City of Bones

Cassandra Clare

Apr 2009 · The Mortal Instruments Book 1 · Sold by Simon and Schuster

About this eBook

Discover this first installment of the internationally bestselling Mortal Instruments series and “prepare to be hooked” (Entertainment Weekly).

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...

Exotic and gritty, exhilarating and utterly gripping, Cassandra Clare's ferociously entertaining fantasy takes readers on a wild ride that they will never want to end.

Ratings and reviews

I don't like Twilight, or any of the other "vampire" themed books that I heard it was similar to, but i read it anyways. BEST BOOK EVER. It is not at all like twilight, the vampires and werewolves are much better and make sense. They stick with the original ideas. But that's not the best part. The entire trilogy keeps you anticipated between Jace, Clary, Simon, Magnus, Valentine and of course the rest of the spell-binding characters. The City of Bones is the first of three books that take an unoriginal idea and spin it into one of the most creative stories of our time.

The theme of City of Bones is never give up on a friend. In the book Clary is on a quest to save her mother. Throughout her quest she has many chances to give up or leave her friends and run away, but instead she chooses to stay and help them or travel deep into an enemy lair to save them. She never introvert and always helps others with their problems. Cassandra Clare did few things good and many things bad. The story has an okay plot and a good underlying theme, but that's about it. The story is slow and boring, with about 10 minutes of interesting scenes, and mostly boring descriptions of places they go to for maybe a chapter, then never return to. The characters are dull and untintriuging, unless you are a teenage girl. I would only recommend this book to teenage women.

A solid, yet unsurprising novel for fans of the 'fantasy-in-a-real-world-setting' sub-genre. Give yourself permission to read this one purely as a guilty escape; Clare's plot feels like a cobbled-together rehashing of some of our favorite modern fiction. It is familiar and comforting, but lacks true originality. If you want a story you have never heard before, this is not it. Still, the world and story are both engaging enough to warrant a read from fans of Harry Potter, Percy Jackson, and maybe even Bella Swan. Clare has a nice sense about pacing action scenes, though she relies a bit heavily on single-character exposition to deliver relevant backstory. Several of her characters manage enough wry wit to keep them from becoming intolerably bland, and a few (like Jace) have the promise of developing true complexity over the course of the series. Worth a try if you like supernatural fiction.

About the author

Cassandra Clare is the author of the #1 New York Times, USA TODAY, Wall Street Journal, and Publishers Weekly bestselling Shadowhunter Chronicles. She is also the coauthor of the bestselling fantasy series Magisterium with Holly Black. The Shadowhunter Chronicles have been adapted as both a major motion picture and a television series. Her books have more than fifty million copies in print worldwide and have been translated into more than thirty-five languages. Cassandra lives in western Massachusetts with her husband and three fearsome cats. Visit her at CassandraClare.com. Learn more about the world of the Shadowhunters at Shadowhunters.com.