So I read the first three books of the series. I won’t be reading the other two as I feel I don’t need to and because I already know what happens and it doesn’t interest me as much. I feel like the third book was the perfect ending for me.

But if you want to carry on and read the other two feel free to.

So I’m talking about City of Bones, City of Ashes and City of Glass.

THERE WILL BE SPOILERS

Positives

It’s beautifully written. It’s melancholy, dark and real. It doesn’t glamourise war or battle. It shows the harshness of it and how hard it is for them to live that life. It shows real human character and how people can fall.

I like that the book doesn’t have happy endings for everything or everyone. There are loses and it’s hard to deal with, I mean Max … Max! But ish like that happens. Okay, it’s a supernatural novel so it doesn’t happen exactly like that but what I mean is lose is real and I’m glad the book deals with that.

I like the complex characters. Valentine is so rich and complex. He’s fallen so far and yet he doesn’t see it. He doesn’t see how he’s a hypocrite or how he’s bringing about the things he wants to eradicate. He doesn’t see how selfish he is. But he still loves Clary’s mom (wow, mind blank, forgot her name), he still loves Jonathan Sebastian (his real son). He doesn’t love Clary though, or at least he doesn’t see her. It’s sad that he finally sees her right before he dies.

This book highlighted the impact parents can have on you. Valentine’s father was just as harsh with him and so when he raised his kids he raised them in the only way he knew how. So was he like that because of nature or nurture? However having said that Jace was raised by Valentine but he still kept his kindness and humanity. Sure he had a hard shell but his pure and loving heart was still there.

I loved the love story between Jace and Clary. I found out early on the truth about the two of them because of spoilers but also because I listen. Hodge said: “Don’t lie to them, it will destroy them” so I didn’t believe a word that came out of Valentine’s mouth and I had no problem shipping them. It was such a pure love as well. They weren’t perfect characters and they were teenagers, Cassandra Clare remained true to that. But that made their love all the more satisfying because it felt more real.

The character of Sebastian (Jonathan) was genius and devastating. After Valentine he was such a great villain. But he was also a victim. That’s one thing I’d consider reading the last two books for, to see them set him free.

Negatives

Simon and Clary getting together was unnecessary. I know that ish happens but bruh, it was so painful to read. I couldn’t! The second book took me so long to read because I couldn’t handle that plot line. Girls, never go out with a guy as a second choice or because you can’t be with the one you want to be with or just because he likes you. You need to like him too! It’s not fair to the guy. And yeah you may like him as a friend but he likes you as something more let’s be real. Guys this applies to you too.

I didn’t like the biblical elements. Angels are holy to me. I’m never comfortable when people portray angels, it’s like they’re real beings (if you believe in angels) they deserve respect. And please, as if a human would be able to capture an angel. I don’t care if you’re a nephilim.

Nephilim, they’re actually in the bible but their origin and what exactly they are is not clear. I’d like to know more because before this book I was clueless to this. You have to know the original Hebrew to get that they’re talked about in Genesis as it’s lost in translation. I guess this isn’t a negative. I’m just curious.

The mark of Cain, and the writing that God put on the wall in Daniel. That was uncomfortable, like really, you’re going to go there? As a Christian I found that hard to swallow. But if you’re not Christian then you probably won’t have a problem with it. I have a problem with it because I feel some things should be left in the bible and not used in fiction, especially God’s writing which is considered sacred, using it in a book like that as if it’s nothing … I didn’t like that.

So overall it was good writing and the imagery was vivid. It was a good book but if you’re a Christian I wouldn’t read it as the angel bits are hard to read in the third book. Plus if you’re more into happy go lucky stuff this is probably not the series for you, there’s a lot of death which I also had trouble with.

I give it a three out of five.

Have you read the series? What did you think?

Comment below!

 

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