City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

I guess I wanted to see what the big deal was. The mystery of the first book was ruined for me since I saw the movie and the TV show before the book, so I figured before the second season aired, I should read the second book and see if... maybe my feelings had changed? Maybe it's actually a diamond in the rough and we had it all wrong with Cassandra Clare?

I've read some really great YA books, and I've read some really shitty YA books that I couldn't even finish. This... is in the middle. If someone were to ask me if they should read this series, I would shrug my shoulders. It's a "meh" book. If you want something easy to read while you're on the plane, and can pick it up whenever, this is the series for you.

It's YA fluff with action, fantasy, romance with some themes of friendship and resilience. It's a good set up with a protagonist who has a complicated family life (because who doesn't) and wants to learn about her past. Clary is her own person and makes silly decisions like other teens her age. There is a love triangle, but it's not really a triangle... it feels like a bunch of teenagers trying to navigate their feelings, which is more realistic than 2 guys vying over a girl. Jace turns out to be her brother, which has loads of weird, unusual feelings, and the Simon/Clary ship is mercifully finished by the end of the book, when Simon breaks up with Clary when he realizes that Clary doesn't feel the same way about him.

Magnus and Alec are dating and Clare gracefully navigates all the feelings of being in a  gay relationship or the first time. I wish I could say that "coming out" seemed a bit outdated, but in light of the Orlando shooting, it's not. I'm glad there is representation in the series.

Like the first book, the plot is contrived and instead of a Mortal Cup, there is a sword, and the evil Valentine is going to use the sword for... something, I'm not sure. I think an army to take down the Shadowhunters and then the rest of the Down world? The team has to get it back and Clare reveals that both Jace and Clary have special powers that Valentine has given them. Mmmmk. Sure. We'll go with it. Clare also foreshadows a big reveal about Valentine and Jace. We don't know what, but it's coming!

With my lukewarm reaction to the book, there were some notable things that I disliked about it.

I found it strange that Clary does not have any other female friends and in one part of the book, states that she is jealous of how another girl looks, and that is why she always had male friends. I'm not saying that it's not true to reality that sometimes girls don't have female friends. But that type of behavior is harmful and patriarchal. It's not good to not like your own gender, and though points for Clary to own up to not liking other women because she sees them as potential competition, it's also kind of weird. This thing about women not having female friends extends to all the other women in the novel, including the Isabelle's and Alec's mother, whose peer is the Inquisitor, a hostile angry woman who lost her son to Valentine. Kind of weird, Cassandra Clare.

Along that strain of disliking women, there is a scene, a very plot motivated scene where the Fairy Queen (yes, you've read that right) demands, through a riddle, that two in the group (Simon, Isabel, Jace and Clary) kiss because, I guess, love. The group goes through pairings, including the "hilarious" pairing of Simon and Jace. However, there is never any mention of Isabel and Clary kissing.

Weird, right? Cassandra Clare seems to reallly hates women. Women can't be friends and they most definitely can't kiss each other.

Also... Simon doesn't die? He turns into a vampire (soz, spoiler, but if you watched the show, it already happened) and after the big boss battle, he is trapped in the middle of the lake on a truck bed as the sun is going up. I thought it would have been a very bold move if he died, but instead, he is able to withstand the sunlight. It's a mystery for the next book and it's not romanticized at all but... I thought the twist was a bit lame.

Finally, the themes of the book also didn't resonate with me. It's a YA novel, so naturally, it's geared towards young adults, and I am no longer a young adult. So themes of "not letting your past define you" and "choosing your own family" are just moot points to me, but are valuable lessons for youngsters who are trying to navigate this little thing we like to call life. Clary, Jace and the others desperately try to do this, with varying results throughout the book, and undoubtedly, Clare will come back to it later in the series as they all get older and the plot develops.

Clare set herself up well with this universe and is starting to get her footing with this second book. Since Josh is now a regular at the library, I'm going to have him get the third book (I'm invested now, don't look at me) but not pay for it.



Which is Better? Shadowhunters by Cassandra Clare

Much like the Hannibal series, I felt like by the time I actually got to the book, I was oversaturated with seeing the movie and watching the TV show. I'm going to try and get the second book so when I watch the second season of Shadowhunters, I'll be able to properly compare both the show to the book. As it stands, I feel like the shine has gone off all three, so I'm not sure if my opinion on the TV show and the movie is actually accurate.

The reason I said all of that, however, is because it's been a while since I saw the movie, and then the TV show, and it's been a few months since I read the books, so it's all mashed together now. Also... I missed a whole bunch of episodes of Shadowhunters, so I saw the first 6, and then the season finale, and the one before the season finale...so... I hope this post is more amusing than really informative.

Let's talk about this bomb of a movie. Poor, poor Lily Collins, trying to become an actress, and the agency that thought it was a good idea to sign her because she's Phil Collins' daughter. Sure, we can teach her how to act... she can take acting classes, right? It'll be fine!

Her eyebrow game and her last name are the only things she has going for her. She's not a bad looking girl (she's not a troll, but she's just a pretty face with all the benefits of a life with a chef, a nutritionist, stylist and personal trainer), but man, oh man. She's a terrible actress.

Hollywood tried to make her a thing in that other movie with Taylor Lautner (Right? the Werewolf from Twilight?), and though she was better in this movie, this poor girl can't act to save her life. Her eyebrows did more work than she did in the movies she was in.via GIPHY
Look at much those eyebrows work for their money.

However, let's not forget the rest of the cast of this doomed movie; Jonathan Rhys Meyers (who did this movie to fund his coke habit), Lena Headley, whose single requirement for roles is that she gets to play the mother of child-prodigies, for better or for worse and Lane Pryce, who, much to his surprise, woke up in an alternate universe after hanging himself in his own office.

There is also this guy:

Who... the only reason I remember him is because he got that, "oh yeah, he's been in something" reaction, and also because after watching the show, I realized how the movie cut the love subplot between him and Jace. Who is played by

this guy:

Who, and again, I don't want to piss on people that don't fit my standard of beauty or attractiveness, but he should really be a character actor. Not only does he and Lily have the zero onscreen chemistry, I don't look at him and go, "man, he should play the guy that turns Clary from a high school girl into a full fledged Shadowhunter, and after all of that, when they discover they are "siblings" still question whether kissing your brother is such a big deal."

However, this guy?

If a girl is going to question whether kissing her long lost sibling is such a big deal, I'd buy him.

On that note, the movie feels way too rushed with the attempt to shove all the folklore and urban mythology that Clare meticulously builds up in her first book into one movie... and the movie feels jumbled together and long, despite the twists and turns and googly eyes that Clary and Jace make at each other. With the final reveal of Clary's father and Jace and Clary/Lily long lost siblings, instead of being shocked with wonder of how Jace and Clary/Lily will ever recover, you marvel at Rhys Meyers attempt to sell the terrible script and try to take Lily Collins seriously (though I think there must have been a contingent in his contract that he had to try to act in order to get his coke blocks) to get through his scenes.

I understand the attempt to try and cash in on the rising tide of the Harry Potter and Twilight movie phenomenon, but this movie was a hot garbage mess. Though I think Lane Pryce was relieved that no one asked for the money back and no one bought up the embezzling.

All the fans were disappointed with the movie, and many were concerned with the development of the TV show. With the... 6 (I'm guessimating), that I watched, is a definite improvement from the movie. They cast much better actors and actresses, including the Old Spice guy, who, in my opinion, is the best part of the show.
via GIPHY
I wish he would be given a bigger part... or did he have more of a part to play in the episodes I didn't watch?

As well, Magnas Bane is played by an actor who was on Glee; Harry Shum! The only reason that was exciting for me was because I just watched him in the Netflix Original Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon sequel.

I gathered there is a lot of material for the show to use from her books, so I hope they continue with the show and keep both Isaiah Mustafa and Harry Shum employed. As for the rest of the actors... they look and act like your typical young teen ABC/CW show actors, which is perfect for a show like this.

The TV show is silly and entertaining, though I will have to say it wasn't engaging enough for me to keep tuning back in week after week. Hopefully Hulu brings back the episodes I missed so I can binge. I think it'll be a good binge series. Free Form is literally a no name network, so they need to take the cue from CW and renew everything, regardless of ratings!

And besides, anything is better than that movie.
via GIPHY

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Well, with the movie and the TV show, it was bound to happen. It seems I always am behind the trends of YA, but I do end up reading some of them.

But man, Cassandra Clare is infamous. Like, Anne Rice infamous. Though, instead of declaring the Lestat series are finished and she would write exclusively Christian themed novels, Clare is rumored to be a plagiarist during her time as a fan fiction writer, as well as parts of her books to be taken from other works.

Now that I've read her books... I don't think she really hides the fact that she definitely uses folk tales, myths, legends and other public fantasy ideas in her works. I mean, come on, "All the stories are true..." is a running theme throughout the books, and she doesn't make it a secret that she uses everything from vampires, to Norse mythology, to fairy tales, even Star Wars (finding out they were siblings?! Come on.), so I don't think any authors who accuse her of stealing her work really has a leg to stand on, because even though she basically uses everything under the sun in her books, it seems it's a work completely her own.Clare creates an imaginative world where she packs everything she can, all the folklore and urban fantasy into almost an unlimited book series.

Man, again, I have to put Clare in with "people whose careers I wish I stole" because she doesn't pretend to think up all of this stuff on her own. She takes it all and her theme is, "all the stores are true." Brilliant. I would take the haters any day of the week.

I do give her mad props for her extensive world building, which led her to numerous books. How many books does she have out now with different series stemming from The Mortal Instruments? 20? She definitely put time and effort using all she can and she's made a career out of it.

The real question is... is it any good? I'm not sure if I'm qualified yet to answer that question, because I feel like I stumbled into a real Hannibal situation, where I am so saturated with the TV show and the movies, that when it came to reading the books, there was nothing new. The books were almost like the movies, and the TV show added much more to the books. The first book, the City of Bones, definitely follows the movie of finding the Mortal cup, though I'm still confused about the big round blue portal in the movie.

However, her downfall are the characters in the books. She creates a very extensive world with alternative realities and universes, and the "rules" of the universe are practically nonexistent, that she leaves barely any room to introduce any real characters. I was deeply confused when it was revealed that Valentine was also Jace's father. Just to move plot along and create conflict between Clary and Jace, Jace, who was deemed a quick thinker, smart and almost wise beyond his years, absolutely took Valentine, who was deemed a psychopath, at his word, and was immediately obedient to him.

What also didn't work for the book was the snappy dialogue between the characters. It had a very Joss Whedon flair to it, which is admirable, but... since I didn't feel a connection to any of the characters, I thought the dialogue fell flat. I also don't buy that 15 year olds talk like that at all. I taught 15 year olds... they are way dumber. Apparently her writing improves greatly, which I'm looking forward too.

Was it riveting? No. Now that I've seen the terrible movie, and I am watching the TV show on free form which leaves me feeling more confused (I still don't know what's happening and I've read the book now) everytime I watch it. Overall, it took me a bit to get through. I found it boring and I also realized that not much happened (which is an awful realization when you are holding a monster of a book). However, I'm reserving my judgement about this book series with the second book because I definitely watched the TV show and the movie before the book.