Caragh Reviews - City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Published - 14th April 2009
Publisher - McElderry Books
Format - Kindle
Synopsis - When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder - much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air.  It's hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing - not even a smear of blood - to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy? This is Clary's first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It's also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk.  Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace's world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know..

I know i'm way behind the rest of the world when it comes to reading The Mortal Instruments but i'd seen such mixed reviews that I wasn't sure I wanted to invest so much time into a pretty hefty series. The series is now a movie and i'm desperate to see it, but in the spirit of (the now deceased) Read It 1st, I decided now was the time. People are saying it began as Harry Potter fanfic and i'm not really into that kind of thing but it wasn't as Potter-related as i'd imagined. 

There were a lot of things that I connected to HP - I mean the series name itself is a pretty big connection to the Deathly Hallows but honestly, the book pulled me in pretty quickly and I got involved with the story so well that I stopped picking up on similarities and just went with the flow. There wasn't a huge amount of world building which is something I like. I enjoy discovering the world as it happens rather than info dump and it was pretty easy to follow. I really loved all of the characters too; they were so unique to each other and read as individuals rather than different names. I have this weird thing where I tend to love the secondary characters more than the mains and in the case of City of Bones, I am really intrigued by Alec. There seems to be a lot to him that City of Bones hasn't discovered yet and i'm hoping that as the series continues, he becomes more prominent. 

Like the rest of the female population - of course I fell in booklove with Jace. Total badass with a real sincere, loving and sensitive side? YUP. The one thing that I really wanted to talk about in this review is probably way too spoilery but ARGH! Clare certainly knows how to frustrate a girl when it comes to her ships. I shipped Jace and Clary SO HARD and then of course, if you've read the book - you know what i'm talking about. What do I do now? Can I ship it? Just one of the many reasons that i'm anxious to start reading the next book in the series. 

City of Bones has a lot of soft, intimate moments between characters and there's a lot of backstory that is revealed throughout the book that creates the world Clary is finding herself in the middle of but it's also action packed and is never stale. The story flows excellently which is great as it's actually a pretty big book. I didn't realise the length as I read it on the kindle and I flew through it so fast. City of Bones isn't going to be for everyone but one book into the series and I think i'm going to like it so watch this space when I get around to reading the next one!