Title: City of Ashes

Author: Cassandra Clare

Type: Fiction

Page Count/Review Word Count: 416

Rating: 3.75*/5

 

Cassandra Clare - City of Ashes

Cassandra Clare – City of Ashes

 

Cassandra Clare gets a lot of shade thrown her way from people who think she’s a poor writer, but at the end of the day, how many of those people have sold as many books as she has? That’s kind of why I’m slowly but surely working my way through her stuff. Another reason is because I’m buddy reading them with a couple of YouTube friends, Kitkatscanread and Damian Terriquez. And of course, I’m also kind of invested in the series now. That’s probably my fault because I also watched the series on Netflix, although that also has the effect of spoiling me on pretty much everything.

I’m not going to go too much into the plot here because it’s the second book in the series and also because it’s pretty obvious what you’re in for. The bad guys come along and the good guys save the day, that’s what happens in these books. But I did enjoy the story for what it was and I also actually quite like Cassandra Clare’s writing style. Sure, it might not be highbrow literary fiction, but she keeps you rolling on through the pages. If her books were food, they’d be a McDonald’s. But sometimes I just want to eat a McDonald’s.

There was some cracking dialogue here that I appreciated and I think the characterisation was pretty good too, even with more minor characters. I still think that the bad guys in this series are a little disappointing, but I almost read this for the banter between the characters rather than for anything that actually happens. I started to get a little bored about two thirds of the way through though and feel like this could have been fifty pages shorter.

Overall though, this was pretty much what I was expecting and I found myself enjoying it despite the hype on one hand and the disdain on the other. I try to make up my own opinions about the books that I read and so far, Cassandra Clare’s stuff has been pretty good. And hey, if I keep on reading the rest of the series then perhaps I’ll discover some magical tip that will help me to write a bestseller. Maybe there’s a mark for it (or whatever they’re called). As you can tell, I paid plenty of attention to the finer details of the Shadowhunter world.

 

Cassandra Clare

Cassandra Clare

 

Click here to buy City of Ashes.