This had to have been one of the best books I have read this past month. I didn’t know what I was going to expect from this book, as I hear so many good things about it and I got the books because of those good things and I also thought that the cover looked nice. Yes I know, don’t judge a book by its cover but I think most if not all bibliophiles do anyways. What I was meaning to do after finishing this book was read some other books, but it was so good and since I had the sequel sitting on my shelf, I had to read it. In fact I already have started.

One of my favorite parts of this book was the werewolves. Nearly every form of media does the werewolf wrong, I think. Twilight literally just had huge wolves, not werewolves, Supernatural went with the lazy decision to make the werewolf human looking but with wolf teeth, and eyes. Teen Wolf kind did the same thing as Supernatural but it was something slightly different. Harry Potter and The Prisoner Of Azkaban got close; The X-Files did too, however they barely showed the werewolf. Lets also complain about the fact that for some reason when Twilight came out, they started romanticizing every vampire and making them inhuman. Any show that didn’t exist before vampires didn’t do this but it was rare after the era of vampires began that they became a boring creature that watched you in room at night and dated seventeen year olds. (Come on man you are like one hundred and something). Jokes aside though, I was happy to find a book that didn’t do this with supernatural creatures.

I guess you could say that the beginning to the book was slow. I honestly didn’t think so, but that may be different for other people. It kept me interested with its story for most of the time and I would be sitting in class thinking about picking up the book again.

I thought that the world building was amazing in this book. Cassandra Clare did a great job. There was no point in time where I found a hole in the rules to the world. I thought her characters were great and made you feel for them. Clary makes a great protagonist to follow. Everyone seems like a unique and genuine person – that’s if you consider teenagers human. I’m joking for the most part.

The book not only pulled me into the world but also made me laugh. It was like reading a Rick Riordan novel; there seemed to have been a laugh in even serious situations. Simon had to be on of my favorite characters for this reason, he seemed to have a lot of sarcastic remarks.

I probably should give the synopsis now of Cassandra Clare’s first book. The last thing that Clary Fray expects on night out to club with her friend Simon is witnessing the murder committed by three curious teens that wield peculiar weapons and dawn the oddest of tattoos. After telling her mother about this, her mother flips. When her mom attempts to take her away from the summer, Clary leaves for a night out with her best friend Simon. On the night out she sees one of the faces from the night club, after ignoring her mother’s calls and messages she answers. Her mother sounding distressed, Clary runs to her aid. When returning home, she finds her mother missing, and something else in her place: an odd creature called a ravener demon. After getting hurt she is given aid by a secret society of people known as shadowhunters, or people who kill evil demonic creatures. Now Clary must go through a world of werewolves, faeries, vampires, warlocks, demons and nephilim in order to get her mother back.

I would say that this would have to get one of the highest ratings from me this year. Ten out of ten stars is what I am giving it. Even though I might have a few minor gripes, I thought that this book was fun to read, and definitely was happy they didn’t Twilight any of the monsters. All I really look for in a book is a story that makes me happy, is fun, exciting or heart warming (sometimes). So if you really are looking for a critical review than you won’t find one here.

That’s honestly all there is to talk about without spoiling the book; if maybe you aren’t interested in what I said or don’t have enough time to read the book, then maybe try watching the movie. However, I heard mixed reviews about that one and it’s also not free to watch anywhere. You must know what time it is now if you have read my articles before, it’s time for you to get out if you haven’t read the book.

My first thing that I really want to talk about is probably one of the biggest reveals in this book, and that is that Clary and Jace are siblings. It’s also probably one of the weirdest, because they kiss before they even knew they were siblings. They also started to have feelings for each other before they knew that they were siblings. I don’t know how to feel about something like this, I mean they never knew they were siblings so does that make it wrong. I don’t want to the be person who makes that decision, just too confusing. It just rose so many philosophical questions in my mind that it kind of made my head hurt. I mean come on – it’s weird and the author doesn’t tell us what to think. So many people that I have watched on YouTube love this book series and seem to not have that much of a problem with it, does that mean some other twist is coming later on? Maybe they aren’t really siblings? Does that make it right all the sudden if they still do have feelings for each other? I don’t know what to think because the whole thing makes my head spinny. It’s like come on guys this isn’t the 1800s.

The next thing up is that Alec is gay. Which by all means is fine with me, on top of this I found that with a little research that this book was made in 2007. I have never found a book dating back to then that showed people were that open minded, it makes me look at the 2000s in a whole new light. I am also happy with the way it represents him as a person and not a character. I did see it coming however, that he has a crush on Jace. Just the way he acted towards him and around him. I mean it could have been taken in other ways but that I guess is what I was thinking about.

The other twist I didn’t see coming besides Clary’s father being Valentine and that she was Jace’s sister, was the one where Hodge betrayed them. When he betrayed them for Valentine I couldn’t believe it. My jaw dropped like an anchor, trying to hold me in place so I didn’t just float away in disbelief. Throughout the book until he betrayed them I liked him. Maybe it’s because of how mistreated he was and how we both liked books. While I get why he did what he did, I don’t think what he did was okay. After he did that, he reminded me of Peter Pettigrew, or the freaking Malfoy family, who besides the mother, are all a bunch of weasels. These kind of people are probably my least favorite because I don’t like selfish people who are disloyal.

If I had to pick a favorite character from the book, I would say that it would have to be Luke. There is a huge biased reason though. To put the reason shortly in one word, he was a werewolf. I believe this is why he is also on of my favorite characters in the book. That, and he also owns a farm house as his second house, and… and his house that he normally uses doubles as his bookstore that he owns. He is relatable and a loyal character too, so that also has to be a huge part of it. I also knew that when Clary called him and he told her to go away that he didn’t care about Clary or her mom, that he really was keeping her away to protect her but that didn’t end up working.  I might not often be protective of characters, even when I like them a lot, but this one was one of those exceptions.

I don’t like Jace that much like everyone else (or Alec) seem to. I don’t hate him and it’s not like I don’t care if he dies or what he feels, I do, but I also don’t like him that much. He is arrogant, cocky, a jerk, and has anger management problems. I don’t see the appeal of the character, some people say that they love him because he is a ‘bad boy’, which I guess is kind of true. I don’t know if it really is, he doesn’t really always break the rules. There are not that many rules to even break, so I don’t think that he is a bad boy. I think the other thing that I didn’t care for too much was their discrimination against normal people, or their slur for it. It’s like the word Muggle, I am fine hearing it sometimes but in a way it’s just a slur for people that are lesser. The word mundane means boring which in a way is definitely a clever use of words but it doesn’t help that Jace uses it more as a word filled with acid. I just think it was a little annoying to hear it that often in the book. However it wasn’t something that really ruined my experience and at times it even was funny when they used the word.

In the end, I am glad that I picked this book up because honestly I needed something that was a little more happy than the last book that I read. I was glad that I chose this book instead of deciding to re-read The Hunger Games, I needed something a little less heavy to read. I found to be very enjoyable and would definitely recommend it if you for some reason read to the end of this article without reading the book. As I was talking about earlier, some people think that it starts a little slow so I would take that into consideration if you don’t have time for something like that. I would also say I look forward to finishing the next book in the series, which is City of Ashes, but I already read through the whole thing and am excited to work on the book talk for that. Thank you lovely readers for taking the time to read this Book Talk.