Title:  City of Bones
Author:  Cassandra Clare
Publisher/Year:  Margaret K. McElderry Books 2/19/08
Length:  512 Pages
Series: The Mortal Instruments #1

Overview

When fifteen-year-old Clary Fray heads out to the Pandemonium Club in New York City, she hardly expects to witness a murder—much less a murder committed by three teenagers covered with strange tattoos and brandishing bizarre weapons. Then the body disappears into thin air. It’s hard to call the police when the murderers are invisible to everyone else and when there is nothing—not even a smear of blood—to show that a boy has died. Or was he a boy?

This is Clary’s first meeting with the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the earth of demons. It’s also her first encounter with Jace, a Shadowhunter who looks a little like an angel and acts a lot like a jerk. Within twenty-four hours Clary is pulled into Jace’s world with a vengeance, when her mother disappears and Clary herself is attacked by a demon. But why would demons be interested in ordinary mundanes like Clary and her mother? And how did Clary suddenly get the Sight? The Shadowhunters would like to know…

Exotic and gritty, exhilarating and utterly gripping, Cassandra Clare’s ferociously entertaining fantasy takes readers on a wild ride that they will never want to end.

My Thoughts 

for the longest time i’ve seen the covers to the books in this series and had been on the fence about reading them.  Well, i finally decided that it was about time and I’m not quite sure that it was worth the wait.  there are a few reasons for this.

1) i’m one of those people that if a books is really good, i’ll read it cover to cover (e-book style) in one night.  that didn’t happen here.  as a matter of fact it took me maybe 3-4 days to read it, and it’s partly because i was ‘ok’ with putting it down, and partly because well…life just kind of got in the way last week.

2) I wasn’t quite sure where the story was going for the longest time and it wasn’t until some of the last chapters that i was actually getting into it more – so i felt a little cheated for a few days

in any event, here’s the lowdown:

Clary (Clarissa) is our heroine in the story.  She’s you’re average 15 yr old living in Brooklyn.  (or so she thinks).  her mom is an artist and her dad died before she was born i think.  she has a best friend named Simon who of course is in love with her yet she doesn’t see it.  We are introduced to Clary one night when she decides that she needs to go to this cool club, and while she’s there, she comes across a whole syfy world. demons, ‘shadow hunters’ – the whole nine yards

Jace is our lead guy in this story – he’s a shadow hunter who for some reason keeps creeping up on Clary when she first meets him, and then turns out to be her guide and touch stone for all things super natural.

of course there’s a cast of supporting folks, Simon as i mentioned (non-supernatural), Isabelle, Alec and Hodge (super natural), Valentine (so not romantic and sweet- VERY EVIL) and well…the list goes on and on.

I’m kind of at a lost now of what to expect of the next story since there were things that i really wanted to see happen in this first book that didn’t but i guess that’s kind of the allure of a decent author right?  that you think one thing will happen and then something completely different does.  Without giving it away – that’s kind of what happened here.

i’m off to track down book 2 now…