Title: City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments #1)Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal Fantasy
Publication: 2007, Margaret K McElderryBooks
Pages: 512 pages, Ebook
Source: Thank you to Pan Macmillan for providing me with this book to review!
Rating: 5/5
When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder - much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air.Clary is like any normal sixteen year old. She has a best friend, a loving mom and goes to school. However, when she's enjoying a night out at an all-ages club with her best friend, Simon, and she witnesses a murder...that only she can see, she didn't realise how it would completely twist her world around and reveal the lies she's lived her whole life.
It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing - not even a smear of blood - to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?
This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk.
Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know...
Clary has the sight, she can see through the fading glamour of what she once knew and is suddenly thrust into a world that she never thought possible. A world where good and evil coincides. A world of vampires, werewolves and fey, known as Downworlders, half-human, half-demon. And then there are the Shadowhunters. Shadowhunters being half-angel, half-human. The demon-fighters, the ones trying to protect the world and the mundanes from demon encounters.
When Clary met Jace, Isabelle and Alec at the Pandemodium club the night she saw them send a demon back to whichever hellish realm it came from, she didn't realise how much she had to learn about herself, her family, her past and her future.
When Clary's mother is kidnapped because she is suspected of owning the Mortal Cup, a powerful instrument that can turn any walking human into a Shadowhunter, she has to live in the Institute with the Shadowhunters, and help them with finding her mother. Secrets will be revealed. Hearts will be broken and families will be slain.
Now, I've been hearing about The Mortal Instruments since I first started blogging, the beginning of last year. I've been meaning to read it but just haven't found the time, however, with the release of the movie making me push it to the top of my TBR, I finally read it and I LOVED IT. You know when a book has received so much praise and everyone claims it's one of the best books ever, you can feel slightly hesitant to read it. I have read many books that have received 4-5 star ratings and then my expectations have been so high only to be later let down as I didn't love the book as much as others have, but I completely fell in love with City of Bones.
Everything about this novel is perfect. From the brave and fiesty Clary, to the sexy yet infuriating Jace, from the world-building to the writing.
The world-building is amazing, once you've read a Cassandra Clare book and you've experienced living in the Institute, seeing the real side to characters you've heard about in storybooks and fighting malevolent demons, you will never want to leave the world that Cassandra Clare has created. I also love how she has managed to merge the 21st Century with the world we first read about in Clockwork Angel.
The characters were amazing. I love it when an author can make us fall completely in love with a character and how by the end of a book you feel like your personally know them and that's exactly how I felt.
I adored Clary from the instant I met her. She's feisty and brave and believes in doing good for the world. She wasn't a meek character and I'm glad that strong heroines are featuring more in books now than the common damsel-in-distress. I loved her personality, I loved how she was willing to risk her life in order to save the ones that she loved. I loved how she loved drawing and the way she viewed things from an artistic point of view. Clary is definitely one of my new favourite heroines in YA, as well as Katniss.
Jace. Wow. I loved him. I loved his witty comebacks and his personality. I loved how he was already to jump into battle and protect those he loved. I loved how that despite his arrogance and sarcasm, there were kinks in the armour that revealed the vulnerable, lost boy inside. At first, it did take me a while to warm up to him as I (unintentionally) kept comparing him to Will Herondale, but I grew to love him and to realise that this is a whole other series and it's not Will and Tessa I'm reading about. Although there were references to characters from TID, which was extremely cool and when their names popped up, I was like I know who you are!
I also liked that the secondary characters each had their own distinct personalities. There was Simon, who is Clary's best friend, who I immediately liked. You could see how close they were and it was very sweet to read about. Then there was Alec and Isabelle Lightwood, the brother and sister Shadowhunters who reside by the Institute with Jace. At first I wasn't too keen on them but towards the end you see that they are good people with good intentions.
The plot was intense. There were a lot of surprises...and a lot of killing towards the end, which at times had me in tears even though I didn't even know some of the characters that well. There were so many "wait, WHAT?!" moments, I lost count of how many times Cassandra's writing had me flabbergasted. Seriously. A lot of shockers in here.
*HUGE SPOILER AHEAD* *highlight to read*
Now onto what I really want to talk about. Jace and Clary's relationship. I thought they had the cutest relationship ever and I loved watching them slowly fall in love but then Cassandra Claire drops one of the BIGGEST most ASTOUNDING "wait, WHAT?!" moments I have ever READ about! Valentine (the evil guy who stole the Mortal Cup) is Clary's father...AND Jace's! Wait, you think, did you just read that correctly?! As the realisation slowly dawns on you, you come to the conclusion that Jace and Clary are in fact, related, yes, Jace and Clary the adorable couple, are BROTHER AND SISTER. Holy cow. When I read that I was literally stunned and I couldn't breathe. (I may be slightly over-dramatic here but bare-with It felt like my whole world was based on a LIE *faints*. This is JACE and CLARY we are talking about. JLARY! And now *poof* it's gone. They have to come to the realisation that they can't be in love because for flying monkeys' sake they are RELATED. They have the same mother and the same (evil, horrible, disgusting) father. I swear when I read that, it almost disappointed me because I was like HOW CAN THIS BE?!?! I swear I was THIS close to having a mental breakdown. Really. I don't see how she could do this to me.
*SPOILER OVER*
I still need someone to rant about this to, so feel free to tweet me if you want to do some serious ranting. And I hope, I HOPE it's not the truth because if it is...I'll need Nutella. A lot of it. The FEELS you will experience in this book is ridiculous...but awesome. So read it, read it now, if you haven't already! *manically shoves books into hands*
I give it: 5/5 CUPCAKES!
