02/09/2019
4 ⭐
This was so so good but I didn't like it quite as much as I did The Kiss Quotient, and funnily enough, the stand out character was Quan and not either of the main love interests. 🤷‍♀️ This is definitely (definitely) worth the read though because I couldn't tell you the last time I stayed up until 1 am reading a book, but I did to finish this! 

10/09/2019
3.5 ⭐

I am genuinely and completely confused. That was a whole lot of something and I really think that if you like Stranger Things, Coraline or the Wayward Children series you would LOVE this book! 

23/07/2019
5 ⭐
Holy fucking shit. This was so painful but so necessary. 

08/07/2019
4 ⭐
Ngl, this was actually pretty good, though the ending was pretty circumstantial and anticlimactic. I've heard this trilogy is better than the second so I'll be interested to see what I think of it.

FIND THIS REVIEW AND OTHERS ON MY BLOG
★★★★☆

TRIGGER WARNINGS (TW): Death, injury, loss of a loved one, homophobia, racism

Character Guide ⇩
►Clary Fray → Main character, Shadowhunter, torn between shadowhunter/mundane world
►Simon Lewis → Clary’s best friend, Daylighter/Vampire
►Jace Wayland → Shadowhunter, arrogant but gets more tolerable in books 2 & 3
►Alec Lightwood → Shadowhunter, ya boi is gay af
►Izzy (Isabelle) Lightwood → Shadowhunter, cute and powerful, I love her a lot
►Max Lightwood → Shadowhunter, youngest Lightwood sibling, cute, likes manga
►Magnus Bane → High Warlock of Brooklyn, Bisexual, powerful, very chill
►Luke Garroway → Wolf, A good dad
►Jocelyn Fray → Clary’s mother
►Maia → biracial, wolf, ptsd, scar along her neck
►Sebastian → Shadowhunter
►Ailene → Shadowhunter

City of Bones | ★★★☆☆ | review
City of Ashes | ★★★☆☆ | review

“People aren’t born good or bad. Maybe they’re born with tendencies either way, but its the way you live your life that matters.”

Okay, we’re finally here! I know my City of Ashes only went up at the beginning of July but it honestly feels like it’s been so much longer since I’ve sat down and written a Shadowhunter review, so I’m both terrified to be here and super excited at the same time!

So, here’s the tea (*shudders* I can’t believe I just said that), I actually really enjoyed this book. I rated the first two books 3 stars and actually gave this one a 4 stars which was mildly shocking to me but also a really fun surprise!

“Is this the part where you say if I hurt her, you’ll kill me?”
“No” Simon said, “If you hurt Clary she’s quite capable of killing you herself. Possibly with a variety of weapons.”

THE GOOD

I think I’ve finally figured out what it is about these books that keeps me reading – I love the relationships between the characters – not the romantic relationships, but the platonic ones. I LOVE the family dynamic between the main group, especially what we get to see with the Lightwoods. It brings me great joy to read about. I also LOVE the dynamic between Clary, Simon and Luke! I’m seriously a sucker for the found family trope.

- Really enjoying the relationship between Luke, Clary and Simon – I enjoy the family relationships in these books.

- Interesting Simon/Jace dynamic

- More focus on Simon – the relationship between Downworlders & The Clave
A lot if this one takes place in Alicante – its actually really interesting to see a place where Shadowhunters all live together sort of away from Mundanes – very racist and arrogant – you can tell almost instantly the difference between how the main characters act at the Institute compared to in Alicante. — Finally, get to see the Shadowhunters in their element – warriors

- Alec in a leadership role! Finally! – Just in general, Alec really stepped up in this book and I was living for it! I’m really interested to see how his character will develop in the rest of the series!

- I actually don’t hate Maryse, though I assumed I would when I first started re-reading the series so I’m assuming something happens to make me dislike her at some point.

“Not everything is about you,” Clary said furiously.
“Possibly,” Jace said, “but you do have to admit that the majority of things are.”

THE BAD | *SOME SPOILERS*

I mentioned this in my review of City of Ashes but I seriously don’t know how y’all read these books as they were released. The only reason I have kept reading so far is because I know most of the plot twists for The Mortal Instruments (though, I know next to nothing about the other series).
The one BIG problem I’ve had with these books so far is the romances. I like the idea of Izzy and Simon together but they have no chemistry, and I do like Alec and Magnus, though not as much as everyone else seems to (I’m sorry, please don’t hurt me). And, the big kahuna – Clary and Jace! They think they’re siblings and it’s weird. Seriously weird.

Also, and this is something I want to stress [SPOILERS!] Clary and Jace do kiss, on purpose, with their faces, WHILE THEY STILL THINK THEY’RE RELATED. And, that, my friends, is gross.

But, if you know anything about this series, you also know that *gasp* they’re not actually related and it was all a trick! *falls down* Cassie Clare how could you! (no but seriously, CC what was the point of this???)

BUT, and here’s the real clincher – Clary, the poor girl, does actually get to have the incestuous kiss of her dreams because, as it turns out, she ends up kissing her real brother in this book anyway! 🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤷‍♀️ Isn’t that nice?!!?!! 🤮🤮🤮

I really don’t want to talk about it anymore because it’s making me want to throw up my lunch so here are some of the notes I made while reading these very touching and romantic scenes:

- Clary and her siblings are FREAKING ME THE F OUT Y’ALL NEED TO STOP SNOGGING

- [context: I’m talking about her actual brother, not Jace]: He kissed her I’m disgusted. What was the point of this???

- [context: Clary & Jace]: There’s a lot of love declarations and kissing for two people who are supposed to be related. This is really fucking weird. If I hadn’t already been spoiled, I probably wouldn’t have read past book 1.

- Ooh we love an incest love declaration 💕😍💃🌈💞🤔🙏🤮🤮🤮 – this entire scene makes me want to throw up, y’all are disgusting why is this happening to me???

THE EH | *SOME SPOILERS*

- No offence to Clary but she does some seriously dumb shit – opening her own portal even though it could legit kill her etc. etc.

- Simon really gets the short end of the stick in this series.

- Simon has the Seal of Solomon burned into his hand via the clave to turn his faith against him, when I said he gets the short end of the stick, I clearly had no idea.

- There’s basically no Maia in this book and I’m mad about it – what was the point of introducing her in the first place???

THE ENDING | *SPOILERS*

- The angel killed Valentine – very anticlimactic
- The ending was so anticlimactic and quick – everything was solved in a paragraph bc of an angel. *sighs* Everything just feels so pointless now.

“In the end that was the choice you made, and it doesn’t matter how hard it was to make it. It matters that you did.”

Overall, I did really enjoy this instalment, especially all the found family and family, in general, bonding but I wasn’t a big fan of the romantic choices made in this book!

As I was reading I also thought multiple times that this would be so interesting to see on-screen but I didn’t like the movie when I saw it 10,000 years ago and I don’t think the show did this storyline??? So idk???

Also, I did appreciate that once we got to the half-way point it really started to feel like a finale which I was really enjoying. I’m honestly, really curious to see why Clare decided to continue the series since this felt like a good place to end the characters’ storylines, especially since I have heard some not so great things about the next 3 books that got tacked on a few years later. Do you guys have any thoughts on the second trilogy?

Also, I didn’t know where to put this in my review, so I guess I’ll just add it on here, but Alec is actually a lot more laid back and sarcastic in the books than he is on-screen. He has a very dry wit/sense of humour and I appreciate it a lot. 

 01/07/2019
3 ⭐
I have a lot of thoughts and most of them are that this was definitely too much teen angst for me.

FIND MY REVIEW AND OTHERS ON MY BLOG *Mild Spoilers*
★★★☆☆

TRIGGER WARNINGS (TW): death, loss of a sibling, abuse, sibling abuse, neglectful parents, ptsd

Character Guide ⇩
►Clary Fray → Main character, Shadowhunter, torn between shadowhunter/mundane world
►Simon Lewis → Clary’s best friend
►Jace Wayland → Shadowhunter, still a dick but a tiny bit better in this one.
►Alec Lightwood → Shadowhunter, ya boi is gay af [closeted]
►Izzy (Isabelle) Lightwood → Shadowhunter, still cute and powerful
►Max Lightwood → Shadowhunter, youngest Lightwood sibling, cute, likes manga
►Magnus Bane → High Warlock of Brooklyn, Bisexual (I assume, he could be pan), powerful, very chill
►Luke Garroway → Wolf, A good dad
►Maia → biracial, wolf, ptsd, scar along her neck
► Jordan → wolf, a dick
► The Inquisitor → A bitch

Okay, so I’ll address this in a later post at some point probably but I have a pretty rocky past with Cassandra Clare. I’ve read The Mortal Instruments before and wasn’t a big fan but finished the series because peer pressure is real. I didn’t enjoy most of the characters or the plots and it pretty quickly became a big thing to hate on CC so I semi-jumped on that bandwagon. Hence, the name my friends and I adopted for her, “Casserole Clam”.

Anyway, lately, I’ve realised that my views of CC were unfair and that I needed to take a serious look at how I view her and her books, so I decided to re-read her books and see where I go from there. So here we are, City of Ashes!

City of Bones | ★★★☆☆ | review

“As long as there was coffee in the world, how bad could things be?”

First up, I just want to say that I enjoyed some aspects of this sequel much more than I did the first book in the series! I liked the character more, especially Jace, who I couldn’t stand in the first book. But, overall this feels a lot more like a slow, waiting for things to happen kind of book – you can tell that the next book is meant to be a finale because really nothing happened in this until the end of this one.

That being said! We were introduced to a new character and I love her with my whole heart and soul! Her name is Maia and she’s a wolf with a seriously bad past. Like, cruelly bad. I have no idea how much of a part she’s going to play in the rest of the story/series but I think she’s a really refreshing change of pace and a really interesting perspective amongst all of the kinda (definitely) racist Shadowhunters so, I really hope we get to see more of her.

↣ On that note, major trigger warnings for past child abuse from a sibling & also TW for neglectful parents. *Spoilers* Maia was abused by her brother when she was really young (under 10) – he did things like swap out her shampoo with bleach and other messed up shit.

↣ Also, TW for toxic romantic relationships. *Spoilers* Maia was dating a nice guy who got turned into a wolf (which she didn’t know at the time), he got possessive of her, hit her and so she dumped his ass and then he turned her into a wolf and was all like “you’re mine now”. To which I say, “bitch wtf???“

[context – Jace starts a fight in a Wolf pub and the victim goes to defend himself but is told not to by an elder wolf]
Bat twisted in Pete’s grasp. “Take a walk? Did you hear -“
“I heard.” Pete’s voice was low. “He’s a Shadowhunter. Walk if off, cub.”

Anywayyy, new topic! I vaguely mentioned this before but Shadowhunters are unsurprisingly very racist towards Downworlders and that is shown off a lot in this book! (For context, it’s a very Purebloods/Mudboods kind of situation)

There’s a massive power imbalance between Downworlders and Nephilim (Shadowhunters). Downworlders can’t attack or even defend themselves against Nephilim but a Shadowhunter can pretty much hurt whoever they want or do whatever they want without fearing any consequences because they’re basically the police.

At one point, Jace even says “…you all blend together to me” which is absolutely awful and had me gasping out loud when I read the words. Basically, be prepared for some racism and be prepared to easily compare it to events happening today.

“Not everything Jace did was insane and suicidal she reminded herself, it just seemed that way.”

THE GOOD

We get a lot more of the other races in this book which I really enjoyed – there was a bigger focus on Maia and Luke’s circles which I found particularly interesting. We also get to see some more of the vampires.

Another thing I loved which was pretty out of the blue but, like I’m living for it anyway was the relationship between Luke and Jace. Jace just randomly cares about Luke so much??? I’m not complaining but it’s so random. I think it would be interesting to see this relationship throughout the series. I also really enjoyed their scenes together because they reminded me that Jace is still only a teenager, I think he’s meant to be around 16/17 because he’s younger than Alec who is 18.

I think I’ve also figured out that what I like the most about these books is the friendship dynamics. I really like Jace and Luke and I’m quickly warming up to Jace and Simon hopefully developing as characters and becoming friends. I’d also totally be down for Alec and Clary becoming friends but I don’t want to push my luck here.

I also really wanna see Clary or Simon take Max to Forbidden Planet but I know it will never happen because it wouldn’t be plot-relevant.

“Alec looked at her and shook his head. “How do you manage never to get mud on your clothes?”
Isabelle shrugged philosophically. “I’m pure at heart. It repels the dirt.”

RANDOM NITPICKS

This book is literally just 50 shades of Simon angst and it got old pretty quick.

I don’t necessarily hate the blatant racism because I do think it’s realistic and something we can easily relate to the real world right now. But, that being said, if it’s never brought up again and if the characters are never challenged on it, I will definitely be bringing it up in later reviews and I will definitely be a lot angrier when I do!

Mama Lightwood Molly Weasley-Goblet of Fires Jace pretty hard in this book and I was not a fan.

I hate that they have to say the names of the blades before using them. It’s completely on par with the dumb-ass spells in Carry On, but at the same time, I kind of love it because honestly, it’s just stupid.

I feel like so much of this stuff happens “behind the camera” like how Simon got turned at the hotel and no one else even knew he was going there until Raphael brought him to the institute.

If I hear Valentine’s voice being described as “cool” &/or “cultured” one more time I don’t know what I’m gonna do but it won’t be good.

MY MAIN GRIPE BECAUSE EW IT’S GROSS WHY IS THIS A THING?

Just in general, the love triangle is awful and I hate it. Also, I think we all know who the endgame love interest is and it’s Gross with a capital G.

*BIG SPOILER TIME*

Okay, so that scene in the Seelie Court?? You know that one I mean.

They had to kiss??? While they think they’re related??? CC tried to make this better by getting Iz to say they she’d kiss Alec under the same circumstances which had me screaming but, honestly, these are very different circumstances and the fact that the author felt the need to do that is disgusting to me. There was nothing platonic about that kiss and I’m uncomfortable just thinking about it.

Jace kept trying to get Clary to admit that she likes him as more than a brother and I AM DISGUSTED. At one point he’s even like, “we could keep it a secret”. UM EW NO

Honestly, there’s a lot more but I’m tired and this is a big topic that I know I couldn’t do justice so I’m just going to leave this here for some food for thought. To the people who read these books as they were released and not after the fact, why on Earth did you continue? CC never indicated in this book that Clary and Jace are anything other than siblings so why would you put yourself throughout all of this without having any reason to think that they aren’t related???

Basically, my point: The main romance is creepy and very un-romantic 

06/07/2019
3 ⭐

This was a lot of fun but my dumb ass kept expecting them to burst into song.
Honestly, as much as I enjoyed myself reading this one, it really isn't necessary if you've already seen the movie.

24/06/2019
2.75 ⭐
I'm kind of torn on this one. There wasn't anything inherently wrong with it, it just wasn't my cup of tea.

Mini Review:
Honestly, this wasn't my cup of tea - the characters were fine but the main pairing kind of made me uncomfortable BUT if this is your kind of thing, more power to ya! This is a bit kinky, but I think mostly it's a discussion about eating disorders which I definitely found interesting. Basically, if you're into the kink and okay with reading about eating disorders you'll probably love this like the majority of readers did, but for me, it was just weird - I think mainly I just didn't like the love interest, so maybe that was the issue??? Who knows, I wanted to like this more than I did. Maybe I'll try another of Brianna Hale's books out in the future, but this one really wasn't for me.

TW: Eating disorder (discussions)

14/12/2021
3.5 ⭐️
And the award for the World’s Most Chaotic Hot and Cold Relationship goes to Lucy and Josh. Oh boy, was that one exhausting roller coaster.

17/06/2019
3.75 ⭐
I can't believe I started this last night and am already finished it. This was such a joy to read. I really enjoyed Lucy and her awkwardness and I also grew to love Josh. Honestly, I'm in such a romance mood right now, and this was such a perfect fit for this cold weather! This is the perfect book to snuggle up to with a hot drink, on a cold night!

Blog | Letterboxd | Instagram | Tumblr | Twitter 

11/04/2019
3⭐
Well, this was a surprise.

FIND MY REVIEW AND OTHERS ON MY BLOG *Mild Spoilers*
★★★☆☆

TRIGGER WARNINGS (TW): Death, Abusive Parenting, Homophobia

Character Guide ⇩
►Clary Fray → Main character. Artist, 16, red hair, raised Mundane.
►Simon Lewis → Clary’s best friend, Mundane. Funny, in a band with no name.
►Jace Wayland → Shadowhunter. Blond hair, cocky/arrogant/straight up mean. Can be funny, depending on your humour. I personally don’t like him if you hadn’t already guessed. Honestly, I imagine he’d fit in really well in a show like The Bold and the Beautiful, he’ so dramatic.
►Alec Lightwood → Shadowhunter. Black hair, kinda mean, gay af but in the closet. 18
►Izzy (Isabelle) Lightwood → Shadowhunter. Black hair, long legs, beautiful, needs a hug. 16
►Luke Garroway → Clary’s father figure.
►Magnus Bane → High Warlock of Brooklyn. No belly button.

“It means ‘Shadowhunters: Looking Better in Black Than the Widows of our Enemies Since 1234’.”

Okay, so I’ll address this later in a blog post at some point probably but I have a pretty rocky past with Cassandra Clare. I’ve read The Mortal Instruments before and wasn’t a big fan but finished the series because peer pressure is real. I didn’t enjoy most of the characters or the plots and it pretty quickly became a big thing to hate on CC so I semi-jumped on that bandwagon. Hence, the name my friends and I adopted for her, “Casserole Clam”.

Anyway, lately, I’ve realised that my views of CC were unfair and that I needed to take a serious look at how I view her and her books, so I decided to give this book a try and see where I go from there. So here we are, at my City of Bones review. I hope you enjoy!

“Where there is love, there is often also hate. They can exist side by side.”

THE GOOD

My main good thought about City of Bones is that I didn’t hate it! I went into this with an open mind but I really wasn’t sure how I would feel about the book since it was written so long ago!

Also, another thought I have is that because of the mortal cup, Simon is probably going to become a Shadowhunter because I think at some point he randomly became an archery badass and it was a beautiful moment and one of the only legit surprises in the whole book. So, is that ever going to become a thing, and if not is he at least going to continue being an archery badass, or no, because you’re only allowed one archery badass in the group???

Annnnd… that’s somehow all the positive notes I had on the entire book. WOW. So here are some quick and fun bullet points because I did actually enjoy my time reading this.

-I love Isabelle, someone needs to hug her
-I’m interested in Alec but, if he doesn’t get some super character development I’ll RIOT
-I think the group dynamic has potential, especially with a Mundane in the mix
-Honestly, Luke was a whole surprise but he was also super fun. Also, surprise #2 Luke does not look like Isaiah Mustafa???? A travesty, if I ever I saw one.
-The writing’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be, it’s really not that bad.
-It started out a bit slow but as soon as it picked up I was right into the story and I flew through it!
-I appreciate that there’s a gay main character (ish) and that he will hopefully have a plotline???

“Keep in mind that when your mother fled from the Shadow World, it wasn’t the monsters she was hiding from. Not the warlocks, the wolf-men, the Fair Folk, not even the demons themselves. It was them. It was the Shadowhunters.”

THE BAD

It’s pretty easy to take the Micky out of the book, to be honest. Here’s a legit note I took while I was reading and it’s lowkey hilarious because I’m clearly a mess. ↴

“Jace is real fucking dramatic about his past. *Yeah, my dad’s dead he got me an eagle, I’ve seen blood blah blah *looks over into the distance* I’m so badass and mysterious, look at my hair.*”

Basically, the characters are REALLY dramatic and also very very young at times. Also, here’s something that bugged me the entire time I was reading the book. How the hell old are these characters??? In the beginning, I got the impression that Clary & Simon were underage and I feel like someone mentioned they were 16 and Alec was 18 (…I think) but the way they talk, they manage to sound both incredibly young & naive and also like they’re in the mid-twenties. So, yeah, some major character wobbles but, I’m hoping that will be ironed out in later books because characters talking like this ↴ every couple of pages is not only gross but, it’s also… wait, no, it’s just gross.

“Don’t.” Clary raised a warning hand. “I’m not really in the mood right now.”
“That’s got to be the first time a girl’s ever said that to me,” Jace mused.”

Also, isn’t Jace meant to be the best Shadowhunter of all time and isn’t Izzy meant to be a super-sl*t? Or am I misremembering from the show and Clary’s super fun and excessive hatred for girls who don’t look, speak and act like herself?

Jace is described as one of the best Shadowhunters of all time but he’s also super unobservant and gets surprise-attacked & injured a bunch of times throughout this book, which is honestly baffling and also hilarious to me. Because he’s a kid and this whole plot-thread rings false to me.

Also, now let’s talk about the girl hate because I know that this book was written in 2007 and all women in literature hated each other in the early 2000s but like, Clary doesn’t ever have even one nice thing to say about Isabelle and it’s harsh af. Like, there’s a scene where Izzy loses Simon at a party and starts crying. Like, ya girl is stressed and probably also really tired and you’ve legit left her to babysit your basic b*tch best friend, and now your boyfriend’s sister is crying because you can’t be a beautiful badass all the time ya know??? ya know???

Basically, in order for me to not want to continue banging my head against the nearest concrete wall over this issue I’m going to need CC to work on a wonderful and thriving group dynamic. I need ALec to get along with at least one character and if that character end up being Clary and they end up becoming friends that wouldn’t b the s worst thing in the world. And, if Clary and Isabelle also became friends I’d be down with that too. (or, lbr, she could just dump Jace like the boring bag of sh*t that he is and just date Izzy, if you’re picking up what I’m not so subtly putting down.

“To love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed.”

Overall, I went into this with low expectations, I really wasn’t expecting to enjoy this, let alone come out of this wanting to read the rest of the books set in this world. I had some issues with this because let’s be real, it’s a debut novel and it’s from a million years ago. But, in all honesty, this book was a fun time and I actually had some really different thoughts on the characters with this re-read and I was really digging the experience.

I’ll definitely be re-reading the rest of the series and maybe continuing on with CC’s other books (don’t get too excited, we’ll see) in the Shadowhunter world. Honestly, I’m pretty excited about this whole thing. Let me know if you want me to review the other books in the series! 

11/04/2019
4⭐
This was so powerful and so heartbreaking. I definitely recommend this to all people, but do read the trigger warnings and know that this book isn't perfect, I did have some issues with it.

TW: fatphobia, rape