City of Lost Souls

This review is also featured on Behind the Pages: City of Lost Souls

Sebastian and Jace have been bound by Lilith's blood magic. Their minds have begun to align with one another, sharing each other's beliefs. And to make matters worse, one cannot be harmed without the other sharing their pain. While the Clave sees Jace as expendable and will do anything to rid the world of Sebastian, Clary and the others are desperate to find a way to separate the boys. But time is against them as they try to find a near impossible solution.

Clary is once again racing to save Jace. But while the first time I read this book, I devoured every page, this time around it took me a bit longer to finish reading. The themes were too similar to the earlier novel, and it felt like a repeat of what I'd just read. City of Lost Souls does take a markedly darker turn and starts to push on some taboos that made me feel awkward reading. In that effect it was well written and hit all the buttons it meant to. However, the secondary characters and subplots that create the City of Lost Souls overtook the actual plot.

There is much less emphasis on Jace and Clary, and a lot more relationship drama with every other couple in the book. I don't need to know what every single couple is doing. There are characters that are barely seen yet I can tell you exactly how their relationship is doing. I want more world-building; I want more background and story outside of relationship troubles.

I was happy to see the Iron Sisters, though I do wish more time was spent with them. Readers are only allowed a glimpse into their culture and beliefs. They seemed sharp-witted and fastidious in their ways. But then again, I don't really know because their scene was so brief in comparison to the vampires, werewolves, or even the Silent Brothers in earlier novels.

City of Lost Souls was missing the conflicts and tension the earlier novels displayed so well. The relationship filler also needed to be cut back to allow the main plot to progress at a better rate. Too many stories were told within the pages of this book. I think for some it would have been best if they had their own separate novel.

As usual for TMI, the novel's prose is unremarkable except for a few profound moments, and the clich??s of YA fiction abound, but also as usual I find myself drawn in by the dialogue and the characters, who resurrect what might otherwise be a tiring series. I kind of hate to love these books, but I love them all the same.

(mild spoilers following): I'm getting pretty sick of the “Jace is not himself” plotlines, but I found that this didn't bother me as much because Clare spent a good deal of time on the character arcs of others: Magnus and Alec, Izzy and Simon, Jordan and Maia, and even Sebastian. This is the main reason for 4 stars. It was also nice to see some actual mature (?) development in Jace and Clary's relationship, although I am somewhat fearful that they'll be back where they started (headstrong and terrible at communicating and selfishly self-sacrificing to a fault) in the next book. We shall see.