Book review 2: City of Ashes, Cassandra Clare

And here comes my second book review of the year. As this is the second book of the series, it will contain spoilers of the first book, so please don't read this if you don't want to know what happened in City of bones; it's only natural that what happened there will have influence on the second book!

City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments #2) by Cassandra Clare

Things to know:

• I read the original English version
• It was published March 2008
• It has 453 pages
• It is set in New York in 2007 (shortly after book 1)
• I started: 4th January 2015 and ended it: 6th Jan

After Jace and Clary found out they are siblings in "City of Bones", everything is quite odd between them now. Jocelyn, Clary's mother, is still in a coma, and Clary is trying her best to find a cure, but she knows she has to find her biological father Valentine to somehow help her. Clary is trying to spend as much time with her best friend Simon, who she even starts dating, but Simon is acting very strange at times. 

And as if all of this isn't enough chaos already, Jace is thrown out of the institute by Maryse Lightwood PLUS Inquisitor Herondale suspects Jace to help his father Valentine. Jace gets himself sent into the prison of the Silent City (where usually murderers sit in), before he is interrogated by Herondale, the Silent City is raided by Valentine and something else and every Silent Brother who was there is killed. During this raid the Mortal Sword (the 2nd Mortal Instrument) is stolen and is accused to have helped Valentine to get it and only stay behind to be a spy for him.

Whilst all this happens Downworlder children die. First a Warlock child is found, drained from blood, then a Werewolf is found dead though the child couldn't be drained of it's blood anymore, but when a Fairy child dies, and the Clave and Herondale suspect the Vampires to be behind it, Luke has a different theory. Luke has heard of a story, in which the Mortal Sword can be turned into a weapon of evil by heating it 4 times, and every time cool it in the blood of a different Downworlder child. As Valentine already has Fairy and Warlock blood, he'll now need Werewolf and Vampire blood...

This time it took me a bit to get into the book, again it only starts getting really interesting in Part Two. 

Whilst reading this, I didn't always get why Clare would put certain scenes into the story.

Just one example being the scene at the Seelie Court. I really don't understand how it helped the story to force Jace and Clary to kiss each other. Even if they hadn't, the story would have gone the same way, and it is mentioned throughout the book that Clary and Jace still have (unwanted) feelings for each other. 

I can't really criticise more, as the series hasn't ended yet and there is more to come, and most things I didn't like are the same I didn't like in "City of Bones" (eg the fake sounding dia- and monologues).

Lisa~