Reviews tagging 'Blood'

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

71 reviews

mousmoulo's review against another edition

4.5

the fomo finally got to me but it was worth it

and now, a quick (ο θεός να το κάνει) rant about the infamous ✨incest plot✨:

okay i have a bone to pick with y'all LMAO. i have a sibling so, needless to say, i can't imagine anything more disgusting as a concept than incest. BUT FUCKING COME ON. y'all narrowed it down to "ew incest 🤢 we don't talk about tmi because of the incest" & THEN THE INCEST IS ALL ABOUT DESTRUCTION. it's about valentine taking away the one good thing clary & jace have found. it's about valentine making sure jace can never love clary because he found comfort in her, & valentine can't allow that because he knows who & what jace values more. it's about turning the aforementioned comfort into disgust, into something instantaneously forbidden & unattainable. it's about making one hate the guts of the person the other loves (jocelyn). it's about valentine knowing painfully, terrifyingly well what jace wants (a family) & giving him the worst version of it (his horrible father is alive & fucking evil, his mother abandoned him, the girl he's in love with is his sister). it's about clary & jace embracing it anyway: ending on good terms, changing the trajectory of their relationship accordingly, as well as they can manage, choosing each other despite valentine's lies & manipulation. yes the idea of incest is disgusting, absolutely. but to narrow it down like that? media illiteracy at its finest. "this book has incest so it's embracing it, therefore it's disgusting & the author is disgusting & supports incest" -> what so many people have narrowed tmi down to & it's like. no. NO. NO ONE'S EMBRACING ANYTHING. incest is disgusting & THAT'S THE FUCKING POINT. we can't keep treating taboo topics so mindlessly, it doesn't take a phd in literary analysis to stop & think why the author made a choice they made. obvs i don't know how it will go in the next books but for now: I'M TIREDDDDDD i'm so so tired

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Death and Blood

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Death of parent, Forced institutionalization, and Incest

salamanda's review against another edition

adventurous dark mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Gore

frankyreadsbooks's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? Yes

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood and Death

Moderate: Animal death, Death of parent, and Child death

janka05's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Blood, Abandonment, and Death

Moderate: Genocide, Fire/Fire injury, War, Child death, and Death of parent

Minor: Incest

annikare's review against another edition

adventurous dark emotional funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Blood, Death, Murder, and Violence

Moderate: Suicidal thoughts, Toxic friendship, Death of parent, Toxic relationship, and Child death

gussurireads's review against another edition

adventurous emotional funny medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.0

As a fellow adult teenager, this is the kind of series I needed for my second adolescence (I'm LGBT and therefore my first adolescence does not count)

It was cheesy at times, overtly dramatic at others, the banter between Jace and Clary was funny and Isabelle is an underrated queen that deserved more  "screentime". I was afraid she and Clary would've stayed "enemies" just for the sake of girl drama but I'm glad I got them being friendly at the end (they should've been lesbians, just saying).

Still it took me longer than I expected to get through this because for a looooong time, the plot just didn't progress at all. I felt we were just being dragged along to all these different little adventures set up purposefully for Clary to find out more about the Shadow World. I'm hoping that the second book, having more of the world set up and explained, will feel a bit faster on the pacing.

Act III was kind of wild with all the reveals and the ENTIRE CHAPTER dedicated to Luke just infodumping his entire backstory to us. At one point, I was having such a hard time keeping up with all the surnames for Clary's family! And the confrontation with Valentine felt so goofy and over the top, only missing out on a villainous monologue as he explained all his plans.

Can't wait to see how Cassandra Clare is going to work out the "sibling” conundrum (as I said above, just make Clary and Isabelle a couple, I promise it'll be so much better!)

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Blood and Gore

Minor: Homophobia and Incest

bethaniesherwood's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Violence, Torture, Cursing, Racism, Alcohol, Blood, War, and Murder

Moderate: Abandonment, Religious bigotry, Toxic friendship, Hate crime, Grief, Death, Child abuse, Emotional abuse, Toxic relationship, Incest, Domestic abuse, and Death of parent

infjkiki's review against another edition

adventurous emotional mysterious tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Physical abuse, Death, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Fire/Fire injury, Gore, Violence, Panic attacks/disorders, Injury/Injury detail, Toxic relationship, Grief, Child abuse, Blood, Death of parent, Child death, Emotional abuse, and Murder

readers_hideaway1's review against another edition

adventurous dark tense medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Character
• Strong character development? Yes
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Realize this is a series and unlike a lot if series their is a lot that I don't understand after book one so I will need to read the rest .

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Content Warnings

Moderate: Death of parent, Physical abuse, Toxic relationship, Injury/Injury detail, Bullying, Blood, Grief, Fire/Fire injury, Medical trauma, Murder, Domestic abuse, Gore, Kidnapping, Medical content, Torture, Toxic friendship, Incest, Confinement, Self harm, Child abuse, Death, War, Child death, Emotional abuse, and Violence

emilywemily6's review against another edition

dark mysterious slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? It's complicated
• Loveable characters? Yes
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.5

Holy plot twists Batman. The last 50-100 pages were crazy full of twists and turns. Lots of betrayal, misrepresentations of the past, etc. Overall, this book felt a little more YA than I typically like. Clary is clearly 15 and while the shadowhunter teens are older it is not by much. Some of the things they said or did were stupid honestly, but not overly so (it was only sometimes). I like these characters, they are very distinct and I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes. Though with a title like City of Bones I would have thought that this book would spend more than 2 chapters in the actual City of Bones. Clary was kind of dense when it came to catching on to the plot twists too lol. This book is a bit shallow in terms of world building, etc. but I’m hoping I get more throughout the books.

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Content Warnings

Graphic: Injury/Injury detail, Animal death, Blood, Grief, Hate crime, Kidnapping, Violence, Murder, Gaslighting, Abandonment, Death, Death of parent, Emotional abuse, Animal cruelty, and Gore

Moderate: Child abuse, Racism, and Domestic abuse

Minor: Homophobia, Incest, and Sexual content