City of Fallen Angels

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: City of Fallen Angels

Clary has begun to train as a Shadowhunter, despite her mother's misgivings about Clary being part of their world. But learning how to throw a knife isn't the only reason Clary is visiting the institute. She can finally be with Jace. But even though Jace wants to be happy and enjoy his time with Clary, something lurks in his dreams, promising him he will hurt Clary. And let's not forget the fact that someone is trying to kidnap Simon. Simon who is now homeless thanks to his mother kicking him out for being a vampire. And amidst all of this someone is murdering Shadowhunters and dropping their bodies in downworlder territory.

What drew me to this series and continues to hold me are the characters and their personalities. Every single one of these characters has a unique and entertaining personality. And I don't get tired of reading about female characters who do not play the damsel in distress. Clary is taking steps towards becoming less of a liability, Isabelle is just fantastic, and Maia is a werewolf unafraid to jump into a fight against demons. And yes, I am a Jace fan. Readers get to see the vulnerable side of Jace that he tries so hard to hide, and it makes him all the more attractive. Simon has quite a bit of character development he undergoes in this story as well.

It never ceases to amaze me how many subplots can be seen in one of these novels. There is so much going on, and yet there is never confusion or lack of detail in any of them. I never once feel like I am not interested in what is happening to the characters. And by now there is a large host of characters that readers are familiar with. But despite there being so many characters, each one has their moment to shine and there is a good amount of balance between them. And that ending.... I am off to the next book!

I read the first three books of The Mortal Instruments series within days of starting them and was so into the series I pre-ordered City of Fallen Angels. It took me over two weeks to finally get through this book. It just wasn't exciting for me. I had to force myself to keep reading throughout most of the book. After about 1/3 of the way through, it picked up a little bit but it still wasn't up to par with the other books. I honestly believe the series should have ended with City of Glass. Don't get me wrong, CoFA wasn't horrible, It just wasn't that good.

I did like seeing more of how The Infernal Devices ties in with The Mortal Instruments, so that was a plus (I prefer TID over TMI.) Jace and Clary were more annoying this time around with their hot and then cold “relationship,” Jace's self loathing, and Clary's inability to listen and do as she's told . Everything was just a repeat of the past books. Another thing that really bothered me was the message this book puts out about abuse, Right after Jace purposely cuts Clary with a dagger during a hot make-out session, Clary says, "you would never hurt me" Uh, did you just miss the part where he sliced your arm from your elbow to your wrist. But it's okay because an evil demon has been making him have nightmares about doing it for weeks. Seriously, Clare? and relationships. Clearly, the relationship between Jace and Clary is unhealthy.

I felt the ending was way too contrived. I will continue to read the series only to see what happens with the characters I actually like (Isabelle, Magnus, Alec, Simon) but I will read it before, and if, I buy it this time.

3.5 stars out of 5.

In questo libro la trama è offuscata dalla presenza costante di Simon, personaggio che a me non piace molto. Capisco questa scelta, poiché sembra che venga usato come tramite tra i personaggi principali e i vampiri.
Dopo aver letto questo libro rimango dell'idea che la serie sarebbe dovuta finire col terzo libro con un bell'happy ending e tanti saluti, anche se confesso che i collegamenti col libro precedente sono stati ben sfruttati. Spero di cambiare idea col libro successivo.

I reread this book recently for the Simon and Izzy involved. It is cheesy, predictable, cliche, and at times lacks great writing; but it's funny as hell, has a pretty great cast, and manages to punch me in the feels despite all its downfalls. No great work of literature, but a fun place to get lost for a while.

I'm really torn. I love The Mortal Instruments, but I think it should've stayed a trilogy. It just didn't grab me like the others and the narration was terrible. Narration can make or break a book. For example, I learned Simon is British. The only problem about that is he isn't. It kept pulling me out of the story for the first couple of hours. I know most people seem to think Molly was worse, I don't agree. I don't think the story sucked overall. But I don't think it was as tight as the first three.

At the end of City of Glass we had reached a point where the first part of the Shadowhunter story had reached a partial conclusion and the point where it allowed Cassandra Clare to move our characters in a new direction. I, therefore, had high hopes for City of Fallen Angels and was excited to see in which direction we would go now that we had ended our storyline with Valentine.

I am absolutely delighted that in this book we continue to have Simon as a very front and centre character. From Book 1 his character development has been one of the highlights of the series, I love that we still have so much to discover about him and that he continues to play a leading part in the way the storyline is moving. He is really engaging and I love any chapters told from his perspective and desperately want to see him continue to play a heroic role.

I am almost scared to say this but I am struggling with Jace and Clary more as each book goes by. I know they are the central characters on whom the series is focused but they aren't setting me alight as much as I would hope. I am getting a little bit bored with Jace's bad boy brooding and the ongoing dramas. I could really do with a little less teen angst from them and more time spent focusing on bringing others to the fore.

I am loving Magnus and Alec and their developing relationship, I am really interested to find out how they manage the reality of Magnus' immortality and the challenges this is going to pose for them in the years ahead. I also love that we are getting more characters from The Infernal Devices slowly beginning to infiltrate the story and I give a little yelp of joy each time I recognise one of them and I am and I am really excited to know if they will dovetail further as we come to the series conclusion.

I know some people have said they didn't enjoy this book as much as they did the earlier books in the series but for me I enjoyed it a little more than City of Glass, I liked the expanding focus on other characters and would happily see the focus continue to move to a wider perspective than simply Clary and Jace.

At the two thirds milestone of the series I am seeing the finish line in sight and am excited to cross it in the weeks ahead so I can look forward to moving on to enjoy The Dark Artifices as well.

I had forgotten how infuriating this ending was. How I had to go through illegal means to get a hold of CoLS when I first read the series. And then proceeded to not finish CoLS for more than a year after I read like the first chapter.
Anyway, I actually remembered a lot of this book. Like, not everything, but enough for me to be pretty certain of what I was going into. Simon was more annoying than I remembered but I think that has to do with the fact that he continues to just make dumb decisions about girls. Otherwise he's fun as always. His humor is welcome any day of the week.
My love for Isabelle has solidified even more during this book. Like, Isabelle was not someone I focused on much when I first read these books because the boys had my attention. I know better now. Girls are way more awesome. And Isabelle just has my heart in everything she does, she's so awesome I wanna get her name written on my heart, like girl can fucking get it that's for sure.
Jace's self-loathing continues to drag him into stupid situations because he doesn't tell people shit and then he thinks no one notices he's not eating or sleeping and looks like he's on the brink of death, and when someone asks him what's wrong he's like “I'm fine we're fine everything's fine”, BRO. GET OFF YOUR HIGH HORSE AND CONSIDER THE FACT THAT YOU WERE CONDITIONED TO HATE YOURSELF FROM THE DAY YOU WERE BORN AND REALIZE THAT YOU MIGHT NOT BE FUCKING OKAY AND SHOULD PROBABLY TALK TO SOMEONE. Can't believe it took Clary the entire book to finally be like “hey dude, can you please just like, talk to me” and then when he doesn't, she yells at him, like yes please tell him what a douche he is being.
On the bright side, because Jace spent this entire book avoiding Clary at all times, this is how we finally get a Jace and Simon buddy relationship. For the first time their conversations aren't rooted in who's more jealous of who, which is very nice for a change. And friendly banter is much more fun than jealous banter, and I had forgotten that this was the reason they even started to kind of sort of hang out together (neither will admit but it is true).
The indecisiveness and recklessness of stupid teenagers knocks off a star and leaves it at four, but as always this was a great adventure with great amounts of fun and heart. Always a pleasure to visit these characters, and Isabelle being the only level-headed person ever definitely leaves her as my favorite of the entire book. She takes the cake in this one and I kind of have a feeling she will in the next as well. But we'll see. I remember like next to nothing but the opening chapter of CoLS because I did read that chapter twice before.

Audio book

First and foremost I was surprised that Cassandra Clare chose to spin this tale in Clary and Simon's POV. They went back and forth all the way to the end. Simon is not really one of my favorite characters. In fact he was pretty annoying. It took me a while to try to figure out what voice the reader was giving Simon but when I did I said out loud... OH BROTHER PLEASE! The reader gave Simon Jerry Seinfeld's voice. I didn't care for it much.

I won't go into the summary too much because I think the one provided by Goodreads is pretty much spot on.

Clary and Jace are finally given a chance to explore their love and relationship but it's short lived. The Isabelle/Simon/Maia love triangle is... well... I could have done without. Jace as the tortured hero is becoming a bit much and I'm not digging it. Mind you I am NOT a fan of Jace. I think he's a DUCK. However, I don't think Clare gives him an opportunity to be thoroughly understood or to grow as a character. I felt that Jace was non existent physically, mentally and emotionally throughout the entire book and he's a lead. I didn't connect with him at all in this book even when he did “speak”. As annoying as Simon is I do think it was important to see that he was having a hard time adjusting as a vampire and that both vamps and weres who have been turned and orphaned so to speak do have a rough time of it all the way around in very much the same way.

I continue to think that Clare writes long books to write long books. One of my pet peeves is that there is so much unnecessary information/descriptions that really do nothing for the story...hence the unnecessary I just mentioned. :-)

She always redeems herself with this one fact. You will definitely have a major cliff hanger but all of the loose ends and mysteries introduced throughout the book will be solved; nicely braided and weaved by the end of the book. I just wish she didn't add so much fluff in between.