Reviews with content warning for Child death - City of Ashes

Okay, wow. This was a thing. I know Cassandra Clare used to write Harry Potter fanfic in her LiveJournal days (and she used to bully teens on LJ as well), and in her some of her HP fanfics she would write Ron and Ginny as being in a romantic relationship, even though they're siblings. So she obviously has an interest in incest because this whole incest plotline is just a replay of her Ron/Ginny fanfics. I can't stand it, it makes my skin crawl.

Ignoring the incest issue, this book was really boring for about 60% of the way through and then after that point the action started to pick up. When the action picked up I just remember thinking "why should I care about these characters?" Most of the characters, like Alec and Isabell, are one dimensional characters and I have no interest in them.

Isn't Magnus a 1,000 year old Warlock? Why is he dating a 17 year old Alec? Why is he interested in dating a teen, he's old as hell. He's way too old to be dating Alec, that's worst than some Bella and Edward, Twilight shit.

I might continue this series because I recently found 20 Clare books at a thrift store and this series was among the books I found.

I want to see what happens when Jocelynn wakes up and I want to know what it means now that Simon can go into the light despite being a Vampire, after he drank Jace's blood.

I don't know if it's worth it to read the rest of the series to find out or if it would be better to just look up spoilers.

This book was a miss for me.

I'm giving it 2.5 (rounded up to 3) stars out of 5 stars
⭐️⭐️⭐️

Content Warnings

breedawnwriter's review against another edition

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challenging dark emotional funny mysterious sad tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes

5.0

Cassandra Clare has done it again. I literally could NOT put this book down—I read it in like two days.

The tension between Jace and Clary in this book was entirely unhinged, and I loved every single freaking moment of it.

Content Warnings

lifeofchrstnlvly's review against another edition

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adventurous funny slow-paced

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

1.5

Mundane humans create distinctions between themselves, distinctions that seem ridiculous to any Shadowhunter. Their distinctions are based on race, religion, national identity, any of a dozen minor and irrelevant markers. To mundanes these seem logical, for though mundanes cannot see, understand, or acknowledge the demon worlds, still somewhere buried in their ancient memories, they know that there are those that walk this earth that are other. That do not belong, that mean only harm and destruction. Since the demon threat is invisible to mundanes, they must assign the threat to others of their own kind. They place the face of their enemy onto the face of their neighbor, and thus are generations of misery assured.

To be honest, not much really happened in this book.

Although Simon turned into a vampire, we saw Robert and Maryse, and there was a battle between the Shadowhunters and Valentine, the plot felt lacking.

In my opinion, the events of City of Ashes could have easily been combined with either City of Bones or City of Glass. I don't believe there was enough substance to justify an entire book dedicated to these events.

I did find City of Ashes to be funnier than City of Bones, but Clary's character was quite irritating!

And yes, the incest thing bothered me more in this book because of Clary.

Content Warnings

lenarthoe's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny lighthearted sad 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

4.5

Content Warnings

thatbookbitch's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark emotional funny lighthearted 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? Yes

4.25

Content Warnings

psliz's review

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adventurous medium-paced

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

3.25

nothing if not action-packed and drama oriented!

Content Warnings

qcupquake's review

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adventurous dark emotional tense fast-paced

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

3.25

City of Ashes:
3.25/5

- yk i could really do without the whole

making clary and jace kiss while they still believe they're siblings

but yk thanks bc i definitely needed that in my head. that was so gross i was actually disgusted. it wasn't that they kissed, it was that they kissed while they

sTILL BELIEVE THEY ARE SIBLINGS

- idk if Cassy Clare meant to make The Inquisitor an EXTREMELY unlikeable character, but if she did, she did a damn good job of it. i

celebrated when she died

- valentine is also an extremely well written villain. i like his charm but at the same time it's what makes me despise him
- i personally liked City of Bones more but this was still nice :)
- i liked the action and the humor that we established in the first book

Content Warnings

jaynovara's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

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

4.25

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