Review: City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare
Published: March 25th, 2008
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry
Pages: 453
Challenge: 100+ Reading Challenge, 350 Page Books Challenge, YA Series Challenge
Other: Second book in The Mortal Instruments series. There will be six books in this series. The fourth installment, City of Fallen Angels, was published on April 5th, 2011.
Buy the book: Bookdepository

A murderer is loose in New York City ... 

... and the victims are Downworlder children. Clary Fray and her fellow Shadowhunters have a strong suspicion that Valentine, Clary's father, may be behind the killings. But if he is the murderer, then what's his true motive? To make matters worse, the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, has been stolen, and the mysterious Inquisitor has arrived to investigate, with his eyes vigilantly targeted on Clary's brother, Jace. 

Clary will need to face some terrifying demons and even more terrifying family decisions. No one said that the life of a Shadowhunter would be easy.

After finally reading City of Bones, I was *thrilled* to start reading City of Ashes. Where CoB was made of awesomesauce, CoA was slightly disappointed because it just didn't have me hooked like the first book did.

Cassandra Clare has developed an exciting and thrilling world of Shadowhunters and demons. I really like how she put everything together! Somehow, I wasn't that thrilled about the sequel. It felt like an inbetween book and I generally don't like those kind of books. I felt the plot was okay, but it didn't feel like an awesome, thrilling and good plot like it did in the first book in the series.

Having said that, I really liked Simon. I think I am starting to like him better than I like Jace (and I LOVED him in the first book) and I liked that Simon had a slightly bigger role in this book. I've heard that he's going to have a prominent role in the third book as well, so that's something that I really will be looking forward to!

Of course, I will continue the series. I'm not as excited for City of Glass as I was for this book after reading the first book, but I will definitely be reading it in the summer.

My overall rating:


Because despite the less appealing plot, I loved the world Cassandra Clare created for Shadowhunters and demons!