Clarissa “Clary” Fray's mother has
finally cracked, at least that's what Clary thinks when Jocelyn tells
her daughter to abandon their Brooklyn brownstone and live in
Williamsburg for a while. Clary thinks it's a fate worse than death, and escaping into the arms of a mysterious boy only she can see, Jace
introduces her to a whole other world. One that she has been missing out
on for years, brought back to reality only when her mother calls her
begging to stay away from home. When she gets there, the world
Jace has introduced her to reveals its uglier side, and nothing will
ever be the same for Clary again.
As far as debut novels and first
installments in series, City of Bones blows plenty of books out of
the water. Cassandra Clare, hate her or love her, has written a
remarkable story, keeps the characters in motion for almost the
entire length of the story, writes the type of character interaction
that makes a girl salivate. Jace is almost too cool to touch, filled
with idiosyncrasies that make him charming yet searingly annoying.
Clary has it a bit too perfect, falling into a rabbit hole that is
almost too good to be true, and she gets away with her life, but
realistic battle wounds, every time. Aside from her mother missing
and her substitute father saying mean things to her, life isn't going
too bad.
But City of Bones introduces us to a
love story, or rather, the blurb on the back says that this is a tale
of forbidden romance. Simon, Clary's best friend since Kindergarten,
is funny, friendly and seems to really like Clary despite how
air-headed she can be – his words, although not verbatim. Jace
finds her magnetic and beautiful, and she thinks he's got a nice
exterior, too, but they end up arguing just as often as they end up
flirting. But as a member of the new – to Clary – shadow world,
she can't be with a mundane, which Simon is, making any future of
theirs unfavorable to the powers that be, then, when more about her past is
revealed, her budding romance with Jace is extinguished. What is a
poor demon hunter to do?
The story kept spinning, and I enjoyed
it's shifting dynamics immensely. I could really appreciate the
effort Clare made to move along once she had made something
clear, in fact there were times I wished she would go over something
again. Clare is no master wordsmith, however, her weakness
lying in adjectives and similes overlapping and crowding each other
out in a deluge of colorful details. It wasn't overwritten, but at
times I was reminded that this is clearly the first published work.
Seeing the sequel – already on my shelf, thank you – which is
longer still, I know there isn't likely to be a change on that front.
I am hopeful however that the small hiccups will be go smoother as we
go along, hoping as well that the mortal instruments aren't merely "plot coupons".
Being a love story first and foremost
though, do you find that seemingly insurmountable hurdles at the end
of a book are a good way to go? If you've read it, or seen the movie, do you think that it ruins all the previous buildup
in City of Bones? What are or what were your hopes for the sequels?
Let me know in the comments.
NOTE: This review was written in early summer, and since then Clare's past has been brought to much media attention. As this review addresses none of the issues now being discussed quite openly, please keep civil, even if we are discussing originality. That being said, I will be publishing my review of the second book shortly.
NOTE: This review was written in early summer, and since then Clare's past has been brought to much media attention. As this review addresses none of the issues now being discussed quite openly, please keep civil, even if we are discussing originality. That being said, I will be publishing my review of the second book shortly.
442pp. Walker Books. 2007.
