City of Ashes // Cassandra Clare

This post is a longer than usual because I have some series thoughts, not just about this individual book. I'm a little late to Cassandra Clare, simply because I don't like to read books when they first come out and are all hyped up. Especially series. I like to give it some time, let the reviews become a little stale, a little seasoned by time...and then jump in. This gives me the benefit of not having to wait quite so long for the second and third books to come out. (Incidentally, this is how I entered the Harry Potter (J.K. Rowling) world as well. Late. So late, all seven books had been out for several years.) City of Ashes is book two in the Mortal Instruments series, which is part of the overarching Shadowhunter Chronicles series. 

Contemporary young adult (YA) paranormal fantasy set in New York City, fast paced, teens with superpowers, mythological creatures with intersecting worlds spanning time and space—this was a good book for between more thoughtful reads. I like the characters Clare has set up, their dilemmas and quests. This was a fluffy read for me. I read it between two books I knew I wanted to thoughtfully ingest, so it was a palate cleanser if you will.  And it didn't disappoint. It was fast-paced, fun and fantastical with angsty teens. Reminds me of a Twilight (Stephanie Meyer)/Crescent City (Sarah J. Maas) mashup. 

Now, I believe when the first book came out in 2007, Clare was doing a relatively new thing, writing a huge contemporary fantasy series for young adults. She entered into the YA scene after books spinning off the Twilight and the Hunger Games series were being written and published. The rise of paranormal and dystopian YA seems to have begun from the late 90's into the 2010's, and the YA genre as a whole has just blasted off from there. Except for Tamora Pierce, there wasn't much for readers situated between children's fantasy books (think C.S. Lewis' Narnia, E. Nesbit, and Edward Eager's Half Magic) and full-fledged fantasy for adults (Robin Hobb, Robert Jordan, Piers Anthony, etc., etc., etc.) You could find the occasional standalone YA fantasy book, but there were few series that took off like Clare's has (Although authors such as Robin McKinley, Garth Nix, Patricia C. Wrede,  Amelia Atwater-Rhodes, and Julie Kagawa were all pretty well-known if you were deep-diving into your library's backlist like us 90's kids who wanted to read anything but horror and contemporary high school love-lit... *pushes up nerd glasses and buries nose back in book*)

The above paragraph is based solely off what I remember reading in late middle school and high school, a few Epic Reads blogposts, and some Google searches on when YA fantasy became popular, and when some of these authors' were first publishing. 

All that to say, I can admire the world Clare has created. Is it Brandon Sanderson, Patrick Rothfuss, Sarah J. Maas thought-out level? No, but that's not what it's supposed to be. It's supposed to be easy to climb into, relatable, transportive, and fun! And that's what it is. It's one of those series that has paved the way for experimentation, spin-offs, and more diverse fantasy stories to find their way into their deserved limelights. 

Will the writing win any awards? Mmm...I edited it in my head A LOT while I was reading, rearranging sentences, cutting words, catching plot holes. That was a little irksome, but, not the end of the world for me. One thing that did bother me was the George Lucas-esque Jase/Clary love plot line. I'm really hoping they aren't actually related. 

Would I keep reading the series, and the rest of the Shadowhunter canon? Yes, because it's fun, and I'm interested in Magnus Bane, and werewolf Luke, who strongly reminds me of Luke from Gilmore Girls. Cassandra Clare has an enormous canon though, so I'm looking forward to seeing how her writing grows and changes. I have great hope, because I don't think you can write That Much without learning a bunch along the way. :)