Welp, this is the last of the reviews for The Mortal Instruments books... until next year when I get to read Clockwork Princess (eep!). While it makes me sad I will no longer be reading Shadowhunter stories, I'm also sure that you, the readers, are utterly sick and tired of my Cassandra Clare book reviews. Don't worry, there are some new and exciting books I've been dying to read and they will be up on the blog as soon as my little eyes can read them.
Once again, I'm not going to give too much of a synopsis for City of Lost Souls, just in case we have some Mortal Instruments virgins out there. I would hate to ruin any part of these stories for anyone. Basically what you need to know is that Jace is in trouble... and I mean big trouble. It's not only the Clave that he's in danger from, but Sebastian has become the largest threat in his life and it's up to Clary and the gang to find a way to save him from Sebastian and himself. They'll have to search for help from the most dangerous of sources. As any family would, they'll do anything they can to save their Jace.
While I know it's always the feeling after reading the next installment of a book series to say that it's your favorite, this one tops my list of Mortal Instruments books for a few reasons:
For me, the best part of this book was the fact that there was a lot of world travel. For some reason, this aspect of the story took it to a whole new level and I could hardly put the book down. We get to see Venice, Paris, Prague and a lot of other really cool places and I loved every minute of their worldly adventures. It showed you that no matter where our characters were in the world, Shadowhunters existed and so did Downworlders and Demons. While I know what you're probably saying, "Well duh, how could you not have known that?" Well of course I knew this, but it was awesome to see our characters somewhere other than New York City.
Next, there was a lot more "sexy time" in this book. And I don't mean just from Clary and her man Jace, but really everyone! We saw couples and non-couples throughout the whole book cozying up to one anther and demonstrating their love to each other. "This was one of your favorite parts of the book," you ask? Yes. Yes it was. I'm a girl and a sucker for a good book romance so who could blame me for being excited to see a little bit more snogging and dark-corner snuggling?
I think the last thing I'm going to talk about is Sebastian, our evildoer. I love Sebastian. I know you're all gasping in your seats and wondering how a seemingly nerdy, but nevertheless normal girl like myself could possibly say that they love Sebastian. I'll tell you why... he's one of the best villians I've seen in a while. Unlike many of the evil masterminds we see today, he isn't just some demented figure bent on world destruction who rubs his hands together menacingly and has a maniacal laugh. No, Sebastian is truly a super evil person. He is not only trying to hurt our main characters (which we will never forgive him for), but he is quite literally trying to oppose heaven and heavan's servants. Who does that? It is also in this story that we see Sebastian become a little more complex. He is struggling internally with his loneliness, his family being gone and his longing for partners in the new world he creates. This leads to a little venerability in Sebastian that even Clary struggles to not fall for. I love Sebastian in that he is one of my top villians of all time. Gotta love that evil little bastard.
Clare really hit this one out of the park for me. I enjoyed this story and I cant wait for everyone to read it!
10 out of 10
Happy Reading :)
Sebastian was my favourite part of the book. I felt like the weaker scenes with Jace only helped to enhance the scenes with Sebastian. He was the big reason why I got through the parts I considered to be dull.
ReplyDeleteThat said if you like villains and anti-heroes you should read the Gormenghast series by Mervyn Peake. The first book is called "Titus Groan". There were times in reading this that I felt that Clare was patterning Sebastian off of the main bad guy character in that book, Steerpike... but not doing it as well as Peake did... and she did it VERY WELL, to give you an idea of the sheer bad-assery of the character in the Peake series. The writing in that is not everyone's cup of tea but I adore it(I tell people you have to get to Steerpike climbing the roof before knowing if it will do anything for you or not). It's my all time favourite series. Hands down.