“Usually I’m remarkably good natured. Try me on a day that doesn’t end in y.”
In this review I will only discuss the first three books in The Mortal Instruments Series, because they were the first and after the thirth book the series seemed to be finished. Two years later Cassandra Clare added another three books. I will try to discuss these in a separate review.
Book Review: The Mortal Instruments Series (1-3) by Cassandra Clare
Rating:
Title & Author: The Mortal Instruments Series (1-3) by Cassandra Clare
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Release Date: March 27 2007
Series: The Mortal Instruments
Publisher: Margaret K. McElderry Books
In the summer of 2010 I heard of The Mortal Instrument through the magic of internet, my only problem was… They were not available where I live. Then I left for my internship in Greece and there they were available, so I bought them and tore through them! I loved these three books! I still like to read them every so often.
The characters are well defined and grow, especially Clary and Simon. I fell in love with them. The Shadowhunters are a well developed group of people, even the fairies and demons are well done. I really liked Magnus Bane in these books and was really happy to learn more about him in [The Bane Chronicles] (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/16303287-the-bane-chronicles “The Bane Chronicles”) and The Infernal Devices.
City of Bones is the first book in the series, it is fast paced, the characters are introduced in such a way you can actually keep track of them. There are quite a bunch of characters, but I did not mind, I never lost track of who is who and who is connected to who. I like the humor in it and had a hard time letting it go.
I just love the way the story progresses from this two friends to one of them finding out a great family secret and then learning to deal with that. And in the mean time trying to find a way to get the mother back from this evil man, Valentine. The end I felt a bit like a bummer, having this great battle and then finding the mother. But Valentine makes it out with the one thing they were trying to defend for almost the whole book.
The book smoothly rolled into City of Ashes, the second book in this series. This book delves deeper into the characters. Jace’s soft side is shown when he gets kicked out of his home by Maryse Lightwood (Max, Isabelle and Alecs mother). And my dear Simon nearly dies. This shocked my quiet a bunch and made me wonder why the author would kill of this character. This change I did not really like, because I was getting bored by the whole vampire saga that I went through. But I survived.
Overall I found City of Ashes more grim and more violent then City of Bones. It does not let the reader down in any way, so I have no problems with this shift in atmosphere. In the beginning I did not like the character of The Inquisitor. She was just plane mean and there seemed to be no real reason for her behavior. Only midway through you start to understand her, because of her history with Valentine. It still does not make her behavior any better, only her last act is really nice and completely out of place. Only after reading the third book I understood why she might have done it.
With City of Glass the story comes full circle, mostly. I still enjoyed reading about the world of Shadowhunters. The book is still fast paced, just like the others. A great and epic end to a long tale. And I have to say, I enjoyed this one more then the largest tale I have ever read, The Lord of the Rings – I do not define Game of Thrones as a finished tale, since it is currently still in the works, just to be clear here!
The Movie
This is one of those movies where the movie completely does not have anything to do with the movie, at least to me. The movie really destroyed the story. It felt like they took the story and then had completely different characters in it. Valentine was so different from the book, he wasn’t the charismatic person I like so much in the books, this man was just angry and doing everything through force. I have watched it once, because I was all hyped they were making the movie and the cast had great names in it. But I have not bothered to see it again.
The TV Series
On January 12 2016 ABC Family will start with the showing of Shadowhunters (aka Shadowhunters TV). I am really looking forward to this. I hope this time they have done a better job at adapting the story to film. They have more time to tell the same story, so it might work out. The [trailer](https://youtu.be/rVIS7fW0ZXY “trailer”) looked great and alluring. I will definitely go and watch it. I have only seen one of the actors in the cast and he had an okay performance in Glee. And he plays the most amazing character of them all! Magnus Bane!
Let me know what you thought of this books and/or the movie!
If you have any requests for which book I should talk about next, please let me know in the comments down below.
For now, let books enrich your life!