Review of "City of Fallen Angels"

"City of Fallen Angels"
Cassandra Clare


4


Pub. Date: April 5, 2011
Pages: 424
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

Synopsis:  The Mortal War is over, and sixteen-year-old Clary Fray is back home in New York, excited about all the possibilities before her. She's training to become a Shadowhunter and to use her unique power. Her mother is getting married to the love of her life. Downworlders and Shadowhunters are at peace at last. And—most importantly of all—she can finally call Jace her boyfriend.

But nothing comes without a price.

Someone is murdering Shadowhunters, provoking tensions between Downworlders and Shadowhunters that could lead to a second, bloody war. Clary's best friend, Simon, can't help her. His mother just found out that he's a vampire and now he's homeless. Everywhere he turns, someone wants him on their side—along with the power of the curse that's wrecking his life. And they're willing to do anything to get what they want. Not to mention that he's dating two beautiful, dangerous girls—neither of whom knows about the other one.

When Jace begins to pull away from her without explaining why, Clary is forced to delve into the heart of a mystery whose solution reveals her worst nightmare: she herself has set in motion a terrible chain of events that could lead to her losing everything she loves. Even Jace.

Love. Blood. Betrayal. Revenge. The stakes are higher than ever in City of Fallen Angels.

I'm assuming I was like everyone and pretty shocked that there was another book in the "Mortal Instruments" series... especially since it was marketed as a trilogy.  I loved the other books in the series and "Clockwork Angel", but I didn't feel that with "City of Fallen Angels".  I thought everything was wrapped up nicely in "City of Glass" so I was curious to see where this series would go next.  I have to say that I am a bit disappointed.  I thought we were over the questioning of worthiness between both Clary and Jace, but apparently not.  After all they have been through I assumed they would have learned to communicate, but that was false hope too.  Luckily the book focus on multiple plots taking away from some of the annoyance of their issues.

Simon had a major role in this book, but he wasn't very Simonesque.  He was two-timing some fantastic females... this just isn't the Simon we know and love.  I thought this aspect of the story was pretty useless.  It didn't create enough conflict for it to really be relevant.  The lack of Alec and Magnus also left the book a bit flat.  They are such great characters I was disappointed not to see more of them.  Even Isabelle seemed to fall a little flat.

If the characters annoyed me so much, why did I give such a good review?  I had trouble putting the book down.  The mysteries behind the death of the Shadowhunters is much more twisted and gripping than the synopsis makes it sound.  I have to say that this conflict is really what kept me going through this book.  There was a lot of interesting things happening in Simon's life... and yes Jace was being all tormented and emo (he had a pretty good reason though so I'll let it slide).  There were some new interesting characters who came into the book that really sparked my interest.

Overall, I wish this book had focused on new characters.  We could have been introduced to a different group of Shadowhunters or Cassandra Clare could have left Jace and Clary out of it.  I guess that wouldn't have solved the problems with the rest of the characters, but if there had been more focus on them they would have stayed truer to the original three books.  I am still looking forward to "Clockwork Prince", but I don't think I will be in a rush to read "City of Lost Souls".