City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

This review will contain spoilers for the first three books in The Mortal Instruments series. Though I'm not sure why you'd be reading this review if you hadn't already read those I figured I should be nice and let you know. Actually I think the whole review will be more spoilery than I usually post because of reasons.

City of Fallen Angels picked up just days after the ending of City of Glass. I was expecting at least a little bit of this book to be have everyone happy since at the end of the last book the following things happened:

- The bad guys were defeated! (Kind of, but we'll touch upon this again later). (P.S.- Never trust that someone is dead if you don't find the body).

- Clary and Jace finally found out that they were not related!

- Magnus and Alec made some headway on their relationship in a very public display.

- Isabelle and Simon had a little heart to heart and things were looking on the up and up.

- Clary's mom woke up from her magically induced coma and was made to realize that she'd been in love with Luke all along. (Well, duh...get it together Clary's mom).

So with all those loose ends neatly tied up I figured the Shadowhunters and their friends would have a little bit of a a reprieve in this book. And while there's quite a few pages of happy Jocelyn and Luke planning a marriage (yay!) everything else falls apart very quickly.

Like seriously, within the first few pages all of the teenage relationships are showing cracks. Not just tiny cracks but huge fissures. I know high schools were like that, on and off again couples and so on and so forth, but every single relationship that was established in the other books got messed up. Which leads to my main problem...

From reading The Infernal Devices series I know that Clare likes to tie up her books with happy endings which can be great. (Even if it's not realistic for everyone to survive it's kind of nice when all your favorite characters make it out alive and get happy endings). But if the entirety of Jace and Clary's relationship is so screwed up (first thinking they're brother/sister, then they have a week to enjoy it before demony possessions start happening) then how in the world will your readers believe it in the likely event that you write a happy ever after for them?

I'm writing this review after already having read 30% of book five and I gotta say one thing: the love Jace and Clary supposedly feel for each other is so obsessive that it's borderline ridiculous. They haven't had enough of a "normal" relationship for them to feel so strongly which is why I think City of Fallen Angels should have given them at least a half a book of normal to build on it.

The same goes for Alec and Magnus. I liked them together and I had high hopes for their relationship but jeeze...so far it's been nothing but toxic.

But even with all that I did like the books and will continue the series because no matter how much Clare butchers the characters and their relationships I still want to know how their stories end up.

So I have hopes that the rest of City of Lost Souls will either fix said relationships or will just end them before everyone gets too annoying.

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

City of Ashes is the second book in The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. And the first time I read it was a few years back but, as I posted in my review of City of Bones, I had to do a re-read of the first three books because I didn't know there were more to the series (now, or at least by the end of May, there will be six books in the series). And yes I did like them enough to read them a second time around.

I think I like the series because everyone is so flawed. Jace is kind of an ass but in the vein of the great annoying characters in the world. (Like in real life the annoying conceited hot guy is mostly on your hate list...like cute enough to maybe make out with but you'd never want to date him because he's an ass. But it's okay to want to date him in fiction. I mean there are countless of asshat characters that make no sense for me me to like but I do...Spike from Buffy, Draco from Harry Potter, etc.) So I like Jace in the book and cheer for a relationship to work out but I'd definitely avoid him in real life and go with Simon.

I liked how Simon and Clary both kind of came into their own in this book. It took a major change for Simon to become a more three dimensional character while Clary just kind of grew into her skills. It was nice to see because I get sick of it when character's don't try to defend themselves (I'm looking at you Stephanie Plum in Janet Evanovich's series...I've read fifteen books and Stephanie still hasn't learned a damn thing).

And yes there are similarities to Harry Potter even in this second book of the series (the Inquisitor is basically Umbridge only in gray, not pink) but that was the biggest one I noticed this time around.

The only reason I don't think I enjoyed this as much as the first time around is because I'm ready to get past the books I've already read and get into the new ones!

The Ring and the Crown by Melissa de la Cruz

Note: I received a free copy of The Ring and the Crown from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The Ring and the Crown was a cute little historical/fantasy novel that actually kind of reminded me of a Shakespeare play (think A Midsummer Night's Dream or Twelfth Night). The story is Shakespearean in a way because almost everyone pretends to be someone they aren't, some in disguise and some just through their actions, and they all begin the story in love with the wrong people.

The main story is set around Princess Marie Victoria and her newly returned friend Aelwyn who has been away at Avalaon to learn to control her magic. When she returns Marie is affianced to a Prince Leopold who both girls knew when they were younger. There are also side plots involving Leo's lover and her cousin and lecherous uncle, Leo's brother and an American girl who he's expressed interest in, and Marie's guard Gill.

It was very interesting to see how author Melissa de la Cruz envisioned a world where royal families had the help of their Merlins or Morgaines, aka sorcerers and sorceresses who can use magic to help change appearances, influence others, and basically help save or sink an entire nation. But it wasn't just the magic that intrigued me, it was the lively characters.

Even though the "cast" as you might call it was large (even the secondary characters had full chapters dedicated to them) it was nice to see each of them fleshed out with motivations of their own and even resolutions to each of their stories. I also liked that each and every character learned something new about themselves and that, though they didn't necessarily get the endings they had wanted, most of the good characters got relatively happy endings and the bad characters met endings they deserved.

Sometimes it's just nice to read something that ends in such a nicely tied up way.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

I read the first three books in the Mortal Instruments series back when the third one came out, thinking the trilogy was complete. And then I was looking around the internet a few months ago and saw that the sixth book in the series was to come out this year. So what did I have to do? Reread the first three books so I can catch up and finish off the series. And with the popularity of the books and the addition of Goodreads I’ve learned quite a bit more about Cassandra Clare and the beef that so many readers seem to have with her. So after my rereading I figured I should actually write a review of the books.

To me, now and then, the premise of the Mortal Instruments series was very interesting. You have a female protagonist (which is almost always nice because I find it easier to get into the mind of a female lead) who thinks she’s an ordinary human and she soon finds out she is not. Enter the world of Shadowhunters (demon killers), Downworlders (your vampires, werewolves, etc.) and demons. They all have hierarchies and their own worlds and I was very intrigued to see how Clary handles it when this whole new world opens up to her.

When I first read the series I loved it. I was not a part of Goodreads and I didn’t really read reviews before I picked up books. Instead I just wandered around the library and took home things that looked interesting. Now I know more.

Apparently Cassandra Clare used to be a pretty big name in the world of Harry Potter fanfiction. (Which is really weird that I had never come across some of her stories because I have gotten pretty far into the wormhole that is Harry Potter fanfiction. Hell, I’m even to the point where I write my own but I digress). But it seems that when Clare was into fanfiction she liked to take quotes and passages from other people, either their fanfiction pieces or quotes from popular shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and inserted them into her fanfiction without attributing them to the original writer. So basically plagiarism. Which, as a fanfiction writer and an aspiring author myself, I know is a very bad thing.

But I’m sure she’s learned her lesson (do you really think an agent/editor wouldn’t have learned about the issue and then did everything to make sure there weren’t any problems in the published pieces?) I don’t think that’s an issue when you look at the series that did end up getting published, i.e. The Mortal Instruments. Sure there are some similarities to popular books and shows but what show/book hasn’t been influenced by things that have come before it?

The major points I see people taking offense to include (and I won’t mention the ones that could spoil the book for others): Valentine is like Voldemort because both V’s wanted “pure” worlds and surrounded themselves by weaker followers that they pretended to be friends with. Those two are similar but who else does that sound like? Hitler, maybe? And I’m sure there have been dozens of other literary and historical figures who have followed the same path. There’s also parts where when a Shadowhunter sees a building it looks all nice but normal humans would see a hovel or something. That sounds a little like Harry Potter but also like any other story about magic where there are things like “glamours.” I could go on and on and link things that people say remind them of Harry Potter but in truth you can find links between so many things in this day and age. Just to name a few: Gandalf is Dumbledore is Obi Wan Kenobi. Luke Skywalker is Harry Potter is Eragon is Clary.

It happens because, as I think I heard/learned somewhere, is that there are only like seven major arcs in storytelling but there are millions of stories that are being told so it only makes since that things overlap sometimes. And in this case I don’t find so many similarities that it puts me off.

I like Clary and Jace and their eccentricities and issues. I like that the Shadowhunter world is flawed and that there are quite a few people who are judgmental and borderline “racist” (maybe “speciest” is a better word since it’s Shadowhunters looking down upon vampires and vice versa, etc.) because although it’s not nice it does reflect how a society would really work. And I will read the series and if I like it then that is all that matters.