City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare; Reviewed by JesykaJames@TheBookMystress

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
Genre: Young Adult
Grade: MG (Mid Grade)
Pages: 453
Source: QBD Tuggerah

Found: Well, after buying the first book in the series, I had to continue on. If for no other reason than I love the developing relationship between Alec Lightwood and Magnus Bane :)

Release Date: March 17th 2008

Synopsis: What would you do if you were in love with your brother or sister? How confusing, how scary would that be for you? Welcome to the world of Jace and Clary. Of course, when they fell for each other they had no idea they were related. As I’m sure you can imagine, City of Ashes finds things between Jace and Clary a little on the tense side.


My Review: Shock horror, I got the next book in the series. I thought it was pretty good, but sometimes it got tedious hearing the same thing several times. And the fact that NOBODY in this series (with the possible exception of Simon) can admit to their feelings!!! It's gets annoying, knowing that Jace is in love with Clary, and Clary with Jace, but since they're brother and sister, they can't do a thing about it...

Also, the constant innuendo that they're not related is really annoying. It annoys me that we (the readers) know they're not related, but the pages just won't tell us that. I mean, we all know, from the things that Valentine, The Fair Folk Queen, The Inquisitor (and probably a bunch of others too) have said, that Jace isn't really Valentine and Josalyn's son, nor is he Clary's brother. Valentine made him possibly, but my guess is he made him from the blood of the Angel Raziel or something. My assumption is in the next book we'll discover this... hopefully. It'll really annoy me if we don't. I am quite interested to find out though.

Also, the Simon thing. I think that was why Valentine was so pissed at Jace, it was his blood that changed Simon, because Jace has the Angels blood, or at least that is my assumption. Let me know if you feel differently...

I did like the book, I thought it was good, fairly well written, a little annoying at parts because of the fact that as a reader, I don't like to know things that the character is to dense to pick up on. We either, shouldn't have been given so many hints or the author should have just told us. It got a little annoying. I understand the need for suspence, but... I got annoyed. Let me know if you did too.

Side note: I know that Alec is in love with Jace, but I am in love with Magnus and I want them to be together (I know they kind of are, but... I want them to actually be like in love.) I feel bad for Magnus because he loves Alec, but Alec loves Jace, who loves Clary, who is his 'sister' who loves him, but dates Simon, who loves Clary, but knows she doesn't love him, and then Maia likes Simon, but they have that whole 'Vamp vs Were' thing going on and Izzy... well she just really loves herself so... yeah.


I give it 3 Tiny Bays out of 5


Let me know if you liked this book. Also, let me know your thoughts on who, or what Jace is.



Thank you again to TheBookMystress for hosting me. I hope you all enjoy the review :)



JesykaJames@TheBookMystress

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare; Reviewed by JesykaJames@TheBookMystress

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
Genre: Young Adult
Grade: MG (Mid Grade)
Pages: 485
Source: Gateway Books


Found - I was wandering around one of my local second hand book stores and found myself in the YA section. I looked at the cover, thought it was pretty kool and bought it.

Release Date – March 27th 2007

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?

My Review - ... Okay, I do like this book, and I think I'll continue the series, but it was a slow book. The action seemed to drag on to the point of ridiculousness and it had a basic plotline at best.

A few thing that made it interesting, but also (to me) made it a little iffy and unlikable, was the fact that in the last few chapters (Though to be honest, it was apparent from about the 7th or 8th chapter) the two main characters are discovered to be siblings, which makes the fact that they're in love with each other a little disconcerting. I'm 99% sure that in the next book of the series it will be discovered that they are not related (or at least, that's what I'm hoping, because I can't read a book about incest).

The characters were enjoyable, and very likable. I think the design of the diversity in characters was so that everyone could ‘pick a favorite’. Shamefully, I did pick a favorite. The adorably cute and quirky Alec Lightwood, he won me over with his shyness and mislaid love for… well I won’t ruin it, but he’s hard not to fall in love with.

I dare say I will read the second book of the series, if for no other reason that the fact that the book did have some fabulous one-liners. Both Clary and Jace, the two main characters, had some of the best laugh-out-loud one lines of any book I’ve read in a while.

I give this book 3 Tiny Bats out of 5.




So this has been my first review for The Book Mystress, I hope it helps someone make the decision on whether or not they buy this book. Thank you to The Book Mystress for hosting me, I hope you all enjoyed the review,


JesykaJames@TheBookMystress