Rating: 1.5/5
I just don't get it.
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...
Review
Before I get started on this review, I just want to make it clear that I have done everything to like this book, literally everything. I have read it, I have listened to it, I have read positive reviews, I have watched video blogs raving about the series, I have tried to love the characters – for god’s sake, I even went and MET Cassandra Clare, and yet it still made no difference.
The thing is, I didn’t hate this book. Not at all. In fact, that’s just the problem – I had absolutely NO feelings whatsoever when I read this book. I wasn’t happy, or sad, I wasn’t thrilled or let down. I could have been reading the Latin encyclopaedia of the theory of space and antimatter and I would have probably got more out of it. And for the record, I cannot read Latin.
It was just dull. (City of Bones, not the encyclopaedia). Dull, dull, dull, dull. And it dragged out for so long, that by the end I was forcing myself to read it. I could only stomach the final chapters by reading no more than a few pages at a time because I would become so bored. And if you ever have to force yourself to finish a book, then you know something is wrong.
You see, the problem I have is that I simply do not understand the hype this book has. I have tried everywhere (see previous listing) to find what I've been missing from these books, to find that morsel of knowledge that will make me reach up into the sky and go “By Jove, I’ve got it!”. But I can't find it. I don’t understand why people rave about this series, I genuinely don’t. And if there's some fans out there that want to enlighten me, then please do because I don’t get it, at all.
Firstly (and foremostly) the characters. May I just say that I have never come across a group of characters for whom I care so little. In fact, I don’t care for them at all.
Take Clary. Oh Clary. What an abysmal protagonist. She is possibly the most boring, self-centred, wretched “heroine” I know – and I have read Fallen. She runs around, with not a clue as to what she’s doing, just being annoying. She has not one redeeming quality, at all.
And then you have Jace. It's such a shame, really, because he could so easily have been a good character. It really wasn’t that difficult to make him one. The problem I have is the way in which every single sentence is sarcastic and follows the same “I am so hot, you cannot resist my hotness” format. I get it, really I do, that he only says it because he’s a tormented character who hides his pain underneath a cool façade BLAH BLAH BLAH…
The rest of the characters are just too dull to mention, and so vastly undeveloped that it's painful to read.
Then there's the plot, or lack thereof, to be more accurate. It stole from every single work of literature known to mankind. In fact, there's probably some of my history homework from last year tucked in there somewhere. Seriously, is it that hard to think of one thing original?
Yes, we have the world set up of the Shadow hunters (or whatever they’re called). And to be fair to Clare here, it does sound like it's quite a detailed world she’s built (or borrowed, whichever). The problem is that it didn’t delve deeply enough into the foundations of it, and so I just got bored of namedropping things that meant nothing to me.
And then there's that RIDICULOUS 'plot twist'. yes, I know the resolution to 'plot twist' but I'm sorry, cos that is just WRONG. I don't care if (view spoiler), the fact that it was introduced in the first place shows how stupid this book is. I don't want to read that kind of story.
I'm still not sure what the plot actually was, to be honest. Of course, it's the first in the series so it's mainly about set up, but still. There was something about her mum going missing (?) and a mortal cup but by page 340 I had simply STOPPED CARING.
So, sorry guys. It's a solid no from me. Not quite a 1 star, because I don’t like awarding them, but definitely not a good rating, because simply put: this book was not good.
My only true regret is the fact that earlier this month, a friend and I went to meet Cassandra Clare. (I don’t regret this part and in fact she was truly lovely and we had a wonderful evening). It was before I had gotten more than 50 pages into the book, and so I was still optimistic that I would enjoy the series. In my blind optimism, I purchased the five books in the series and got them all signed.
The problem is, I can't see myself continuing with the series, any more than I can imagine myself continuing my attempts to discover the first intergalactic planet of talking sofas (which, if it existed, would be very cool).
So I have wasted a load of money for nothing but a load of wasted time and a pile of signed books that I'm probably never going to read. Because of this, at some time in my life – when I recover the will to live – I think I may attempt book two. Hopefully at which point I will have a wonderful epiphany as to why these books are ‘good’. But unfortunately, this looks unlikely.
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