City of Bones, the first volume of Clare’s young-adult supernatural series Mortal Instruments melds tropes and themes from sources such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Star Wars, Meyer’s Twilight books and Rowling’s Harry Potter in a way that sometimes felt a little calculated, but still kept me flipping pages.
Three little gripes:
- The author’s name is Cassandra Clare. The main character’s name is Clary (short for Clarissa). The similarity contributes to my sense of calculation; seems too much like a brand identification ploy.
- The blocking of several of the fight scenes was unconvincing. I often had no clear sense of exactly how close the protagonists and antagonists were, and worse, I feel like Clare didn’t either.
- Mostly the novel is limited third-person omniscient from Clary’s point-of-view. I found the handful of omniscient from other point of view segments distracting.
On the bright side, there’s more moral ambiguity than one often gets in these stories, I was genuinely surprised by at least one plot twist, and the set up for the further volumes is promising. I’ll read at least one more.
needs more demons? mmmaybe.
Needs More Demons Or Not 