City of Glass (The Mortal Instruments, #3) in SOS: Serious Overload of Series

Jan 08, 2011 Logan rated it it was amazing

Shelves: own-bought-ebook, paranormal, young-adult

First impressions: Only Cassandra Clare can get a laugh out of me in the first two pages. I love the image of Simon bragging about his MarioKart skills in spite of the events happening around him. I love how Clare handles these kinds of juxtapositions between normal daily life and this supernatural world she's created, and it settled me back into this world on a happy note.

Lasting impressions: This book is by far my favorite of the series. Though it's clear that Clare was wrapping things up for First impressions: Only Cassandra Clare can get a laugh out of me in the first two pages. I love the image of Simon bragging about his MarioKart skills in spite of the events happening around him. I love how Clare handles these kinds of juxtapositions between normal daily life and this supernatural world she's created, and it settled me back into this world on a happy note.

Lasting impressions: This book is by far my favorite of the series. Though it's clear that Clare was wrapping things up for what was supposed to be the end of the series, it also left open the possibility for new adventures and discoveries, and I am so excited that today is release day for Book 4, City of Fallen Angels. This book is epic in scope with lots of action, backstabbing, and surprises. A must read.

Conflicting impressions: At 541 pages, this thing is a beast. I was so anxious to get things moving that the few times where the action dipped I got frustrated with how many pages I had left.

Overall impressions: The spirit of this book was very similar to Harry Potter for me. Everything is ramped up for this book - romance, action, magic, setting - and this heightened reality made the story soar. Taking place almost entirely in Glass City, with only a few scenes in New York, this added to the intensity of what was happening. I loved seeing Clary in Alicante, this home world she should have known a long time ago.

We meet lots of new characters in this book within the Alicante setting. The most important of these, Sebastian, is powerful and mysterious from the get-go. He clashes with Jace, particularly when he tries to woo Clary, which only further complicates things with our main characters. The Jace-Clary conflict reaches a fever pitch in this book, threatening to boil over into a frenzy if they can't figure out how to relate to each other.

Simon plays a bigger role in the narrative this time around, adding complexity to his relationships with Jace and Isabelle. He is still struggling to come to terms with his new identity, both in his own acceptance of how this changes his daily life and in his role within the war against Valentine. He makes a big sacrifice toward the end of the book, with repurcussions that have yet to be felt fully. I can't wait to see how his story progresses.

This book had so much going on, but in a good way. I loved the onslaught of new elements because they fit so nicely with what Clare had spent two books establishing already. These characters all feel like old friends, and I would read about them darning socks and still find it interesting. Fortunately, Clare gave them much more exciting things to do, and this book flew by.

If you haven't yet started this series, I promise you won't be disappointed. Each book is better than the last, and in my humble opinion, this book makes the whole series worth reading. It's just that good. ...more

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Nov 17, 2011 Marla rated it it was amazing

Shelves: with-reservations, made-me-laugh, young-adult, series, romance, vampires, paranormal, fantasy, zz-2012, demons

Series is getting better in my opinion. I liked this book best, so far, because it answered more questions than it left hanging.

Likes:
* Learned about Valentine and Joselyn and their children: Jonathan and Clarissa, heard more about Valentine and his circle, learned how the Shadowhunters got started by being blessed by the Angel Raziel.
* Simon is just great in this book, loyal friend, strong fighter, sassy commenter, and girl magnet.
* Luke is still one of my favorite characters
(view spoiler) ...more

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Apr 18, 2015 Kati rated it liked it

Shelves: 2015, urban-fantasy, in-english, queer, audiobooks, young-adult, shadowhunters

Great characters, poor writing. Alec Lightwood, admittedly the most complex, deepest character in the whole book, was reduced to the Token Gay Character (TM) even more so than in the previous books. All Jace did was pant after Clary or moan about Valentine. Clary behaved like a selfish brat, but at least she straightened up in the end and actually started thinking of others, how her actions would influence them. At least there was Magnus Bane, too little of him, though, but he still had a greate ...more

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Feb 12, 2009 Yz the Whyz rated it it was amazing

Shelves: cassandra-clare, 2012-challenge-books, 2012-reads

This is such a strange progression for me.

I wasn't really impressed with the first book, thought the second book was decent, but surprisingly, I really enjoyed this third book. ...more

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