City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1) in Open Book Society

Jan 20, 2010 Nicole rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites, signed-by-the-author, angels-nephilim

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I wasn't sure about this book at first, mostly because I thought the covers were kind of stupid and the summary on the back made it sound even more stupid, but it ended up being one of my favorite books and the whole series is just amazing!!

I thought it was funny that the author's last name is Clare and the main character's name is Clary, but I easily got past that. This book was simply intoxicating for me, especially with such a unique idea as shadowhunters. Although the whole angels thing isn' ...more

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Apr 04, 2010 OpenBookSociety.com rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Brought by OBS staff member Farrha
http://openbooksociety.com/article/ca...

Book One: The Mortal Instruments

Review
Firstly, I want to say that this is a novel to be thoroughly enjoyed. Strap yourself in, sit back and enjoy the ride. It’s fast, it’s got highs, it’s got lows and when it’s over, you’ll be thankful for the ride… and that’s pretty much it.

City of Bones is a guilty pleasure. Both for the reader (especially if the reader is a fan of fantasy books, television shows and movies – like myself ...more

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Dec 13, 2010 Aimie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: i-highly-recommend, romance, young-adult, paranormal

A really good read. I'd been putting of reading this series for ages, I dont know why. But I'm glad I finally decided to bite the bullet and pick the first book up. Onto number 2! :) ...more

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Sep 23, 2010 Brandy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a very good YA Book, and by YA anyone from 11 on up would enjoy it. It is well written and keeps you guessing. It can be a bit slow in places but I think that it is because I am not a YA. There is also a slight amount of romance in the book BUT it is kept very tasteful and I found nothing offensive in the situations. I don't always let my girls read the YA books I read because I don't feel that the content is for a young person but I WOULD LET THEM READ THIS. If you are into demons, vamp ...more

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Jul 08, 2011 Julie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: bookclub-reads, outdo-yourself-challenge-2013

This book started out a little generic to me with the girl doesn’t know she’s anything special and is trying to live a normal life when all of a sudden in her teenage years she learns that monsters exist and she’s part of their world. Something happens and a family member is in trouble and she has to learn about her place in the world she didn’t know existed in order to go to the rescue. But that is pretty much where the cliché teenage fantasy novel plot building ends. The world in this novel is This book started out a little generic to me with the girl doesn’t know she’s anything special and is trying to live a normal life when all of a sudden in her teenage years she learns that monsters exist and she’s part of their world. Something happens and a family member is in trouble and she has to learn about her place in the world she didn’t know existed in order to go to the rescue. But that is pretty much where the cliché teenage fantasy novel plot building ends. The world in this novel is unique and exciting with a lot of aspects I haven’t read about before. I admit the first part of this book took a while for me to follow because of the complex world building and learning about the Shadowhunters (demon hunters), the Downworlders (vampires, werewolves, fae, warlocks, etc), and everyone involved. There are items and concepts I am not familiar with and it took a while to grasp everything and have the world come together in my mind. But that is to be expected in a first book in a series, so I was patient with it.

This is a story where the people who you think are dead might not really be dead, family connections are not what they initially seem, and everyone has secrets. I’m not going to include any spoilers in this review, so I will try to keep everything vague. Clary is learning about her new Shadowhunter friends: brother and sister Alec and Isabelle, and Jace, who is an orphan and has been raised by Alec and Isabelle’s parents. Also, her best friend and mundane (completely human) best friend Simon refuses to be left out. These are our main characters. Jace is instantly super protective of Clary and that doesn’t get explained until later in the book when all the bombshells are dropped. And let me tell you there are some pretty cool bombshells. There’s also a bit of a Star Wars parallel between the characters but any more details than that would be spoilery. There’s also a lot of unrequited love between many of the characters so we can’t even really say there is a love interest or a love triangle because it is quite complex. Once the action gets started, everything moves pretty quickly with a lot of mystery and final realizations toward the end.

I gave this book 4 stars but it might be more of a 3.75 rounded up. The world building does take a while and all the major plot development happens at the very end of the story. It definitely builds up and makes you want to read the next book to know what happens. ...more

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Nov 27, 2011 Wendi WDM rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: could-not-finish, young-adult

UPDATE: I finally finished it. Not sure I like it any better. It's soap opera and slightly annoying and the "twist" really ticked me off.

I really wanted to like this book. But I just couldn't get into it. I haven't seen the movie either as I always prefer the books to the movies.

I think the idea is really interesting, and maybe if I had been able to get to the middle of the book I might have found it to be more interesting. As it stands I just couldn't get there.

I know this is a Young Adult nov ...more

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Mar 16, 2009 Annabell rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Dec 17, 2011 The Lit Bitch rated it really liked it · review of another edition

The is the ultimate new series for me! It was awesome, the only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was that I personally liked Infernal Devices (the prequel to this series) better and that is just my personal preference but this book was great and an awesome start to what will surely be a ravishing series! See my full review here: http://www.thelitbitch.com/?p=1434 ...more

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