a sympathetic lead. She comes off as being jealous and hateful. Important, plot-related things might be going on, but Clary can always find the time to be jealous of and "hate" someone for having nicer eyelashes than she does. There is only one other female character in the book, Isabelle, and of course the two of them don't get along because they're so jealous of the other's beauty (but of course Clary doesn't think of herself as beautiful) and because they have to compete for all the boys' attention (naturally). Like Jace, I have a feeling I would not like Clary Fray at all if I met her in real life.

The biggest thing that bothered me about City of Bones and the character of Clary was the constant bashing of people who aren't thin and/or conventionally attractive. Of course, all the main characters are thin and conventionally attractive--that goes without saying. But Clary spends an inordinate amount of time in the book picking apart her and other people's physical flaws (or more likely being jealous of their perfections and hating them for it). Then, of course, there's the lovely quote, "She wondered if there were any ugly vampires, or maybe any fat ones. Maybe they didn't make vampires out of ugly people. Or maybe ugly people just didn't want to live forever." I realize Clare is going for humor, but that's still a very offensive line and definitely not the kind of thing I want to see in a YA novel. The implication is that people who are "fat" or not conventionally attractive have nothing to live for. Considering most readers of this book are likely to be young girls who may already have problems with their self-image, is that really the message they should be receiving?

Perhaps she's going for some kind of realism. Maybe there are a lot of teenage girls who spend a lot of time focused on the physical looks of themselves and those around them and are jealous of others and hate them for looking better than they do. I was never one of those girls, and I don't find that to be a sympathetic trait in anyone--fictional or not. Had Clare written the story as if she were aware of Clary's mental/emotional flaws rather than just her physical ones, that would have been acceptable. Instead, Clary is portrayed as the Every Girl and we are meant to sympathize and agree with her. Unfortunately, I don't.

Cassandra Clare is a capable writer, and she could even be a good writer. Unfortunately, in City of Bones, she is too self-indulgent, and too lacking in originality and self-awareness to pull off a decent novel. I have no desire to continue this series, but I would hope that her later works show improvement because thus far the talent is there, just not the ability.

While I won't go so far as to nitpick Clare's creative (sometimes too creative) use of adjectives, I do have some critiques of this book. If you've read the fanfiction, you'll be well-prepared for this novel, and in fact you'll have fun recognizing some of your favorite characters back, thinly veiled. This is actually Clare at her best, lots of improbable but fun dialogue, good pacing for once, no long dragged out subplots that make the reader forget what the main plot is, with bits that make the reader laugh aloud (at least me). I read the story straight through, and I enjoyed it. I even bought it after telling myself I wasn't going to. It is the kind of book that you binge on, read in one go and enjoy.

However, there were things that really bugged me.

1. Self-referencing. Two things that jerked me out of the narrative were the use of the word 'asshat' which is widely used now, but not so widely used that I think it's a coincidence it's in this book, and giving Luke a 'Still Not King' bumper sticker, also fairly common, but still in-jokey. I suppose if the reader hasn't read anything else of Clare's, they wouldn't notice, but I don't look at that and feel superior for knowing the joke, I feel irritated with the author for waving at her friends instead of writing the story.

2. It's a soap opera. Admittedly, an enjoyable one, but the story is all drama and passion and twists, and not all that much character development, or even consistent characterization. I sincerely doubt a girl who refers to herself as 'shy' would slap a guy she barely knows who saved her life, and then make out with a near stranger. Not really shy actions. Jace, too, is uneven. Isabelle's fanfic alter ego was one of the most fun parts of Cassie's fanfic, so I enjoyed her, and I think she has fairly good characterization, but I didn't feel like there was a lot of real character development. Sure, they learned things, and supposedly changed, but Alec is the only one who appears to grow.

3. It's derivative. This story is like the happy offspring of Harry Potter, Uglies, Inksheart, Star Wars, with Lord of the Rings as a distant cousin and Buffy as the down the street neighbor. It does combine some of the better elements--friends, a knowledge of occult mythology, sectarian groups and violence, fun villains who may or may not be related to you, etc--but that doesn't mean it's original. You take lots of strikingly beautiful things and blend them together to come up with something generically pretty.

Valentine reminded me of Capricorn the entire book, and he only made an appearance at the end. For readers of Clare's fanfic series, you'll enjoy picking out how she changed some of her scenes and characters to fit this story, but it's also like "ooh! this is like the scene where Draco and Hermione get locked in the wardrobe! Only instead of Hermione it's Ginny--er Clary!"

People who enjoy this genre will enjoy the book. People who enjoy Clare's writing will enjoy this book. I'm glad it got published. But it's not exactly the kind of story that you imagine lasting through generations.

[Moderate spoilers ahead, beware, beware!]

City of Bones was an incredibly frustrating book.

Holly Black - an author whose work I'm rather fond of - called it "funny, dark, and sexy." Was it funny? Absolutely. Was it dark? There was a lot of killing, but only of nameless monsters - it was about as dark as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, season 1. (Which is to say, not very.) As for sexy? There are two kisses in the entire book, and neither of them could be described as particularly sexy. Huzzah for romance!, yes, but not sexy.

Now, moving on.

An urban fantasy in which a young artist named Clary goes clubbing and sees a cute guy attack people with claws and get murdered. Unfortunately, by the time her adorably nerdy best friend Simon brings the bouncer to check on it, the body's vanished, and no one seems to be able to see the murderers. Then, later, she attends some poetry readings where people wail about their loins, and gets stalked by one of the murderers who seems intent on lounging about invisibly, talking about how good-looking he is, and belittling her a lot. She goes home to find her mother's vanished, and a demon like an alligator from the sewers crossed with a hairball ready to eat her face.

It had some good dialogue, (nothing particularly quotable, but funny at varying points - not unlike Jennifer Crusie in her better novels, only without the sex) a fast-paced plot, and very varied characters. That being said, the writing is stuffed with errors like "bending like a blade of grass bending sideways". There is an overabundence of similes as well, meaning that "as if"s, "as though"s, and "like"s are found in plenty. Usually, this doesn't bother me much, but when there are three to every page, it grows extremely tiresome. Her prose is clear - if not particularly inspired - but those similes may make you skip them in chunks.

What bothered me most about it was the exposition-heavy dialogue. There was nothing remotely subtle about it, though it usually came under the guise of telling the new Shadowhunter Clary about their world. On the other hand, heavy exposition tends to slow down the narrative, and City of Bones certainly slowed down a lot. Despite the fact that all the exposition was of a subject typically interesting to me - how to kill demons, types of weapons to kill demons, demons themselves, the characters' Pasts of Pain (TM) - the blatant obviousness of the ploy made me want to toss the book across the room.

Neither should you pick up this book if you're looking for a subtle read. The author doesn't hesitate to hit you with brief, immediate emotional descriptions: "she was stunned." "he felt nauseous." and so on and so forth. The characters may lie to each other, but Clary - who seems to be a very perceptive sort except when it pertains to her best friend Simon - seems to find it easy to spot those lies immediately. But those occasions where it's necessary for Clary to pick up on something aren't as common as they could be, though not for the best of reasons; for the most part, they tell each other painful truths from their pasts immediately. You find out fairly quickly about Jace's tragic past and rapidly identify him as the anti-hero who conceals his inner pain with witty ripostes. (He tells Clary a bit of it as a bedtime story, and you might think that this can be explained by the fact that he is minorly obsessed with her. On the other hand, when a minor character who doesn't even like them tells them about a vicious incident involving his father in his childhood, you know something's up.)

And then, of course, there is Alec, whose secret Clary notices pretty much immediately, though adults who've known him all his life can't see it. It would matter less if she were marketed as perceptive, but it doesn't feel as though she is; her nature seems to happen by accident, a convenience for the author to let on more about her characters.

The people who are good tend to fall into varying shades of gray. Unfortunately, the antagonist receives no such treatment. He abused his son emotionally! He gathered loners while he was going to school and made friends solely in order to have loyal followers! He hates all demons indiscriminately and wants them all razed off the face of the earth! There's what seems to be a half-attempt to explain his evil towards the end of the book, but it's never explored very much, and honestly doesn't alleviate any of his evil into something that even resembles humanity. At present, the villain's not a character; he's a plot point on legs.

Many of the other reviews have already covered the romance angle, so I'll simply add that I agree with the ones who called it a Star Wars moment in an urban fantasy novel. There never seemed to be much depth invested in it; there were some minor sparks, but it was hardly given any build-up before Jace and Clary were kissing before her room, and Simon - in love with her for the past ten years* - opened the door be confronted with the pair of them.

Then, of course, he stormed off after throwing his love in her face, but came back to drive her to the Shadowhunters' next assignation with the forces of darkness.

* They've only known each other for ten years, mind. And they were five when they first met, I assume. When he tells her about the ten years, rather than sympathise with Clary and Simon, I rolled my eyes. He's been in love with her since the moment he knew her?

That's probably what I find most annoying about the whole thing. Character development wasn't carried off in the least - in one chapter, Clary definitively identifies herself with the human race - the "mundies", as Jace calls them, scornfully. Once the next arrives, she doesn't bother to defend her best friend Simon when the Shadowhunters mock him, and she's thinking of herself very much a Shadowhunter. Simon's just had his heart broken, and a few lines later all is well with the two of them again. Isabelle is mentioned to dislike Clary, but there seems to be nothing in it other than a few glancing lines of mild slighting. Alec, who dislikes her because Jace is straight and only a blind English teacher could fail to notice all the chemistry, concludes the first book fine with her.

(What I dislike most about this is the fact that Clary tells Alec, essentially, that the boy he has a crush on Jace - called him a coward for never having killed a demon. He hits her, and I felt rather vindicated for Alec, primarily because most of the cast is either indifferent to Clary or fond of her. Later, he comes back and apologises. She doesn't, and they both behave as if she stated some sort of truth. Jace himself says it - Alec's probably never killed a demon because he was too busy protecting Jace and Isabelle. That's not cowardice - that's secondhand glory, and Alec is incredibly brave for not wanting all the glamour when surely Isabelle and Jace must be pushed into his face all the time for being the great demonhunters that they are. That Clary is wrong and no one calls her on it deeply irritates me, particularly since I suspect that the reader wasn't meant to empathise with Alec in that situation.)

As well, there was the Really Old Cliche of the heroine being beautiful and not knowing it. Perhaps she's only beautiful in Jace's eyes - for Jace is the one who tells her so - but really, the amount of people who show up in fantasy books unaware of their own good looks is supremely annoying, and is not growing any less so.

The main reason I've picked it all to bits is because it could have been so much better. The writing was amateurish (the similes! they're massing for an attack!), the characters were barely fleshed out - you couldn't tell one's lines from another's, as if they were merely devices for throwaway one-liners - and the plot was unfortunate. On the other hand, there were some funny bits, ("It's the Mortal Cup, Jace, not the Mortal Toilet Bowl.") but it didn't give a new look on vampires, demons, or werewolves the way Holly Black gave a new look on Faerie. It's funny, but for the readers who want more from a book than funny, it doesn't quite cut it.

The random first-person narrative section -- told to add depth to Clary's mother's story, I presume -- was unnecessary to the extreme. At the time the tale was being told, they were in terrible danger. The character in question chose that time to pause and to expound -- in depth -- on Clary's mother's history? As I said: highly, extremely, incredibly unlikely in a character.

There was also an unnecessary reference -- I say unnecessary because I've heard something about accusations of plagiarism, and since the author doesn't specifically cite the text when she makes the reference, I assume people will be all over it like stink on cheese? -- where Luke asks Clary not to call him Uncle Luke, because it reminded him of Uncle Tom's Cabin. As his name is not Tom, this doesn't quite work as well as it did in the text it came from originally: Fire and Hemlock, by Diana Wynne Jones. I seem to recall a few other instances, but nothing that hasn't been repeated through culture, or that sticks particularly in the mind.

To summarise an extremely long-winded review: City of Bones had excellent dialogue for humor. Unfortunately, that one shining point was rather bogged down by the places where it lacked. It shows promise, and the humor nearly makes you want to wait for it, but I had no problem putting it down to attend to work - and that, for me, was the sign that it didn't work as well as it should have.

Before I begin my review, I want to go into a brief back-story. I did not pick up this book of my own volition. The only reason I bought it was because I was told that the author, who has some kind of fame in the HP fandom, had gotten this book published and I wanted to be able to discuss it with my friends. That being said, I give this book one star because I cannot be objective about it. And also because [...] does not allow no-star reviews.

City of Bones was not a bad book. If I overlooked the character inconsistencies, the purple prose, the unoriginality of some of the plot twists, and the leftover editing mistakes, it was an engaging book that had me reading from start to finish. Since I was not a fan of Star Wars, nor have I ever watched Buffy, the characters seemed very original to me, although they all had their problems (and, no, I don't mean the necessary character flaws).

The main character, Clary Fray, was the biggest problem for me. She is a Mary Sue, which means, essentially, an unbearably perfect character who easily overcomes all obstacles, discovers that she has some amazing powers that she can wield better or equal to people who have been trained in it for years, and ends up with the love and respect of most if not all of the other characters no matter what she does.

At the beginning of the book, she is a 'shy' girl in a nightclub with her best friend, Simon. By the end of the book, she knows how to use a variety of runes, she's discovered that she's daughter to the Big, Bad Villain, and, despite the fact that she broke Simon's heart and almost indirectly caused Alec's death, both characters have forgiven her by the end of the novel with little or no effort on her part. I won't discuss the Mary Sueish ties between Clarissa Fray and the author because this review is about the work, not the author, but I will mention that they are there.

The other problem for me was Jace, not because he wasn't a perfectly nice character, but because of the lack-of-objectivity I previously mentioned. Coming from the HP fandom, I can recognize fanon!Draco when I see him. For those who don't know, the Draco of fanon is sophisticated, exasperatingly arrogant, and always has a sarcastic quip on hand so that he can make himself look better and wittier compared to whomever he's speaking to. This description fits Jace to a tee and I don't think it's a coincidence that Jace's physical appearance is identical to that of fanon!Draco. I think this might have been intentional, to give fanon!Draco a life outside of fanfiction, but it's in no way original and, for someone like me who is familiar with fanon!Draco and doesn't wish to see him renamed and reproduced in what is supposed to be an ORIGINAL NOVEL, it's also irritating.

Clary's appearance is like that of Ginny Weasley and Simon's is like that of Harry Potter, if one wants to go so far in drawing parallels, but I found their personalities different enough from Ginny and Harry's for me to ignore that.

A third, more personal problem I had with the book, was the two instances in which Clary mentioned things obviously not original to Clare. The first instance was her suggestion that Simon go out with a "Jaida Jones" who apparently goes to their school. Once again, if you are familiar with the HP fandom, you will recognize Jaida Jones as being a real person, another famous member of the fandom. The other instance was when Clary and Jace were riding through the city, and Clary notices two homeless kids whose descriptions match those of Val and Luis from Holly Black's VALIANT. Someone before me said it best: I found myself wishing that Clare would just write the novel instead of taking the time to wave to her friends.

It wasn't until after I'd finished City of Bones that I was notified that the great plot twist - that Jace and Clary are related, both children of the villain, Valentine - has been done before, in Star Wars. Exactly the same way, too.

My final nitpick with the book was that it was unnecessarily full. I know that Clare painted a picture of an entire Downworld in which existed fairies and vampires and werewolves and other things that only exist in stories ("all the stories are real" seems to be an accurate tagline for this book), but was it really necessary to put so many of them in one book? Clary and company go from eating in a café filled with fairies and such to attending a party thrown by a warlock and containing phooka and other creatures to infiltrating a vampire lair to being chased by werewolves.

I just felt that half the creatures that made an appearance in this book, no matter how brief, were unnecessary and could have been saved for a future book in the series or not been mentioned at all. The vampires, I thought, could have been written out entirely as their only purpose seemed to be to introduce the flying motorcycles that were ripped from Harry Potter (though, now that the series is over, what WON'T be ripped from Harry Potter?)

I give Clare a lot of credit. She brought this story alive for me and set it in Manhattan, my favorite city. She gave me three loveable characters, Alec, the introverted protector with unrequited feelings for Jace, Magnus Bane, the flamboyant, glittery warlock with a thing for Alec, and Simon, the painfully ordinary geek who, like me, finds this whole magical world "awesome." Without any outside influence, the story can be enjoyable.

However, since, like I said, I came into this without an objective viewpoint, my one-star review still stands. I hope others, outside of fandom, get more enjoyment out of this book than I did.

In an underage Goth club where kids openly are handing out pills without fear of conveniently missing bouncers, the "shy" fifteen-year-old NYC native Clary charges unarmed and alone into a confrontation where strangers with knives are trying to kill each other, where she intends to stop them by talking them down. Some may call this suicidal; the reader is supposed to see it as heroic. This scene is exemplary of what you're getting into if you pick this book up.

This isn't Clary's first stupid action: she makes a habit of putting herself in harm's way by doing things she has little or no reason to, especially when there's others around telling her to stop. Other characters also do unreasonable things, if only to further the plot. A character is caught hiding in someone's bushes because he decided THEY were suspicious while he was sneaking around their house, but never gives a reason for his initial trespassing. He later drinks a magical potion with unknown effects for no good reason whatsoever, despite having someone who'd know better at his side telling him not to.

The book has no sense of continuity. Characters' eye colors, voices, abilities, and builds change, sometimes within paragraphs of their initial descriptions. (Clary's mother goes from "compact" to "tall and willowy" in paragraphs on page 24; Madame Dorothea's voice goes from familiarly "shrill" to familiarly "gravelly" on page 95; Alec's eyes go from blue to black and back again throughout the course of the book; Isabelle's skin is as "unblemished as the surface of a bowl of cream" on page 58, but all Shadowhunters are later described as covered in scars from their Marks.) A character puts himself and his love interest in mortal danger without hesitation, but later blames his poor performance in a fight on his worry for her. A fire hot enough to melt metal and turn bricks to ash (bricks melt at about three thousand degrees and don't contain enough organic material to burn to ash) doesn't reduce any bones - even an infant's bones - to ash, and manages to leave cloth fragments behind as well. Clary can do magic with runes that she literally should not be able to know, and Simon is able to see a magical glow to things and the invisible Shadowhunters even though he's supposed to be a magicless human.

A good editor would pick these problems out - but unfortunately, upon comparison with the "uncorrected proofs" of the Advance Reader Copy, it seems that the most basic problems haven't even been touched. For example, screaming characters still switch indiscriminately between italics and ALL CAPS, and the missing quotation mark from page 449 of the ARC is still missing on page 452 of the hardcover. Other words and descriptions still stand out as extremely out of place. Horses "snarl." Arrows make "hot buzzing sounds, like a huge bumblebee." Octopuses have "tendrils" instead of tentacles, and antifreeze and spring grass are somehow the same color. Another world's sun is described as hanging "limp in the sky like a burned cinder" - I don't even know where to start with that one. Water is described as being "the color of lead, churned to a whipped cream consistency." What feels like whipped cream again - the water, or the lead? And how would that even work?

Also, very few things in the work hail as original. Clary Fray (not Whedon's Slayer Melaka Fray) goes to Pandemonium (not The Bronze from Buffyverse), sees something she shouldn't, and is taken in by the Shadowhunters (not Dark-hunters), who call normal humans "mundanes" or "mundies" (from the set-in-NYC-comic Fables) and who power up and do magic by carving or drawing runes on themselves or other objects, just like in Weis and Hickman's Death Gate Cycle. They do this with a particular wand/knife hybrid called a "stele" - which, unlike the Stiehl of Terry Brooks's Shannara series, is a real word...for a headstone. The secret group of Shadowhunters is trying to rescue a magical relic before the big bad guy Valentine (whose past is Voldemort's, only without any character depth whatsoever) gets it, a plot that's been done completely to death. Finally, the "twist" of this book comes straight out of Star Wars and is guessable from chapter two.

The characters are also terribly flat, cliché, and inconsistent. Clary is "shy" but slaps people she barely knows; she's "clumsy" but the reader never sees her act that way. Jace is the stereotypical snugglebug in a jerk suit, straight out of a bad romance novel and so blindingly beautiful that absolutely everyone must comment on it. It frequently seems that cast of characters doesn't have personalities; only unbelievable dialogue, redundant and clunky metaphors, and little tics that are supposed to identify them.

Granted, there are some hilarious parts. Clary's makeover sends her out on the streets of New York City in a shirt (worn as a dress) that barely covers her rear, with high-heeled boots, fishnet stockings, lots of makeup, and no bra. Then she fights vampires while dressed like this. Later on, no one can figure out why her mother's won't come out of a coma.

(I'm not sure if those two events are related, but I'd like to think they are.)

The sheer number of errors, derivative ideas, and pages of copy & pasted fanfic bits is hideously sloppy and exemplary of lazy writing and lazier editing. It's as if no one cared to check things over before putting the book on the shelves. It's insulting to the reader to not try to fix any of these problems, and then to expect the consumer to shell out their money for something that isn't new, isn't different, isn't even coherent, and frankly just isn't very good. Don't waste your money on it.

I am a teenager and I love reading and writing fantasy. With that said, one may expect I would like this book. No, not at all. I had to force my way through this book and I still didn't get to the last chapter and epilogue (Why should I? I know how this is going to end). The characters are unsympathetic and unlikable. The plot often progressed because one or more characters were holding the Idiot Ball. The writing is just plain bad.

Our heroine, Clarissa (Clary) Fray, is one of the book's worst characters. She is headstrong and is determined to save everyone herself. Her loyalties change at the drop of a hat. She's described as being an average girl and yet her love interest says she's beautiful (I assume the Idiot Ball was in his possession at the time). Oh, and she's a very talented artist. And we're supposed to like Clary throughout the entire book, and the following books.
The rest of the characters aren't any better. Jace is a narcissistic jerk and yet Clary is smitten for him. The author loves describing his looks in every possible kind of light. Over and over she talks about his golden hair and golden eyes and how the moonlight makes it paler and the sunlight makes it goldener blah blah blah.
The villain is nothing more than a cardboard cutout. Basically, he wants to commit the genocide of anything that isn't human. Why? Because the author willed it to be!

Plot? I thought there was some in chapter one. Nope. The story starts with Clary seeing some teenagers about to kill another. Clary is told by the author to follow. She finds out the killers are Shadowhunters and the kid they killed was actually a demon, and the demon *had* to be killed because demons are Always Chaotic Evil. The Shadowhunters are the invisible saviors of everyday humans. The hunters are surprised to find out that Clary can see them and thus decide to put a stop to the plot by dropping a load of exposition on you and our blissfully ignorant protagonist. The plot is moved once again because someone decides to do something stupid, illogical, or unnatural.
Plot twists? Yeah, right. This book is painfully predictable. *"SPOILER" Alert* In part 1, we find out Clary's mom was married to the bad guy. "Clary, I am your father!" is what I heard in the distance. Then we find out one of the Hunters, Jace, is the son of the bad guy too. WHOA! The author blew me away with that one! Yeah, right.
*End of "SPOILER" Alert*

The writing itself is distracting. Characters shout in all-caps. Every page has at least two similes, many of them sounding forced. The endless descriptions get in the way of the plot. Paragraph breaks are often used improperly. The author often uses them when there is a time skip of 2 seconds, and often in the middle of dialogue. You will also notice that the author even divides this book into parts, and often in the middle of dialogue. And as I've said, there are a lot of long, drawn-out passages of exposition and backstory. There is even a full chapter where the point of view switches from 3rd person limited to 1st person view of a supporting character. And he tells you absolutely everything that was already dropped throughout the story. But wait, there's more! The characters even reiterate what was said in the chapter before!
Yes, it's a debut book, but one with lazy writing and lazy editing. Maybe she will improve, but I will make sure I avoid anything else with her name on it.

But if you have a high tolerance for bad fantasy, maybe you will like this.

It was neither dreadfully bad nor exceedingly good. It was the literary version of Snakes on a Plane - not bad enough to amuse (a pity, too, for as Liz Bennett would say, I dearly love to laugh) and not good enough to compel. Will I read the second novel when it comes out? Most likely, out of curiosity, but I'll just get it from the library.

The characters were nothing out of the ordinary. Beautiful, spunky heroine Clary who doesn't know she's beautiful, but for all of her spunkiness, she also has quite the capacity for idiocy and, apart from once or twice, is always saved by a handsome boy. Two love interests - Jace, the gorgeous, snarky bad boy and Simon, the best friend. Evil, manipulative overlord who's part Lucius Malfoy, part Voldemort and part Vader. Probably the most interesting characters are a couple of minor ones, esp. Alec, who's uncomfortable about his looks because he's uncomfortable about who he is. I like how he was handled and wouldn't mind seeing him rise from minor character to major. Everyone, however, is too aware of their own faults and motivations and is too able to easily analyze them and put them into words. I.e., "I keep people away because love makes you weak." instead of the more realistic "If you ask me another dumba** question, I'm going to take your face off."

The dialogue I had some major problems with. It's snappy and clever, but unfortunately for Ms. Clare, I'm wary of attributing that to her writing skills after being previously duped by her fanfiction. I didn't recognize anything being directly lifted from other source material, but I'm not always good about making those connections. If it's all original, then props to her. It's great dialogue...for thirty-somethings. For fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds, it's a bit ridiculous. Ex: Clary at one point says, "...maybe we could get back to saving my best friend from being exsanguinated to death." (p. 253) Exsanguinated? Really? Taking a page out of Christopher "Bivouac" Paolini's book, are we? What are the odds that a 15-year-old girl who's not particularly studious will know that word? What's worse is that I can see that it was forced there to set up a joke in the next line. Jace's loquaciousness (I can do it, too!) almost gets a pass because he's been raised in a different sort of world, and he supposedly uses all his words to keep people at a distance. Simon is, by far, the worse. Even if he is supposed to be kind of nerdy and smart, I don't know any teenage boy who would say, "Coincidence or not, it turned out to be a fortuitous occurrence." Again, this sets up a "clever" response. The strings are too visible.

The plot has a lot of Star Wars in it, and the hints and twists are not deftly handled so much as isolated in spotlights so that you can see them coming miles before the characters do. Which is what causes the heroine Clary to come off as so dense. One choice in particular seems like a very odd choice by the author, given how she's set up things in hundreds of preceding pages. Currently, the curiosity of how she will deal with this particular issue is the only thing that would bring me to the second book. Right now, I don't see the purpose of it, narratively speaking. It seems like another all-too-visible string. Ratchet up the angst! Ratchet up the drama! Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain!

Prose-wise, it was a pretty smooth, easy read with only a few things that made me stop and go wtf (like a tendency for pockets to appear on previously non-pockety clothing). There was, however, a LOT of purple descriptive prose about characters' physical appearances, especially Jace. Honestly, if I had to read one more variation on how his gold eyes looked at that very moment, I was going to chuck it all in.

Personally, I'd suggest checking it out via your local library first to see if you want to invest money into the series. I wish Ms. Clare the best in putting her fanfiction infamy behind her and making a name for herself in the world of original YA fiction, but I don't think that this novel is going to do it.

I was familiar with Cassandra Clare during her BNF days in the Harry Potter community. But I never read any of the fanfiction that she was so famed and maligned for -- frankly, the subject matter just didn't interest me. I understand there were leather pants.

But I did get a chance to see the first chapters of this book at the end of last year, and I've since flipped through a copy in the bookstore. And you know, it made me really glad that I didn't waste any time and eyestrain on her fanfic.

The book is a clumsy attempt at being witty and literary, full of the purplest prose and dubious metaphors. The characters are two-dimensional and unoriginal, and the POV is incosistent and jerky, and the plot is derivative and cliched -- recycled from a half-dozen mainstream sci-fi and fantasy TV shows, films, and books, and cobbled together rather shamelessly.

The jokes are flat at best, and the author's grasp of the age group about which (and for whom) she is writing seems tenuous. The main characters are utterly unconvincing as adolescents, and their forced dialogue is predictable at best, painful at worst.

Overall, it's a ridiculous and uncompelling train wreck of a YA fantasy novel. And while I don't recall if leather pants were involved, there were parachute pants.

They were the best part, really.

This book had a lot of promise. Some of the banter between the characters was clever and witty. But what this book lacked was logic and intelligence. The characters just acted dumb! Fr'instance: A friend is taken by vampires, so the hero and heroine, ALONE, go to rescue him, instead of asking assistance from friends. Two people (one of whom is ignorant of vampires and knows nothing about fighting) against a whole nest of vampires??? The Omnipotent Authorial Hand engineers their escape *big surprise*.

Then they decide to find the Mortal Cup to rescue Clary's mother. But what exactly will they do once they have the cup? How will they use it to get her back? There is no plan, not even a discussion of possibilities. They just lurch from one event to another allowing the author to plunk them into one silly situation after another.

Then there is the problematic attraction between the hero and heroine. I kept wondering why they didn't act on it. And when they finally did (a passionate kiss), it really didn't go anywhere. And, at the end, you find out why. In other words, the distance between them was completely artificial so that a crucial plot element wouldn't creep people out. Ugh. Serious Ugh.

And, then at the end, the Absolute Worst Part of the book: the good guys have a chance to kill the bad guy, BUT. DO. NOT. A seriously evil man is allowed to escape because the main characters are wimps, complete absolute pathetic weenies. Obviously, the authorial hand stopped the killing so there could be a sequel and another and another. But they won't be read by me.