Friday 18 May 2012

Book Review


City of Lost Souls (#5) 

Author:Cassandra Clare
Published:May 8 2012
Genre:YA, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal
Series:Mortal Instruments #5


The demon Lilith has been destroyed and Jace has been freed from her captivity. But when the Shadowhunters arrive to rescue him, they find only blood and broken glass. Not only is the boy Clary loves missing–but so is the boy she hates, Sebastian, the son of her father Valentine: a son determined to succeed where their father failed, and bring the Shadowhunters to their knees.

No magic the Clave can summon can locate either boy, but Jace cannot stay away—not from Clary. When they meet again Clary discovers the horror Lilith’s dying magic has wrought—Jace is no longer the boy she loved. He and Sebastian are now bound to each other, and Jace has become what he most feared: a true servant of Valentine’s evil. The Clave is determined to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. Will the Shadowhunters hesitate to kill one of their own? 


I adored the other books in the Mortal Instruments Series they all contained action and drama allowing the readers to believe real sense of danger for all the characters.

City of Lost Souls for me was a slight disappointment at first, there was a huge amount of hype before the release of the book. And with the book trailer promising Sebastian would “burn down the World,” I expected a lot more action and drama.

Instead I felt Cassandra Clare had taken a whole new route in this book whereas all the others in the series had a structure from start to end with possibility of danger/death of a main character to defeating the villain only to realise all is not well at the end. Although City of Lost Souls did follow this structure it lacked in my opinion any real danger.

Nothing kept me gripped as the plot was outlined pretty steadily with only a couple of moments where I would hold my breath.

All that aside I didn’t hate the book. I actually quite enjoyed the fact we got to know each of the characters on a more personal level. I also quite liked getting to know Sebastian as he did seem more human and less like a rogue character. Likewise Simon became more of a major character, which I was grateful for as I have really liked Simon from the start.

Furthermore, in all the other books the main focus of the book would be Clary and Jace’s relationship, but in CoLS the relationship under the spotlight is between Sebastian and Clary which was a nice change.

In addition, I can’t help but feel as though CoLS was a build up for the final in the series City of Heavenly Fire… I wouldn’t mind this usually but having to wait a full year?! *sigh* I don’t know how I’ll manage... =/ Cassandra has really hinted the starts of a bunch of secrets in CoLS, I bet I’ll end up reading CoHF with my mouth open the whole way saying =O – ‘OMG I did not see that coming!!’

CoLS ended in pure Cassandra Clare fashion with the reader dying to know more! Bring on 2013! I would totally recommend this to everyone as though it’s not as good as the other books, It can NOT be missed! And just getting to know all the characters is totally worth it! =)

Note: (Spoiler Alert!) I think Brother Zachariah may be Will/ Jem from The Infernal Devices, Cassandra has already subtly mentioned the characters from the Infernal Devised in The mortal Instruments Series and I have a feeling there’s a reason behind this. Brother Zachariah is one of the main Brothers that makes his appearances to the Lightwoods and also he seems to know a lot of the Herondales. Quite suspicious if you ask me… I hope something like this happens in CoHF would be awesome!



                                        Happy Reading =) XO

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