City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Title: City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1)

Author: Cassandra Clare

Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Publication date: March 27th 2007

Pages: 485 (Hardcover)

Synopsis:

When fiften-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder - much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing - not even a smear of blood - to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know. 

My thoughts: 

Warning: this review contains spoilers.

I'm giving this a 1.5, but honestly, I almost gave it a 1 star. It took me more than two months to finish this book. I started it and read ~100 pages but I just couldn't get into it. But then, a couple of weeks later,  I picked it up again and continued reading and at around 200 pages I started liking it. I was hoping that it would keep being good but not... one hundred pages later it started being as bad as it started out. There were just so many things that bothered me in this book. Let's talk about some of them:

First of all, the main character: Clary. She was one of the most annoying characters I have ever read about. She was almost as bad as Bela Swan, which says a lot. Firstly, I don't know if the author tried to make her courageous, but it seemed like that. Well I have a message for the author: doing something without thinking about it for even a second is. not. courageous. Clary kept doing that the whole time. Like the time where Simon was a rat and they were in the vampire den. Jace was trying to work things out so that they could get out of there safe WITH Simon, but Clary just got tired of waiting around and watching them talk so what does she do? She runs straight to the vampire who's holding Simon (as a rat) and takes it from him. I'm sorry but what? Right, there are hundreds of vampires around you but it doesn't matter, just run to them and make your situation even batter. Ughhhh !!!! Clary = idiot. Other thing that bothered me: she was such a hypocritical character. The whoooole time, when she was seeing someone who didn't seem as interested at finding her mother she would start being all rude to them; ''why don't you help?!!'' and bla bla bla. But THEN, she said at least 3 times ''I felt so happy that I even forgot about my mother and about Simon'' really? And just the fact that she was so rude to some people made me hate her even more.

Next thing that I didn't like: Jace and Clary. Together. So like I said, I really don't like Clary, but I also didn't really like Jace. I mean he wasn't as bad as Clary obviously, but I just didn't get attached to him either. So the fact that the main couple is them just irks me. I don't see anything interesting about them, I was always bored in the chapters when they were only the two of them and I just wished it would finish already so I can read about the few characters that I'm actually interested to read about. I honestly don't understand what Jace can see in that girl. 

Last thing I would like to point out in the things I didn't like is the writing. ugh, the writing. This book was so poorly written that sometimes I just wanted to throw the book across my room. 

Now, I would also like to talks about some things that I did like:


Isabelle, Alec and Magnus. I would like to add Simon to that list, but unfortunately I really liked him at the beginning but then not so much. Anyways, let's talk about them. Those three are the only characters that I actually really enjoyed. And the only chapters that I liked were the ones where they were in them. I couldn't wait for the chapters with Jace and Clary to end so that I could read about Isabelle, Alec and Magnus. They were entertaining and interesting, unlike the other characters. Quite frankly, the only thing that really interests me and makes me want to read the rest of the series is Magnus and Alec's relationship. I can't wait to read more about them, because they're such a perfect couple. And they're the only reason I gave this book 1.5 instead of just 1. I would like to see how they develop and what will happen with them.

Happy reading !

Anna