Author: Cassandra Clare
Published: 2007
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Series: The Mortal Instruments #1
512 pages (paperback)
Summary The book is about Clarissa “Clary” Fray, who is a seemingly ordinary 15 year old girl living in New York with her single mom. Her best friend is a boy named Simon and she is also close with her mother’s longtime friend Luke, who runs a bookstore. At a club one day, Clary witnesses what she assumed to be three individuals killing someone, but mysteriously, she is the only person who can see them. A little later on, she gets in a fight with her mother and storms out of her house to hang out with Simon. When she returns home, she finds her mother missing and a demon monster wanting to eat her! She is rescued by a Shadowhunter named Jace, who takes her to the Institute where she may recover, while he and other Shadowhunters ponder as to why Clary can see demons. Clary finds herself as a central character in this secret world of shadowhunters, demons, and half-demons, where the villain Valentine, who everyone thought died years ago, is supposedly making a comeback in his goal to purify the world of the unwanted demons, and the innocent half-demons.
My Thoughts
This is the first book in a quartet series, and I believe it’s Cassandra Clare’s first published novel. You might know her as a Big Name Harry Potter fan and Lord of the Rings fan, because her fanfiction is pretty famous (The Draco Trilogy? I never read it though, I’m not big on fanfiction to be honest). Anyway, I didn’t know about her fanfiction history until I was 3/4 of the way through the book, but to me, it’s pretty obvious her story was greatly influenced by the Harry Potter series, there’s a lot of similarities (not that it’s a bad thing, just something I observed).
It’s a fun read and I enjoyed the world envisioned in this story. I got through it a lot faster than I expected because I was sort of hooked onto it and wanted to know what happens! It’s fantasy on the Harry Potter level, set in the modern world. It has some pretty humorous lines sprinkled throughout, a few of which made me literally laugh out loud. The book also deals with a romance subplot of some sort, and it may or may not involve a bit of minor kissing incest (THEY DIDN’T KNOW!)
The characters are easy to like or admire, though I didn’t find many of them particularly realistic. My favourite character, which I predict is also the favourite character of many other girls, is Jace. I can’t help it, I like the whole “I’m an arrogant prick but deep inside I’m tortured. Also I’m extremely good looking and I know it” kind of male character. He’s also the character with some of the best funny lines. I didn’t really care about the main character, Clary. Though she’s the main character, her part in the story seems to be overshadowed by Jace’s. The story is obviously carefully thought out, which I appreciate, and the writing is at the right level for this sort of story and for the audience it’s aiming for (which I guess includes me, hahaha). Overall, I had a good experience reading it, the book had enough “OMG” moments to keep me continuing the story (hence why I also read book number two as well), but there are some things I didn’t like — to be exact, there are three things I didn’t like:
One, the storyline, while creative, is also kind of predictable. I can’t really say more without spoiling anything, but basically, some of the events that ‘surprised’ the characters, I already saw coming a mile away. This could be just me and my sixth sense though (hahaha).
Two, perhaps it couldn’t have been helped, but it bored me when there were long scenes where characters were explaining to Clary about how certain things in the Shadowhunter world worked. At those points, it didn’t feel like I was reading a story anymore, it felt like I was reading a textbook on how the world in this story operated. I wish the author thought of a more imaginative way of explaining things to the reader without resorting to having one, or a few, characters spend pages and pages just explaining things.
And three, the characters don’t seem very realistic. Actually, it felt a lot like I was reading an anime. Anybody’s who’s watched a fair number of anime series will know what I mean: the characters seem to fit into certain stereotypes, like the arrogant jerk of a hero who’s really kind deep down, the cold femme fatale, the wise old man, the villain who smiles wickledly every time you meet him, etc. I think the reason this didn’t bother me as much as the first two points I made is because I happen to enjoy watching anime, but reading a book with anime-like characters … well, somehow, the experience just isn’t the same. Simon’s probably the most realistic character out of the bunch.
But overall, it’s a great read, and the three points I explained aren’t HUGE drawbacks, just my personal annoyances.
My Rating: 3/5
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