City of Glass
by Cassandra Clare
Reviewed by Ruby
The Lightwoods and company head over to the city of Alicante, the ancient home of the Shadowhunters, to discuss with the Clave the recent events concerning Valentine. Clary has to meet up with a warlock outside the city in order to finally cure her mother from the curse she’s been under. The only problem is Jace has no intentions of letting her come.
On top of that, Valentine’s plan is its final stage - he has one last mortal instrument to find. With it he can begin the war he’s been planning for close to twenty years.
So this books starts off with Clary and Jace still being selfish idiots. Not only does Clary actually scream the line "It has to be me!" but she then goes and does something so reckless that it not only endangers herself but Luke - the closest person she has to an actually father. After it is pointed out that she makes stupid decisions and she finally realizes that she makes stupid decisions, what does she do? Make another stupid decision like two pages later. So much for character growth.
It is really unfortunate because, if you ignore Clary being and idiot and Jace being a moron and when the whine endlessly about how they can’t be together, the book is actually pretty good. There is a lot of talking but also a good amount of action. There are some twists in it, most I saw coming (one I did not) that kept everything flowing and entertaining. Simon, Alec and Isabelle were really good but, in my opinion, underused.
But all in all an enjoyable read. Grade: B Coral's Review. I wish the people in this series were smarter.
Not just Clary, who, as my sister says, makes the stupidest decision yet, but everyone. There are a lot of points during this book where what is about to happen is clear, but because the plot dictates it, no one realizes what is about to happen. It's really hard to enjoy the series when you want to yell at all of the characters.
Knowing that Clary and Jace were never really going to be brother and sister I am happy to finally have that story line resolved. But, again, they were so stupid not realizing what multiple people have been trying to tell them for a couple of books.
Valentine’s plan to smuggle demon blood into Alicante was so easy to figure out it was so frustrating that no one figured out what the plan was. How is a race of demon hunters this stupid?
I wish Alec and Magnus were focused more in the story, because I liked the parts about them, although they were mainly background again.
Grade: D
