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tallulahrose19's review against another edition
Dang...8 years later..was really not as good as I remember..dnf
gisela9405's review against another edition
4.0
i forgot how fun stupid books are also why the incest? big downfall of these books
olwyn88's review against another edition
adventurous
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
3.0
abeesbooks's review against another edition
4.0
this was so fun!!!
4/5 ⭐️
The characters and plot of this book made this the best part honestly. I have watched the show before and it is so different that its painful to watch the show now lol
The whole book felt so fast paced even having longer chapters which I usually avoid as a reader. The magic system felt so unique and though i knew a lot going in, it still felt new and interesting!! I definitely think she does a lot of both showing and telling which a lot of authors tend to drift from one of the two. everything had a reason or point that was explained at some point during the book.
The only downside was the ending, ifykyk. it really frustrates me why this plotline was even added in but it still will take you by complete suprise!!!
definitely recommend this 1000 percent!
4/5 ⭐️
The characters and plot of this book made this the best part honestly. I have watched the show before and it is so different that its painful to watch the show now lol
The whole book felt so fast paced even having longer chapters which I usually avoid as a reader. The magic system felt so unique and though i knew a lot going in, it still felt new and interesting!! I definitely think she does a lot of both showing and telling which a lot of authors tend to drift from one of the two. everything had a reason or point that was explained at some point during the book.
The only downside was the ending, ifykyk. it really frustrates me why this plotline was even added in but it still will take you by complete suprise!!!
definitely recommend this 1000 percent!
siirup's review against another edition
1.0
In the spirit of fair warning, I would like to preface this by saying that I'm not about to be particularly kind to this book. If that is not something you would like to read, I completely understand, and I mean no unkindness or disrespect on those who do enjoy the book, and/or the series.
For those who would stay(hi, hello), I'd like to offer a bit of context.
I first found the Mortal Instruments series through the TV show. I read City of Bones a good-roughly-7 years ago, no longer own the book to attempt a re-read, and did not grow up with, or attached to, the series from an age to hold any nostalgia for it. This series, I feel, has haunted me a bit since I found it, and as all is from memory I may not be making a lot of sense. Perhaps more train of thought than anything. And of course, as with all reviews, please take my thoughts on this with whatever size helping of salt you feel fitting.
I first read City of Bones back in, roughly, 2016. I'd found the TV series on Netflix a while back, binged through it all in a very short period, and took an interest in the world/setting of Shadowhunters. I spent most of the TV show thinking it felt quite oddly made, both in script and quality, and decided that I would like to try and read it, instead, and see if the book fared better-they usually did, in my experience.
I finally put down City of Bones, about halfway through, at my best friend's house, which is I think why I remember it at all, to be honest. I'd been hoping the book would expand upon the lore, and the world, and the creatures in it. Everything was real, after all, it couldn't possibly be so simple as just... Everything being real.
I remember staring at the pages, having just gotten past a chapter that bothered me(though don't recall which, what or why), confused. Looking up at my friend, a little exacerbated, and saying, "this is, like... Bad!" My friend looked up at me and said, "Yeah, dude." and that was that. He let me rant a bit, and when I did finally decide I'd had enough and set it down, we watched anime instead.
Up until then, I hadn't really considered the idea that people might read things with their minds turned off(keeping in mind I was roughly 16-17 at the time). I'd seen other Cassandra Clare books before, knew her to be pretty well-known in fantasy reading circles, and to be rather well-loved in those circles as well. I trusted that people that read the genre often could say with a great level of accuracy if a fantasy series was "good" or not.
Though it is worth noting that I'm AroAce, and both found and find romantic sub-plots to be more of a nuisance to a story than anything. I think that purely comes down to not connecting with the feelings that draw people into romantic relationships to begin with, but considering the story I felt it was important.
I also believe that anyone can like most things in the world if they go into it with the right expectations. Most people's favourite things are circumstantial, I think-it happened to be what was needed for them at that specific moment. I'm certainly guilty of this, and very aware of it.
All of this to say that, much as I wanted to love the series, much as I felt I was missing something that made it "good", I couldn't stand it. In retrospect, perhaps I had the wrong mindset. Likely I still wouldn't have liked it, but had I looked into it a little more, or understood the elements of stories that most people connect best to, maybe I would've felt a little differently. But, ultimately, I hated it.
"Good", especially in reference to media, is incredibly subjective. There is no one objective good. With that in mind, everything I will be saying is purely to my own, subjective, ideals of goods and bads in books.
And here's where I'm unkind, without elaboration.
Clary is awful, which is hard to get past. I understand 'good' characters have to start off somewhere bad so they have somewhere to go, and there are plenty of characters I adore that are atrocious people, but they don't really pretend to be otherwise. And I don't trust that Clary gets any better, anyway. From the get-go, she's judgmental, selfish, and honestly I felt she was rather stupid a lot of the time. She has very little regard for other people's lives outside of how they can help her, no consideration for how her actions effect others or the world around her, and for being thrown into a world of 'literally everything you've ever heard of being real' she is painfully uncurious about that aspect of the world.
And this, I think, is where I was lost from the story. I look for interesting worlds in fantasy, worlds that have been expanded beyond what the reader sees. A world doesn't have to be thoroughly explained, if done right. We don't have to know the ins and outs of how magic works and where it comes from, or the anatomy of a vampire, but writing it well helps us look past the not knowing. But that isn't what City of Bones, or the Shadowhunters series, is about. It's about romance, at the cost of the worldbuilding. There are books in which the unknowns feel as though they're because it just wasn't relevant, but the information is still there, where we as the reader see only as much as we need to, but whatever rules lie beyond our knowledge still apply even if our absence. And then there's worlds that exist as no more than a pillow-fort backdrop to the characters-or more often, their romance. Worldbuilding is an afterthought, because that's not what the story's about. It's about him and her and them.
I felt that a lot of whatever little tidbits of world were given were tacked on as afterthoughts. It's there as padding between Their scenes, to give the reader a break between, but means nothing. I felt the writing, all around, was bad. I felt the world to be lazy, Jace boring and as unlikable as Clary. The characters all fell flat for me, and I have a very hard time trying to slog through "good" people being awful to each other. If you're going to be awful, be unapologetically awful, I think, and acknowledge it. I can respect that.
In fairness, I did quite like Magnus and the Lightwood twins. Isabelle and Alec were most of my motivation to keep reading. I hoped they would be fleshed out more in the book than the show, but considering the trend of one-dimension for the entire cast, I'm no more disappointed with them than anyone else. Isabelle I still feel to be the best part of the series, though perhaps that has more to do with Emeraude Toubia's portrayal of her in the show than the character herself.
Alec's storyline in the show was what initially had me actually watching. I left the series on in the background while I puttered about my room, initially, but Alec's the one who caught my attention. At the time, the representation was nice to see, I think, from a show I didn't expect it from. Sick to death as I am of LGBTQ+ stories revolving around other people's acceptance, much as I'd love to just have LGBTQ+ characters in media without feeling the need to explain them, that isn't the fault of the book or the show, it's just a pet peeve of mine. A man can dream.
And, of course, we will have to talk about the incest. There are three separate incest scares in the series that I'm aware of-Alec's crush on Jace, a Jace's-Clary's-long-lost-brother fakeout with continued makeout(incredibly uncomfortable to read, to be honest), and Clary's actual(?) brother's crush on Clary. The fakeout, I think, I could've looked past, oddly enough. Wildly uncomfortable as it was, I understand the need for tension, and I think it could've been kinda fun if it had any actual impact on their relationship in the long run, have them re-examine their feelings for each other, and exactly where their morals sit. That also, however, would've been if and only if the knowledge had changed their feelings for each other. Instead, it did little more than to add a touch of "taboo" to their relationship. As someone with three siblings, gotta be honest, man... Gross. But, even if I could've offered the benefit of the doubt to Jace and Clary's mixup, once is a plotline and thrice is a theme.
All-in-all, did not have a good time with it. Which is fine, it just doesn't mix well with my tastes, good is subjective, and not every book needs to fit every person. I re-watched the TV show every so often all the same, largely as background noise, and even if I didn't like it something about it clearly stuck with me.
For the past year or so, I've been trying to fit more reading into my life again. I used to read all the time, but the older I get the harder the time is to find, and mental illness is not kind. But, I stumbled across BookTube roughly two years ago, which oddly became a great help, even if it was only background noise. It brought to focus more motivation to read again, even if only so much as a chapter a day, and the reading in turn helped focus my mind and calm my base-level anxiety. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll be able to write again, as well, some day.
I began to notice that almost everybody I watched seemed to have the Mortal Instruments. Whether talking about it or not, it was always there in the background-and when it was spoken of, singing praises. Which I found both fascinating and amazingly frustrating. The series, to me, felt quite blatantly, if nothing else, poorly written. I wondered if I was missing something, but most of what I saw in response to criticism was that it 'gets better in book 3', which, I'm sorry, but is an awful selling point and not a proper response to criticism. I'm certainly not about to offer up however many hours of my time that could be spent reading books I do or might enjoy on the off chance that something in the third book makes up for the first two.
Which is sort of what leads me to the where and why of now. This series has, I feel, very much haunted me since I first watched the show, both for better and worse, and while my opinion means just left of absolutely nothing, I feel I needed the thoughts out of my brain. To be blunt and unkind; it's an awful book, poorly written, about awful people, and I'm sick to death of it going so largely unchallenged. So here is my messy little challenge.
But, as always, read what you like, pay no mind to those that don't. We've got a short time to live and a lot of words to read, if that's the remix you enjoy I'm glad you've found something to connect to. I read City of Bones with the expectation of a rich world, others went in with the expectation of a romance. Neither is wrong, simply didn't align.
For those who would stay(hi, hello), I'd like to offer a bit of context.
I first found the Mortal Instruments series through the TV show. I read City of Bones a good-roughly-7 years ago, no longer own the book to attempt a re-read, and did not grow up with, or attached to, the series from an age to hold any nostalgia for it. This series, I feel, has haunted me a bit since I found it, and as all is from memory I may not be making a lot of sense. Perhaps more train of thought than anything. And of course, as with all reviews, please take my thoughts on this with whatever size helping of salt you feel fitting.
I first read City of Bones back in, roughly, 2016. I'd found the TV series on Netflix a while back, binged through it all in a very short period, and took an interest in the world/setting of Shadowhunters. I spent most of the TV show thinking it felt quite oddly made, both in script and quality, and decided that I would like to try and read it, instead, and see if the book fared better-they usually did, in my experience.
I finally put down City of Bones, about halfway through, at my best friend's house, which is I think why I remember it at all, to be honest. I'd been hoping the book would expand upon the lore, and the world, and the creatures in it. Everything was real, after all, it couldn't possibly be so simple as just... Everything being real.
I remember staring at the pages, having just gotten past a chapter that bothered me(though don't recall which, what or why), confused. Looking up at my friend, a little exacerbated, and saying, "this is, like... Bad!" My friend looked up at me and said, "Yeah, dude." and that was that. He let me rant a bit, and when I did finally decide I'd had enough and set it down, we watched anime instead.
Up until then, I hadn't really considered the idea that people might read things with their minds turned off(keeping in mind I was roughly 16-17 at the time). I'd seen other Cassandra Clare books before, knew her to be pretty well-known in fantasy reading circles, and to be rather well-loved in those circles as well. I trusted that people that read the genre often could say with a great level of accuracy if a fantasy series was "good" or not.
Though it is worth noting that I'm AroAce, and both found and find romantic sub-plots to be more of a nuisance to a story than anything. I think that purely comes down to not connecting with the feelings that draw people into romantic relationships to begin with, but considering the story I felt it was important.
I also believe that anyone can like most things in the world if they go into it with the right expectations. Most people's favourite things are circumstantial, I think-it happened to be what was needed for them at that specific moment. I'm certainly guilty of this, and very aware of it.
All of this to say that, much as I wanted to love the series, much as I felt I was missing something that made it "good", I couldn't stand it. In retrospect, perhaps I had the wrong mindset. Likely I still wouldn't have liked it, but had I looked into it a little more, or understood the elements of stories that most people connect best to, maybe I would've felt a little differently. But, ultimately, I hated it.
"Good", especially in reference to media, is incredibly subjective. There is no one objective good. With that in mind, everything I will be saying is purely to my own, subjective, ideals of goods and bads in books.
And here's where I'm unkind, without elaboration.
Clary is awful, which is hard to get past. I understand 'good' characters have to start off somewhere bad so they have somewhere to go, and there are plenty of characters I adore that are atrocious people, but they don't really pretend to be otherwise. And I don't trust that Clary gets any better, anyway. From the get-go, she's judgmental, selfish, and honestly I felt she was rather stupid a lot of the time. She has very little regard for other people's lives outside of how they can help her, no consideration for how her actions effect others or the world around her, and for being thrown into a world of 'literally everything you've ever heard of being real' she is painfully uncurious about that aspect of the world.
And this, I think, is where I was lost from the story. I look for interesting worlds in fantasy, worlds that have been expanded beyond what the reader sees. A world doesn't have to be thoroughly explained, if done right. We don't have to know the ins and outs of how magic works and where it comes from, or the anatomy of a vampire, but writing it well helps us look past the not knowing. But that isn't what City of Bones, or the Shadowhunters series, is about. It's about romance, at the cost of the worldbuilding. There are books in which the unknowns feel as though they're because it just wasn't relevant, but the information is still there, where we as the reader see only as much as we need to, but whatever rules lie beyond our knowledge still apply even if our absence. And then there's worlds that exist as no more than a pillow-fort backdrop to the characters-or more often, their romance. Worldbuilding is an afterthought, because that's not what the story's about. It's about him and her and them.
I felt that a lot of whatever little tidbits of world were given were tacked on as afterthoughts. It's there as padding between Their scenes, to give the reader a break between, but means nothing. I felt the writing, all around, was bad. I felt the world to be lazy, Jace boring and as unlikable as Clary. The characters all fell flat for me, and I have a very hard time trying to slog through "good" people being awful to each other. If you're going to be awful, be unapologetically awful, I think, and acknowledge it. I can respect that.
In fairness, I did quite like Magnus and the Lightwood twins. Isabelle and Alec were most of my motivation to keep reading. I hoped they would be fleshed out more in the book than the show, but considering the trend of one-dimension for the entire cast, I'm no more disappointed with them than anyone else. Isabelle I still feel to be the best part of the series, though perhaps that has more to do with Emeraude Toubia's portrayal of her in the show than the character herself.
Alec's storyline in the show was what initially had me actually watching. I left the series on in the background while I puttered about my room, initially, but Alec's the one who caught my attention. At the time, the representation was nice to see, I think, from a show I didn't expect it from. Sick to death as I am of LGBTQ+ stories revolving around other people's acceptance, much as I'd love to just have LGBTQ+ characters in media without feeling the need to explain them, that isn't the fault of the book or the show, it's just a pet peeve of mine. A man can dream.
And, of course, we will have to talk about the incest. There are three separate incest scares in the series that I'm aware of-Alec's crush on Jace, a Jace's-Clary's-long-lost-brother fakeout with continued makeout(incredibly uncomfortable to read, to be honest), and Clary's actual(?) brother's crush on Clary. The fakeout, I think, I could've looked past, oddly enough. Wildly uncomfortable as it was, I understand the need for tension, and I think it could've been kinda fun if it had any actual impact on their relationship in the long run, have them re-examine their feelings for each other, and exactly where their morals sit. That also, however, would've been if and only if the knowledge had changed their feelings for each other. Instead, it did little more than to add a touch of "taboo" to their relationship. As someone with three siblings, gotta be honest, man... Gross. But, even if I could've offered the benefit of the doubt to Jace and Clary's mixup, once is a plotline and thrice is a theme.
All-in-all, did not have a good time with it. Which is fine, it just doesn't mix well with my tastes, good is subjective, and not every book needs to fit every person. I re-watched the TV show every so often all the same, largely as background noise, and even if I didn't like it something about it clearly stuck with me.
For the past year or so, I've been trying to fit more reading into my life again. I used to read all the time, but the older I get the harder the time is to find, and mental illness is not kind. But, I stumbled across BookTube roughly two years ago, which oddly became a great help, even if it was only background noise. It brought to focus more motivation to read again, even if only so much as a chapter a day, and the reading in turn helped focus my mind and calm my base-level anxiety. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll be able to write again, as well, some day.
I began to notice that almost everybody I watched seemed to have the Mortal Instruments. Whether talking about it or not, it was always there in the background-and when it was spoken of, singing praises. Which I found both fascinating and amazingly frustrating. The series, to me, felt quite blatantly, if nothing else, poorly written. I wondered if I was missing something, but most of what I saw in response to criticism was that it 'gets better in book 3', which, I'm sorry, but is an awful selling point and not a proper response to criticism. I'm certainly not about to offer up however many hours of my time that could be spent reading books I do or might enjoy on the off chance that something in the third book makes up for the first two.
Which is sort of what leads me to the where and why of now. This series has, I feel, very much haunted me since I first watched the show, both for better and worse, and while my opinion means just left of absolutely nothing, I feel I needed the thoughts out of my brain. To be blunt and unkind; it's an awful book, poorly written, about awful people, and I'm sick to death of it going so largely unchallenged. So here is my messy little challenge.
But, as always, read what you like, pay no mind to those that don't. We've got a short time to live and a lot of words to read, if that's the remix you enjoy I'm glad you've found something to connect to. I read City of Bones with the expectation of a rich world, others went in with the expectation of a romance. Neither is wrong, simply didn't align.
neva383's review against another edition
adventurous
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
4.5
ella0of's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
informative
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.0
didiluvvz's review against another edition
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
jordybee's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Such a fun read. I started off biased since I watched the TV show first. But the small differences kept me on my toes and my heart was broken all over again for the characters 💔 excited for the next book.
book_tribute23's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
funny
mysterious
sad
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0