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tristhenerd's review against another edition
4.0
(This is a snippet from my review on my blog). I think the thing that I especially love about this book is the world-building. It is just so amazing and complex — which did make the book move more slowly in some parts but I didn’t mind — and I really love how the backstory of the Shadowhunters and Idris was laid out nicely throughout.
blurrypetals's review against another edition
5.0
June 18, 2019
[re-read for Shadowhunter Summer 2019]
All my Shadowhunter Summer 2019 reviews may contain untagged spoilers for all the books in The Shadowhunter Chronicles. If you wish to read a non-spoiler review for this book, you may scroll to the review I wrote on September 14, 2017.
What can I say about City of Bones that I haven't already said before?
Let's hit up the basics and see if I can think up something new on the way, shall we? This is an insanely good debut novel. Like what the fuck. How did Cassie write a book this good as a debut?
It's incredibly funny, the action is excellent, fun, and interesting, and the story is fucking rad. Jace and Clary build a really solid, entertaining foundation and chemistry here that only grows and strengthens as the books go on and it is incredibly fucking delightful.
And oh, the melodrama of these first three books! It's so good! I don't care that this feels a bit like a fantasy soap opera because the relationships are all so strongly written that I don't care about the campiness, it just feels real and interesting and genuine.
This may not be Cassandra Clare's strongest book, but it's far from being her weakest (that honor actually goes to her most recent book, The Red Scrolls of Magic), and it is certainly not the weakest in The Mortal Instruments hexalogy (because that honor goes to City of Heavenly Fire).
This is a hella fun book and I will never tire of the place it all started, because it's the place that brought me to books as perfect as City of Lost Souls, Clockwork Princess, all the short story collections, and the entire The Dark Artifices trilogy.
All hail City of Bones. Onward to City of Ashes.
September 14, 2017:
[re-read for my Greatest Hits Bookshelf Tour 2017]
Something I've said over and over again for every single book of Cassandra Clare's as I've made my way through the series is that her books have gotten better and better with each book, that she's constantly outdoing herself. That said, I was a little nervous going into rereading this book because of that sentiment. If the last book of hers, Lord of Shadows, was masterful as it was and all its predecessors were incrementally worse moving backward from there, then did that mean this first book was maybe a little bit garbage?
That, combined with the atrocious film adaptation, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones in 2013, which I hated with every fiber of my being, then onward to the television show, Shadowhunters' less than accurate and super weird adaptation of these first three books, I started to wonder to myself: was City of Bones even all that good?
The answer to my own question is, without a doubt in my mind now, a resounding, YES, YES, YES! Yes, City of Bones is absolutely fantastic in every sense of the word. It's absolutely hilarious, with the dialogue between Simon and Clary, Jace and Clary, and Simon and Jace being an absolute delight that can't be beat, it's enrapturing from moment one, wrapping you up in the story, its world, and its characters like you're being swaddled like a baby, but instead of a blanket, you're swaddled in almost 500 pages of the most uproarious, fantastical, and exciting stories ever put to paper, in my not-so-humble opinion.
It was an absolute joy to revisit the place it all started. People will often tell you Cassandra Clare is beating a dead horse, that the first book wasn't all that good in the first place, that it's a ripoff of [insert Harry Potter, Twilight, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer or some variation of the three here], but I always have and will continue to wholeheartedly disagree. City of Bones is a stellar debut novel. Its worldbuilding is the absolute best I, personally, have ever had the pleasure of reading. The characters feel so close to being real people that I half-expect to meet them one day if I'm in the wrong place at the right time in New York.
The Shadowhunter Chronicles always have been so much fun for me. There's adventure, heartbreak, twists, turns, action, comedy, tragedy, and so very, very much more. It's comforted and entertained me for countless hours and it will continue to comfort and entertain for many hours (and years) to come and it all started here, with one of the best introductions to a series I've read in my life. It is absolutely possible to fall in love with a book twice because I did it with this one and I'm sure I'll do it with the dozen books that follow it. I'm so excited to find out what happens next even though I already know what happens next. That, to me, is a great story: to revisit its pages and find it just as new and exciting as you did seven years ago.
[re-read for Shadowhunter Summer 2019]
"I have a high pain threshold. In fact, it's more of a large and tastefully decorated foyer than a threshold."
All my Shadowhunter Summer 2019 reviews may contain untagged spoilers for all the books in The Shadowhunter Chronicles. If you wish to read a non-spoiler review for this book, you may scroll to the review I wrote on September 14, 2017.
What can I say about City of Bones that I haven't already said before?
Let's hit up the basics and see if I can think up something new on the way, shall we? This is an insanely good debut novel. Like what the fuck. How did Cassie write a book this good as a debut?
It's incredibly funny, the action is excellent, fun, and interesting, and the story is fucking rad. Jace and Clary build a really solid, entertaining foundation and chemistry here that only grows and strengthens as the books go on and it is incredibly fucking delightful.
And oh, the melodrama of these first three books! It's so good! I don't care that this feels a bit like a fantasy soap opera because the relationships are all so strongly written that I don't care about the campiness, it just feels real and interesting and genuine.
This may not be Cassandra Clare's strongest book, but it's far from being her weakest (that honor actually goes to her most recent book, The Red Scrolls of Magic), and it is certainly not the weakest in The Mortal Instruments hexalogy (because that honor goes to City of Heavenly Fire).
This is a hella fun book and I will never tire of the place it all started, because it's the place that brought me to books as perfect as City of Lost Souls, Clockwork Princess, all the short story collections, and the entire The Dark Artifices trilogy.
All hail City of Bones. Onward to City of Ashes.
September 14, 2017:
[re-read for my Greatest Hits Bookshelf Tour 2017]
Something I've said over and over again for every single book of Cassandra Clare's as I've made my way through the series is that her books have gotten better and better with each book, that she's constantly outdoing herself. That said, I was a little nervous going into rereading this book because of that sentiment. If the last book of hers, Lord of Shadows, was masterful as it was and all its predecessors were incrementally worse moving backward from there, then did that mean this first book was maybe a little bit garbage?
That, combined with the atrocious film adaptation, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones in 2013, which I hated with every fiber of my being, then onward to the television show, Shadowhunters' less than accurate and super weird adaptation of these first three books, I started to wonder to myself: was City of Bones even all that good?
The answer to my own question is, without a doubt in my mind now, a resounding, YES, YES, YES! Yes, City of Bones is absolutely fantastic in every sense of the word. It's absolutely hilarious, with the dialogue between Simon and Clary, Jace and Clary, and Simon and Jace being an absolute delight that can't be beat, it's enrapturing from moment one, wrapping you up in the story, its world, and its characters like you're being swaddled like a baby, but instead of a blanket, you're swaddled in almost 500 pages of the most uproarious, fantastical, and exciting stories ever put to paper, in my not-so-humble opinion.
It was an absolute joy to revisit the place it all started. People will often tell you Cassandra Clare is beating a dead horse, that the first book wasn't all that good in the first place, that it's a ripoff of [insert Harry Potter, Twilight, and Buffy the Vampire Slayer or some variation of the three here], but I always have and will continue to wholeheartedly disagree. City of Bones is a stellar debut novel. Its worldbuilding is the absolute best I, personally, have ever had the pleasure of reading. The characters feel so close to being real people that I half-expect to meet them one day if I'm in the wrong place at the right time in New York.
The Shadowhunter Chronicles always have been so much fun for me. There's adventure, heartbreak, twists, turns, action, comedy, tragedy, and so very, very much more. It's comforted and entertained me for countless hours and it will continue to comfort and entertain for many hours (and years) to come and it all started here, with one of the best introductions to a series I've read in my life. It is absolutely possible to fall in love with a book twice because I did it with this one and I'm sure I'll do it with the dozen books that follow it. I'm so excited to find out what happens next even though I already know what happens next. That, to me, is a great story: to revisit its pages and find it just as new and exciting as you did seven years ago.
autogeek's review against another edition
4.0
I thought this was pretty well written. The plot was quite good, the characters fairly interesting, had an interesting magical world and was a fast-paced and gripping read.
Apparently, a lot of people don't like this book due to reasons ranging from "it's just a fanfic" to "its been plaigiarised" to "the author is a piece of shit". I'm not aware of any of that stuff and have no opinion on those; my review is based solely on my experience reading the book. If it is a fanfic or has ideas stolen from some other book, I didn't notice any similarities; it is suffienctly different from the source material that the supposed similiarities aren't obvious at all.
Yes, there are some characters which are a bit annoying, yes there is some cheesy romance and yes, there are story arcs which don't lead anywhere, but overall, it is a really gripping and fast paced read. I just like it.
Apparently, a lot of people don't like this book due to reasons ranging from "it's just a fanfic" to "its been plaigiarised" to "the author is a piece of shit". I'm not aware of any of that stuff and have no opinion on those; my review is based solely on my experience reading the book. If it is a fanfic or has ideas stolen from some other book, I didn't notice any similarities; it is suffienctly different from the source material that the supposed similiarities aren't obvious at all.
Yes, there are some characters which are a bit annoying, yes there is some cheesy romance and yes, there are story arcs which don't lead anywhere, but overall, it is a really gripping and fast paced read. I just like it.
tamanda94's review against another edition
4.0
OK so this is my second review and I am just getting the hang of it.
At first I gave this book a 3 out of 5 but after thinking about it I decided it deserved an extra star.
My problem with this book honestly was the slow pace because I had expected it to be action packed and extremely fast paced but sadly it did not meet my expectations there. HOWEVER, I enjoyed reading about the characters and I liked the characters for different reasons. My favourite characters in this book were definitely Jace and Alec (even though Alec was barely existent in the book). Jace's character was funny and every time he said something I giggled and he just made me happy and is probably one of the reasons I carried on reading this book because I was always looking forward to seeing what he had to say next and I just wish he was someone real that I could be friends with.
On the other hand there was Alec who is the complete opposite to Jace and I think that is the reason that I liked him. He said very little but i liked him for that because that meant I wanted to find out more about him and I was just interested in him. This might be mean to say but I liked the fact that he was a little mean to Clary for some reason and I cannot tell you exactly what that reason was. I know I haven't really mentioned Clary a lot in this and that is because I was not very interested in her because Jace and Alec had all my attention from the moment they were introduced.
Overall, it was a good book, it wasn't the best but I'm still looking forward to reading the next books in the series.
At first I gave this book a 3 out of 5 but after thinking about it I decided it deserved an extra star.
My problem with this book honestly was the slow pace because I had expected it to be action packed and extremely fast paced but sadly it did not meet my expectations there. HOWEVER, I enjoyed reading about the characters and I liked the characters for different reasons. My favourite characters in this book were definitely Jace and Alec (even though Alec was barely existent in the book). Jace's character was funny and every time he said something I giggled and he just made me happy and is probably one of the reasons I carried on reading this book because I was always looking forward to seeing what he had to say next and I just wish he was someone real that I could be friends with.
On the other hand there was Alec who is the complete opposite to Jace and I think that is the reason that I liked him. He said very little but i liked him for that because that meant I wanted to find out more about him and I was just interested in him. This might be mean to say but I liked the fact that he was a little mean to Clary for some reason and I cannot tell you exactly what that reason was. I know I haven't really mentioned Clary a lot in this and that is because I was not very interested in her because Jace and Alec had all my attention from the moment they were introduced.
Overall, it was a good book, it wasn't the best but I'm still looking forward to reading the next books in the series.
ellipsiscool's review against another edition
3.0
This book was ok, not amazing or life changing or even a page turner, but it was ok. There were a lot of pretty cliche descriptions, like "the world swam before me in an ocean of tears." Um . . . maybe it's been too long since I've been a teenage girl, but I can't imagine thinking something like that.
The ending was a bit of a double shocker. I figured out the first twist pretty much a third into the book, but the second was sort of shocking. I thought about the possibility, but really didn't think the author of such an average book would go there, but she did. Kudos to her for that.
Sidenote - I listened to this on audio and perhaps it did lessen my enjoyment a bit. The girl who reads it is pretty monotone and her readings of some of the dialogue of the men borders on silly.
The ending was a bit of a double shocker. I figured out the first twist pretty much a third into the book, but the second was sort of shocking. I thought about the possibility, but really didn't think the author of such an average book would go there, but she did. Kudos to her for that.
Sidenote - I listened to this on audio and perhaps it did lessen my enjoyment a bit. The girl who reads it is pretty monotone and her readings of some of the dialogue of the men borders on silly.
calbowen's review against another edition
1.0
Well, let's see - beginning was good - characters seemed interesting - the story had flow and, believe it or not I could not put it down, for the first half - then, it got too much teenage drama and angst and that got mixed in with a healthy dose of evil monologues and dialog that went nowhere except to provide back-story that I didn't care about - and how many people can possibly lie in one story - but, I thought - nope, that was a lie and here is the truth - only to (possibly) find out that the new truth is really a new lie and that the real truth is yet to be spoken - confused? - so am I - too many plot twists and turns in this one and I got motion sick - I will not be completing this series, because in the end, I do not care about the characters in the end the way that I did in the beginning - I started out liking Luke, but he turns into kind of an a** - I liked Jace, but then he turns into kind of an Emo - I never liked Simon because he is too nerdy yet not - he is not a cool geek, just a convenient one - not at all believable to me - and the main character, Clary, I just have no care what-so-ever if she lies or dies at this point - this is not a complete failure, because as I said, there are some good parts of this story, but in the end, I just don't see the need to continue.
spikylesbians's review against another edition
3.0
there’s a tiny place in my heart for trashy cringy books
jelizabeth3's review against another edition
adventurous
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
4.0