Reviews with content warning for Domestic abuse - City of Fallen Angels

I’ll probably give it another go eventually, after I’m less busy. For now, this is the last thing I’m reaching for from the tbr pile, so I’m setting it free.

Update: Finally finished it on a whim. There was a lot of cringing, incredulous "what"-ing, and the like. I don't recommend this book to ANYONE with trauma from a domestic violence or infidelity history, as some of the material will likely be incredibly triggering. Probably don't read this review. It's unfiltered, my initial impressions, and slightly unhinged with frustration.

Clary proceeded to be the least likeable person in the book, still. Very much reads like something written during the era when we were judging celebs for shaving their heads or daring to be a size 10/12.
Jace's issues were incredibly frustrating, and the line of delineation between Jace's actual trauma and what's being caused by the big bad's is often unclear.

Strong points: Luke is usually the only person with some amount of common sense, and Max's prior death continued to be painful. Watching them all continue to try to go on without him was rough, and it didn't feel like it was glossed over much.

The end of it seems to create YET MORE opportunities for grossness that I'd hoped we'd left behind us, which makes me want to throw up in my mouth.

Jace is hard to like because the narrative is clearly so in love with him but he's also clearly so dysfunctional and absolutely awful at communicating about it. It's like everyone's always like "Oh, he's so HOT and TORTURED and look at his muscles and how HOT he is and how much every girl ever WANTS him" which is a bit much to take when he is ten kinds of immature and in need of serious intervention on top of being, what. Sixteen? Seventeen? A literal child. (Ugh. Can you tell I'm not the YA target audience? Even still, I don't think adolescent me would've found him all that appealing.) Gross, gross, gross. You'd at least think that the other POV's would be less complimentary to Jace, but Simon's even all "Wow. Jace is so cool and nonchalant and BROKEN INSIDE." I mean, this boy manages to be so toxic Clary thinks he's ending things because of a 24 hour gap of contact. (And that in and of itself was mind-bendingly melodramatic. Like, the text read like a parody of YA romance--like something written to make fun of it.) I just have a really difficult time believing that Clary and Jace love each other the way they're constantly thinking they do when they jump to conclusions, keep secrets, and treat each other like vipers that might strike out and cause damage at any moment.
Yet these books always sort of patch it up right at the very end so Clary and Jace can have an "us against the world" moment before the credits roll. TLDR: as an adult, I do not find teenage Jace appealing in the slightest, so it's really rough trying to slog through Clary's perpetual drooling.

And don't even get me started on Simon's nonsense this book. Totally disappointing. OH. AND the fourteen year old? Did NOT like Simon biting her. That set off so many alarm bells. Even though Simon doesn't see Maureen that way, the scene read very predatorial, and Clare wasn't careful about the way that was unpacked. The text didn't make it into something nearly as disgusting as it should've been. I also find it near-impossible to believe that Jace and Jordan would've let Simon out of the apartment had he been in that bad of shape. I don't think Simon would've neglected himself to that degree. He's not stupid. He wouldn't be like, "Oh, neglecting to feed--I can do that. It doesn't matter." No. He'd be hyper-cautious, taking all steps he could to try to mitigate the risk he presents to others.

So I don't buy that for a minute. The conflict there felt completely contrived out of a series of bad decisions to get Simon to not have agency and do something shocking and monstrous to give us a jump scare.

Why am I reading this? Mostly anthropological urge to track this cultural phenomenon from when I was a tween/teen. But every time I pick one of these books up, I'm reminded why I have to take the series in VERY. SMALL. DOSES.

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Content Warnings

bettysbookshelf's review against another edition

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medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No

3.0

Obviously this is not the best book in the series (not as bad as city of ashes) so far but I did find this book to be enjoyable. It was fun to get to read in the other characters pov not just in Clary and Jaces as they can be a rather annoying sometimes. I liked that we got more Simon and Izzy because they're the best characters in tmi, besides Magnus of course. I also liked that Simon and Jace are finally starting to have a sort of friendship? Now onto the things I was not the biggest fan of the first being the plot. The plot of this book was very meh, it wasn't horrible, but it wasn't very spectacular either. Another thing I wasn't a fan of was the brushing off of Jordan's abuse towards Maia. They tried to justify him hitting and then attacking her because he had just been turned into a werewolf. I just hate the trope of where they make the werewolf boys have this weird aggression and then justifying it because they're a werewolf. It's gross. I hope the next book is much better and more fast paced as city of glass was.

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