Sassy Says Read City of Bones
I own way too many books for my own good. I have owned City of Bones by Cassandra Clare for a few months now, and I finally decided to pick it up and start to read it. It took me a couple chapters to get into it, but I brought it on a recent vacation with me and I have devoured it. I can’t wait to get home and get the other books in the series. For today’s Sassy Says I will be reviewing the first part of City of Bones.
As always, be wary for spoilers, though through part one I will try not to reveal much.
The book opens with Clary ‘Clarissa’ Fray and her best friend Simon waiting in line to an all ages club in New York City called Pandemonium. While in line they notice an odd-looking boy trying to get into the club. The boy was carrying some form of wooden beam that was pointed at the end. Telling the bouncer it was part of his vampire hunter costume and that it was foam, the bouncer finally lets the kid into the club, and Clary and Simon soon are also allowed to enter.
Once inside the club, Clary keeps her eye on the ‘Vampire Hunter’. She notices a very pretty girl approach him, but continue off into the back part of the club. The boy follows the girl, but Clary, still watching, notices two boys follow the other boy into the back. She also notices that one of these boys is carrying a knife. She alerts Simon, who tells her that he doesn’t see anything, not even the two boys.
Clary goes after the boys, while Simon, still in disbelief goes to try and find a security guard. As Clary enters she sees that the boys, and the pretty girl have the boy bound, and they seems to be interrogating him They call him a Demon, and the boy doesn’t deny it. He calls them Shadowhunters them he can tell them where Valentine is, but the three, Jace, Alec, and Isabelle, just laugh at him telling him to stop being ridiculous. Clary intervenes, causing Jace to be attacked from the back by the demon. The demon is killed by Jace with the help of his cohorts, and is shocked she a ‘Mundie’ can see them, and the demon they just killed. Simon bursts in looking for her, and asks where they are. Obviously unable to see them, Clary tries to brush it off, while the three Shadowhunters laugh behind her, Clary and Simon leave, and Jace and company leave as well.
The next day, Clary’s mother forcefully tells her that she and Clary are going to be going on vacation to her friend Luke’s barn in upstate New York, for the rest of the summer. Clary protests, which causes a fight between Luke and her mother. Simon comes to take Clary out to a school friend’s poetry reading, and before her mother can stop her, Clary rushes out the door.
At the Poetry reading, Clary notices Jace again. Following him out to an alley, Jace offers to take Clary to meet his tutor, but before she can do so, she receives a distressing phone call from her mother. She returns home to find her mother missing, the apartment trashed, and a monstrous creature, a Ravenor demon, lying in wait for her. She defeats the creature, but is injured in the process, and Jace takes her to his home. His home is called “the Institute”, an old Gothic cathedral in New York that humans, or mundanes, can’t see, because it is concealed magically by glamour. Here, she recuperates. She also meets Hodge, Jace’s tutor.
Clary is determined to return to her apartment, and Jace goes with her. Clary is then attacked again, by a monster called a “Forsaken”, which Jace kills. The flee to her downstairs neighbors apartment, where they escape through a magical portal to Luke’s house.
Outside of Luke’s they find Simon who has been looking for Clary. The go into Luke’s and overhear a conversation between Luke and two men who Jace reveals to have killed his father.
They return, with Simon, to the Institute and recount the conversation to Hodge, who in return tells them the tale of a group of Shadowhunters known as “the Circle”, who attempted to kill all Downworlders their term for demons. Although their leader, Valentine, was supposedly burned to death, Hodge feels that Valentine may have survived.
Hodge also reveals that he, the Lightwoods, Luke, and Clary’s mother were all members of the Circle… he also reveals something exciting…
At the end of Part One there is a nice juicy cliffhanger, and so that is how I am going to leave this post. It is a major spoiler, and I don’t want to ruin it for anyone.
City of Bones is an excellent read, and I really do hope that you all will give it a chance.
And that’s what Sassy Says.
Sassy, I fully plan to read this series. Saluki has talked about them quite a bit. Thanks again for another awesome Sassy Says!
I love the Mortal Instruments series! I read it last year, on the recommendation of my mom, and devoured all three books in the series. I flove Jace and Clary like whoa. One of my favorite parts about the series is that the author always keeps you on the edge of your seat. I couldn’t put the book down because I need to know what would happen next. I’m so excited to read the next book in the series “City of Fallen Angels.”
I highly recommend reading the prequel, “Clockwork Angel” as well. It is the first book in a trilogy as well – The Infernal Devices trilogy. It was amazing and I loved trying to figure out how the characters in the prequel relate to the characters in the Mortal Instruments books.