#CBR6 Review #09: The Mortal Instruments 4, City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare
I told myself I was done with The Mortal Instruments books after the third one…. but then my
friends and I were discussing how corny the movie was, and some things about
the next few books were mentioned and well, my curiosity got the better of me
(I’m weak, okay?). Considering how I already had the whole series up to this
point already acquired on my reading device, I saw no problem in just taking a
gander at what happened next to these characters I’ve already spent some time
with, even though now the whole thing is a little tainted by the whole plagiarism
and Weasley incest fanfiction thing that I was unaware of before (yeesh). And I
have to say, given that this 4th novel in the series features Simon
as a central character whose point of view takes more precedence than before,
there is less adolescent moping about Clary and Jace’s “forbidden love”.
Though, who am I kidding? The story is still wrought with their yearning for
one another and difficulties communicating even though they don’t seem to want
to live apart even for a second. Oh my goodness, just talk to each other
instead of running from your problems! That seems to be the thing that bothers
me the most about all of the characters: they don’t want to deal with things,
they just want to mope and stew and see how things turn out without taking
action when really they should be
taking action.
All that being said, City
of Fallen Angels is definitely more interesting in terms of plot than the
preceding book in The Mortal Instruments
series. This largely has to do with the fact that the threat of Valentine has
finally been eradicated (or so we think) and so new threats and villainous
personalities can be woven into the fabric of this supernatural world. Also,
Simon’s character gets to grow and we get to see the struggle he has being a
new vampire, which removes the focus from Clary and Jace. I know that those two
are the main characters, but I’m getting tired of them. Also, the whole special
snowflake thing about Clary not thinking she’s special but then being the most
special of all, who every guy has a thing for even though the way they describe
her is actually really creepy: they just keep talking about how tiny and
vulnerable she looks? I don’t know. It makes me think of those girls in high
school who are reasonably nice girls but for some reason every guy has a thing
for her, and you ask a guy why everyone likes this girl so much and they give
you extremely vague answers or explain traits that literally every girl has and
you just leave confused as to what it is that everyone sees in her, you know
what I mean? Okay, maybe I’m going off on a tangent here.
In any case, if you’ve read some of the other books in this
series, by this 4th one you probably already know how you feel about
them. I really like the concept and interpretations of some of the monsters and
folklore in this series, but the characters really get on my nerves and their
relationships are very stiff. So I don’t know how I feel about it anymore…
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