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Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Book Review: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare


Rating: 
Title: The City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments #1)
Author: Cassandra Care
Pages: 496
Publishing date: March 27th 2007


Synopsis:
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. 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...

Exotic and gritty, exhilarating and utterly gripping, Cassandra Clare's ferociously entertaining fantasy takes readers on a wild ride that they will never want to end.


My Review:

After reading this book, I have given it a peachy rating of 4/5! This means in my opinion it was alright, but it didn’t absolutely WOW the heck out of me..!

But no worries, don't look away sad or turn to the next blog post, I still have positive things to say about this book. Let's start off with the main character! 

When I started this book I had mixed expectations as I've read so many random reviews on this book, good and bad, but nevertheless I dove into Clary Fray's world with an open mind...

Clary Fray- From my interpretations, I saw Clary Fray as a very self-conscious girl, fragile, small, someone who is not aware of her full potential. She reminded me a little of myself as I am also a very small girl, and in the book she explains how small people can never be sexy but rather cute. She sees this as a dilemma when she slowly falls in love with Jace Wayland, and is threatened by the gorgeous tall Isabelle who seemed to have had a past fling with him.

Even though Clary Fray was a good and pretty strong character, I sometimes found that her character was lacking spark. Something which really annoyed me was how vulnerable Clarly was all time as I love heroines which are strong, careless, but smart and brave. I noticed that her vulnerability and her confused and weak attitude did diminish bit by bit throughout the book, so I have great hopes for her in the next book: City of Ashes!!

The rest of the characters (Jace, Simon, Alec, Isabelle, etc) were funny, witty, and maybe at times a little obnoxiously, but I believe Cassandra maybe did that on purpose to really make the reader feel what type of people Clary had to deal with alongside the drama she had to cope with.

The writing throughout the book is simplistic and most of the time imaginable however, I must admit that sometimes I had difficulty with Cassandra's descriptions of certain things/scenes. For example when she was describing the runes, types of rooms/buildings the characters were in, or simply the appearance of a certain character... I wasn't always able to wrap my head around what she actually wanted me to picture.

What surprised me the most was that at times it was quite slow and some moments we're quite repetitive, but none the less, throughout the book the pace started to pick up more and more and before I knew it I was nose deep, reading each page with the utmost suspense and concentration

What I liked most of the book were the characters and their relationships amongst each other. I really enjoyed the growing attraction between Clary and Jace. In a way you would think by the way they both act, there is no way they could fall in love, but then again you could have definitely seen it coming by due to little hints they were giving each other.

I also enjoyed all the demonic characters in the book, sometimes their description was a little hard to imagine it but one quick reread and I was completely grasped by their horror. I hope to see only more and more of this awesomeness in the next books of Cassandra's "Mortal Instruments" series!

What I found most remarkable about this book was how some attributes and scenes of this book relate to the Harry Potter concept: Valentine vs Voldermort; Clary’s childhood vs Harry Potter’s childhood: parents lost & forbidden truth of her true self; Finding something very valuable which can change the future, which only the villain knows of its whereabouts: The Cup vs the Horcruxes, etc.
I am not sure if this is positive or negative, but I loved Harry Potter thus I can at least say that the plot definitely drew me in.

I found this book to be a genuine fun and exciting read, holding many exciting and adventurous moments; it ended up most definitely being a consistent page turner. Overall, the plot was very addictive and well written, the characters were fun and crazy, and the creatures and demons were horrific but simultaneously magnificent!


6 comments:

  1. I read this book a couple years ago and only remember bits and pieces of it, and that I enjoyed it. Glad to see you did too, despite some negatives. I will definitely have to reread this one!

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  2. Definitely! I think it's definitely a book that I will have to re-read since I took quite some time to finish it in the end, perhaps I also did not dedicate myself enough to really get into the story! But I really like the concept and the idea behind the series! Thanks for following and for your comment :)

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  3. Thank you Love_er_girl! I really like your job and reviews! The books you've read really interest m :) I will be checking back for sure! :)

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  4. Hi, Florentine. Nice review. I've heard of City of Bones but haven't checked it out yet. I just saw the movie trailer from your other post and now I'm hooked. I'd like to see the movie, but first I need to read the book :) The Host by Stephnie Meyer is another book I'd like to read before seeing the movie. Thanks for stopping by my blog earlier. Have a wonderful weekend!

    Kaykay @ The Creative Forum

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