Natalie's review
City of Bones (Mortal Instruments, Book 1) by Cassandra Clare
I have never been more disappointed and aggravated by a book. (Slight spoilers follow.)
I had been looking forward to this book for months because I enjoyed her fanfiction (despite the controversy surrounding some of it), but this book is easily one of the worst I have ever read. Trust me, that's saying something.
The prose is rambling and full of extraneous and misused descriptors that fail to be poetic, and there are multiple similes and metaphors that are so bad that I cringed. It reads like a first draft of a book, and I'm shocked that the editors let it be published. (Not as shocked, though, as I was to read that there were at least three drafts of this book. Wow.)
The characters are incoherent, lack consistent motivation, and are wrenched to do whatever the plot requires of them. She doesn't seem to understand that characters need more than an *opportunity* to do something, she also needs to show that they're *the type of person* who would take the actions she wants them...more
I had been looking forward to this book for months because I enjoyed her fanfiction (despite the controversy surrounding some of it), but this book is easily one of the worst I have ever read. Trust me, that's saying something.
The prose is rambling and full of extraneous and misused descriptors that fail to be poetic, and there are multiple similes and metaphors that are so bad that I cringed. It reads like a first draft of a book, and I'm shocked that the editors let it be published. (Not as shocked, though, as I was to read that there were at least three drafts of this book. Wow.)
The characters are incoherent, lack consistent motivation, and are wrenched to do whatever the plot requires of them. She doesn't seem to understand that characters need more than an *opportunity* to do something, she also needs to show that they're *the type of person* who would take the actions she wants them...more
