City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments 2) by Cassandra Clare

Hello to all,

          First sunny  (though freezing) day and that really makes me happy after so many raining , snowing, gray days finally the sun is back even if it's only for today it's good even more when you are trying to recover your health.

March paranormal romance challenge 's topic is fae/fey so i will try to read several books fitting this topic but i won't read only that i've also some sport romance reads planned and YA reads...and some books just because i want to read them and since my birthday is this month i will take at least one day of pleasure reads^^;; after all reading should always stay a pleasure when you read as an obligation you loose your passion too so better to find some balance.

That being said i will start with a YA book fitting the Fey Category..... and looks like fey are not funny, kind and beautiful creatures....quite the opposite at least in this version ( will see if they are variant in the books i will read this month.)

Here is my opinion on City of Ashes, second book of the Mortal Intruments series by Cassandra Clare.

Publisher: Walker Books Ltd

Publication: 2008

ISBN:  1406307637

Genre: YA, fantasy, Paranormal, adventure,urban fantasy, romance
Violence: strong
Language: normal
sex: mild
Public: 16+

Source: bought

Short description from goodreads :

 Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn't ready to let her go -- especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary's only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil -- and also her father.

To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings -- and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father?

My opinion:

          This series is really a good surprise so far even if this book captivated me a little less than City of Bones. City of ashes start just where we left Clary and Jace at the end of book 1. Valentine is still on the run, Jocelyn is in the coma and Clary’s thoughts are in turmoil.

I had hoped to have some answers but mostly i got more questions and that bothered me a little. If Cassandra Clare doesn’t make some important revelations soon i guess i will fall out of love with this series because the love triangle won’t have sense anymore. I had hoped the inquisitor was going to said something but unfortunately Jace didn’t listen. In this book, Clary and Jace discover a little more about their powers and we can see the deep relation between Jace and Alex and Isabelle as well as between Clary and Luke.

I was even more disappointed with the shadowhunters than in city of Bones, the way Maryse reacted could only have one consequence as Luke pointed it and still she took her distances and said hurtful things. I don’t like her, yes she had some reasons but still. The inquisitor was worse, true but she was deeply hurting. I don’t forgive her either but i think i can have a little compassion because of what she did after.

In city of Ashes, the murder of different kinds of creatures is creating some tensions, the vampires are accused despite the fact they claim their innocence. Unfortunately, Maryse and the inquisitor are narrow minded and doesn’t want to listen to other possibilities despites the intervention of Magnus Bane and Luke. The children and their allies are then on their own to interfere with Valentine’s plan. We also discover more about the faeries and their Queen seems to know more about everything, unfortunately the price for that knowledge is too high.

Simon takes a bigger role now, however for being a roleplaying gamer too, i don’t think his reaction was logic, when  he intervened  before yes his idea of vampires, werewolves etc wasn’t the same as Jace’s but he still knew the dangers and such. So what happens seems strange to me. ( i understand why the author found that could be interesting for the story yes but the circumstances could have been better.

Clary is even more lost than before between what she wants and what she thinks she should want, the result is that she is acting like a baby, not wanting to speak, ignoring the others etc. Jace is confronted to hard choices, he discover that the Clave isn’t as perfect as he hoped and with whet he is enduring he has some moment of doubts but he still do the right things and i  appreciated more now than before.

I recommend this book if you want some YA fantasy and love paranormal, it won’t be good to read this as a stand alone though but if you liked book one City of Bones this one should please you as well.

Score:  3,5/5

Disclaimer: All opinions are my own and no compensation was received in exchange for this review

Challenges: