City of Fallen Angels

At first, the series was meant to be a trilogy, but Cassie Clare had so much ideas and stories to tell so she decided to do three more books. It’s kind of a bittersweet thing. I mean, I’m glad that there are three more books to read, but the first three were so, so good, powerful and consuming that it’s hard to reach that level again. CoFA was a good book, but it did not reach the level set by the previous books. There were many reasons for that:

• It draged on and on and on. The beginning was too slow and no action at all. The last 1/3 of the book, on the other hand, was so exciting, I didn’t want to but the book down. The ending was unexpected.
• Jace’s anger and depression got on my nerves and in my opinion, Clare should do something with his identity crisis, which has been going on troughout the whole series, and give him a new direction or something.
• Clary was childish. I forgave her at the end, but at times I wanted to shake her and ask: “What’s wrong with you?!?!??!!!!??“
• Dead babies? Yuck. It was horrible! It’s not great to read about dead babies.
• The villain in the CoFA was not that bad ass. Yes, one could fight and one’s plan was quite alright, but one did not reach the horrible level of Valentine. I hope that in the fifth book we’ll see a new villain and things will go bad.
• Alec and Magnus were not there during the first half of the book. It felt like a lazy writing. They’re one of the pillars of the story and adding new characters instead of their storyline did not give any plus-points.
• Last, but not least, all of the characters reminded their pasts and things they went trough throughout the previous books.

Some pros then:

• Kyle. Liked him. Yes, he’s done some pretty horrible things in the past, but he regrets them deeply and unlike Jace, he looks for remedemption and does not live in the past and is not so anguished.
• Isabelle and Simon. Yeah, Simon’s got other love interests too, but I hope that these to are end game.
• Simon’s and Jace’s bromance.

It seems like there are a lot more cons than pros, but CoFA was a really good book, but maybe the reason I wasn’t that sattisfied, was because the other ones were just extremely great and CoFA was just good. In CoFA there wasn’t that much action going on, but there were more scenes where I laughed out loud and half-smiled. Yes, good is the best word to describe CoFA.

Excerpts:

“I think,“ Clary interrupted, raising her voice, “that you should let him try out.“

Simon stared at her. “Why?“

“Because he is superhot,“ Clary said, to Simon’s Suprise. “And your band needs some sex appeal.“

“Thank you,“ said Simon. “On behalf of us all, thank you very much.“

“One of your girlfriends?“ Kyle asked curiously. “Was that readheaded chick at the garage one of them? Because she was cute.“

“No. That’s Clary; she’s my best friend.“ Simon pocketed his phone. “And she has a boyfriend. Like, really, really ,really had a boyfriend. The nuclear bomb of boyfriends. Trust me on this one.“

Simon shook his head as if to clear it. Since when did he know Jace well enough to be able to identify which gestures of his were characteristiv? It wasn’t as if they were friends. “You look lousy,“ he said.

Jace blinked. “Seems an odd time to start an insult contest, but if you insist, I could probably think up something good.“

“Jesus,“ said Kyle. “You’re a Shadowhunter?“ He looked at Simon. “The cute readheaded girl who was with you in the garage – she’s a Shadowhunter too, isn’t she?“
Taken aback, Simon nodded.

“You know, some people think Shadowhunters are just myths. Like mummies and genies.“ Kyle grinned at Jace. “Can you grant wishes?“

The fact that Kyle had just called Clary cute did not seem to have endeared him to Jace, whose face had tightened alarmingly. “That depends,“ he said. “Do you wish to be punched in the face?“

Rate: 4/5.

Reading order:

1. "City of Bones"
2. "City of Ashes"
3. "City of Glass"
4. "City of Fallen Angels"
5. "City of Lost Souls"
6. "City of Heavenly Fire"