City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare, narrated by Natalie Moore, is the second book in The Mortal Instruments series.
You will want to read these in order, so don’t read on unless you don’t care about spoilers.
Clary, Jace, Simon, Luke, Alec, Isabelle, and every shadowhunter will face an epic battle as Valentine sets his plans in motion. With Clary’s mother still in a coma and new knowledge that Jace is her brother, Clary is a bit adrift and overwhelmed with big feelings. Her teenage life has been turned upside down with the knowledge of this hidden world, but it’s about to get a lot worse.
Although Clary mentions a few times that she wishes her life could return to normal, it is clear that she doesn’t. She’s too involved and curious about the shadowhunter world. Unfortunately for Simon, he’s caught up in the quagmire of Valentine’s plot to use demons to take down the shadowhunter government. He wants to end downworlders ability to live in this hidden world amid humans and to purify the world for humans. Yes, this all sounds very much like genocide. Good or bad, it wouldn’t matter to him.
Are Valentine’s intentions misunderstood? Jace is unsure because his memories of his father are more pleasant than the stories of Valentine heard by all shadowhunters and Clary. There is so much going on in this installment, and the battle doesn’t come until the end of the book.
It was riveting, though I do wish that Clary was a little less teenager-like with her wishes and focus on how people look, including herself. But all teens have these feelings, or at least most of them do. The big mystery of who is murdering downworlder children in New York City is not really a mystery. Everyone should know who it is. It’s not like he was stopped in the first book.
City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare is a solid second book. I’m looking forward to the rest of this series.
RATING: Tercet
