Review: The Mortal Instruments #1: City of Bones

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare is the first book in The Mortal Instruments series. A young adult paranormal novel about a secret world and a hidden past.

Clarissa "Clary" Frey and her best friend Simon inadvertently plunge into a secret world of demons and vampires and werewolves.

Jace looked confused, then shrugged. “Most myths are true, at least in part.”
“I’m starting to get that.”

“All the myths are true,” said Pangborn, and Clary felt a small shiver go up her spine. “Or have you forgotten even that?”

“But Jace,” she said. “All the stories are true.”
She didn’t hear him laugh, but she felt it, vibrating through his rib cage and into her fingertips.

Jace is the darkly enigmatic, attractive Shadowhunter that introduces Clary and, by default, Simon, to the Shadowhunter world.

“We’re called Shadowhunters. At least, that’s what we call ourselves. The Downworlders have less complimentary names for us.”
“Downworlders?”
“The Night Children. Warlocks. The fey. The magical folk of this dimension.”

Clary's mother is attacked and goes missing and it's up to Clary and her new Shadowhunter friends to rescue her mother and find the Mortal Cup before the evil Valentine gets it.

The legend of the origin of Shadowhunters is that they were created more than a thousand years ago, when humans were being overrun by demon invasions from other worlds. A warlock summoned the Angel Raziel, who mixed some of his own blood with the blood of men in a cup, and gave it to those men to drink. Those who drank the Angel’s blood became Shadowhunters, as did their children and their children’s children. The cup thereafter was known as the Mortal Cup.

Valentine broke the greatest Law of all—he took up arms against his fellow Shadowhunters and slew them. He and his group, the Circle, killed dozens of their brethren along with hundreds of Downworlders during the last Accords. They were only barely defeated.

The story will draw you in and make you feel right along with the characters. Their happy is your happy and their heartbreak will be your too! This is my second read of this book and I enjoyed it just as much, if not more, than the first time. That may have been because I have seen the movie based on the novel in between reads and now have actors and faces to pair with the characters.

Read an Excerpt

And the movie cast is...