Book Review: City of Ashes

Happy Friday! Hello to everyone "hopping" around. :) The question this week is whether I write reviews while I'm reading or only after I finished reading- I definitely have to wait until I'm done reading! But I do try to mark the page of favorite passages and things like that while I'm reading to refer back to later.

My book review today is for "City of Ashes", book #2 of The Mortal Instruments series. Read my review for book #1 here.

Summary from Goodreads: Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a friend. Clary's only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil -- and also her father.

Review of City of Ashes

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I really have a love/hate relationship with these books. On the one hand, I can't put them down. They're totally addicting. There's a lot of action, lots of angsty teenager relationships, mystery, and cliffhangers. I like the main characters even more in the second book. I'm certainly going to read the next book, because I have to find out what happens after that ending!

But... sometimes the dialogue is so terrible! Like, I-find-myself-expecting-a-laugh-track terrible. I try to picture the characters actually saying these cheesy comebacks in my head and it's just so awful... no one would ever talk like that. At least not all the time- in this book it's like every character has a snappy response to every comment. Also, it often seems like the book was either written really fast or just edited poorly. I can't put my finger on it exactly, because it's not like the book has no merits- it just feels like the writing wasn't always done with care.

One of the reviews on Goodreads said: "My inner-fangirl was squealing the entire time, while my inner-book critic was scoffing." Yep, that pretty much exactly sums up the book for me.

Overall, I think the good things about the series do outweigh the bad- so I'll keep reading. I did like this book more than the first, so I can hope the trend continues onto the third!

View all my reviews