City of Fallen Angels , by Cassandra Clare

Hardcover, 424 pages

Published April 5th 2011 by Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

ISBN

1442403543 (ISBN13: 9781442403543)

edition language

English

original title

City of Fallen Angels (The Mortal Instruments, #4)

url

http://www.mortalinstruments.com/book-angels.php

series

The Mortal Instruments #4

characters

Alec Lightwood, Jace Wayland, Isabelle Lightwood, Clarissa Fray, Magnus Bane ...more

setting

New York City, New York, 2007 (United States)

The Mortal War is over, and Clary Fray is back home in New York, excited about all the possibilities before her. She's training to become a Shadowhunter and to use her unique power. Her mother is getting married to the love of her life. Downworlders and Shadowhunters are at peace at last. And—most important of all—Clary can finally call Jace her boyfriend.

But nothing comes without a price.

Someone is murdering the Shadowhunters who used to be in Valentine’s Circle, provoking tensions between Downworlders and Shadowhunters that could lead to a second bloody war. Clary’s best friend, Simon, can’t help her. His mother just found out he’s a vampire and now he’s homeless. Everywhere he turns, someone wants him on their side—along with the power of the curse wrecking his life. And they’re willing to do anything to get what they want. At the same time he’s dating two beautiful, dangerous girls—neither of whom knows about the other.

When Jace begins to pull away from Clary without explaining why, she is forced to delve into the heart of a mystery whose solution reveals her worst nightmare: She herself has set in motion a terrible chain of events that could lead to her losing everything she loves. Even Jace.

Love. Blood. Betrayal. Revenge. The stakes are higher than ever in City of Fallen Angels

 My Review
Cassandra CLare always seems to be able to produce the unexpected. She can make you think and feel one thing with her novel, only then to produce something else altogether so that you never really know what is actually going to happe and what is not. The fact is, that as you get on with the series it only becomes more full of adrenaline and adventure. It fails to have a dull slow moment within it that makes you want to put down the book and just stop reading it. I su;ppose this is what makes her stand out from the other authors who write a series of books. For usually a series ends up dying by about book three at the latest. However this series has enough to get your adrenaline racing so that you are on a high which is why I am sure its like being addicted to Drugs, without ever having taken drugs myself. I liked the way that the book seemed to focus a lot of Simon this time because it added that little bit of a refreshing twist. After all there can only be so much drama for Clary and Jace to be involved in without it becoming overused and already done. In this book you really get a deeper insight into the world of simon adn you start to understand the difficulties that his new life has for him. A boy who wants to be human, to go to school and to just be normal. But he can't be. Instead he has to lie to the people he has known his whole life which of course must surely tear his heart apart in various places.

Simon really comes out as the classic sort of teenage boy here though. He is sensitive and wants to get everything right without the need to hurt other people, but at the same time he wants to show that he can be independant and that he does not always need someone elses help. I did kind of get the feeling that there was already more than meets the eyes with Kyle, I just hadnt got as far as to working out what it was yet. So Of course although it was somewhat of a surprise as to who he really was, it wasn't that big of a surprise either.  I would have thought that the whole love romance thing between Clary adn Jace would have got boring by now, and that I would have been screaming at them to stop being stupid and to just get it together and decide what they want. But everytime I find myself wanting to do that the author adds in this little twist that actually makes it far more exciting that you just have to read on and find out what does happen between them.

There did seem to be a lot more going on with this book than in the others, but what I liked about the fact was that they all tied together. They were not independant problems as such, they were linked to each other in different ways. It just seemed to add this little something more to the whole plot that left you trying to figure out who was evil and who was not. It formed this sort of mind map in your mind where you had to try and figure out the ending, and yet at the same time it just drew you in, allowing you to get this perspective of each individual character as such. I do like the whole fling with Simon and Izzy though and I truthfully hope that they do get together at the end because they seem to be very similar in some respects and not so much in others. The series is just fantastic, Im just sad that I will now haev to probably wait about ten years for the library to get the next one, when it is published, or wait until I can afford to buy the whole series myself which may as well be just as long. oh well... I will happily rearead this series though, so the magic and adventure will live on!

My rating