“Clary Fray is seeing things: vampires in Brooklyn and werewolves in Manhattan. Irresistibly drawn towards a group of sexy demon hunters, Clary encounters the dark side of New York City – and the dangers of forbidden love”
I stumbled upon this book because my sister had been thoughtful enough to give me a gift card for Christmas, so I browsed through the whole catalogue of my favourite bookstore under the term ‘Fantasy’. I thought they looked nice and the blurb sounded interesting.
The setting: I haven’t been to NYC but that didn’t matter, because Cassandra created a whole world all the readers could feel a part of. The reader gets to visit many places and even ride the subway with Jace and Clary (I wouldn’t mind going on a subway ride with Jace…). The invented locations were very well described, and they felt real. The City of Bones feels eerie, whereas Idris feels majestic. Everything has a reason for existing, which is great. Up to now (City of Lost Souls, the fifth book in the series) I haven’t found evident plotholes, if you have, let me know because I don’t see them.
The creatures were also great and not just thrown in there for the sake of it being a supernatural world. The social conflict between classes is very evident and it adds to the complexity of the motives underlying the revolution that ensues.
The two main characters:
Clary: typical suburban girl. She starts as this kid who is in love with the self-proclaimed natural blond Jace, a tortured soul I’ll describe below. As the books evolve, she starts defending herself. She’s not helpless anymore, she goes right into action and is not afraid of battle. I think that the times she decides not to fight, it’s not because she’s showing weakness, it’s just because she firmly believes there is a less violent way to solve things. It’s a character I eventually got to like… she was exhausting at times, but when you get her deal (and put yourself in her shoes) you start liking her. Readers have to understand that from one minute to the other her whole set of beliefs is set upside down and she has to adapt to it… fast… it’s either that or be dead in five seconds.
Jace: ohhh Jace… *sigh* He’s the character you’ll love, eventually. At first I found him a bit disturbing. I was scared he’d kill Clary just for fun and laugh, and light a fire and dance around it… and then you find out about his childhood, and apart from understanding you are quite surprised he’s not more screwed up. He’s a kid whose catch phrase is ‘to love is to destroy’, therefore, he’s terrified of loving someone, because that, to him, will mean losing that person. He’s just a scared kid. He has all the ingredients to make you fall for him: he’s strong, virile, brave, and really really hot. He’s also very mysterious, which greatly adds to his sex appeal. He’s not just another hot guy who swoops in, saves the girl and they fall in love because he’s just so hot it’s unavoidable. He’s a character with a lot of history and a very tragic one at that.
Even though these two above are the main characters in the first book, the story focuses on the others from time to time, giving them a background story and adding interesting twists to the story.
All in all it’s a book I’d recommend. I loved it, even though I didn’t rate it five stars because I still have to read the last installment that comes out next year.
Disclaimer: the only things that belong to me are my own opinions, the books and images are owned by their respective authors.
No comments:
Post a Comment