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133 of 170 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Funny, but ultimately uncreative., March 20, 2007
[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.
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108 of 138 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
putting it on paper doesn't make it yours, July 25, 2007
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.
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69 of 89 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Light, Fun, but not a Keeper, March 28, 2007
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.
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