City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

Okay, I have been way out of the blog-a-sphere (or is it blog-a-verse... whatever...) for quite a while now, but I'm back and getting it together.

Anyway, I finished reading City of Fallen Angels somewhere near the beginning of May, but it took me a month to sort out my feelings about it.

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 City of Fallen Angels takes place two months after the events of City of Glass. In it, a mysterious someone’s killing the Shadowhunters who used to be in Valentine’s Circle and displaying their bodies around New York City in a manner designed to provoke hostility between Downworlders and Shadowhunters, leaving tensions running high in the city and disrupting Clary’s plan to lead as normal a life as she can — training to be a Shadowhunter, and pursuing her relationship with Jace. As Jace and Clary delve into the issue of the murdered Shadowhunters, they discover a mystery that has deeply personal consequences for them — consequences that may strengthen their relationship, or rip it apart forever.

Meanwhile, internecine warfare among vampires is tearing the Downworld community apart, and only Simon — the Daylighter who everyone wants on their side — can decide the outcome; too bad he wants nothing to do with Downworld politics. Love, blood, betrayal and revenge: the stakes are higher than ever in City of Fallen Angels.

Finally! I got my copy of City of Fallen Angels with Jace’s letter to Clary. Of course by this time, all my friends have ruined the story so I guess they won’t be seeing Jace’s letter. Haha.

     If you haven’t seen the letter yet, it’s basically Jace admitting how much he loves Clary and saying that he’s off to kill Valentine. As you should already know, having read City of Glass, along with the letter Jace left Clary the Morgenstern ring. Not as a proposal, but more like he’s saying that he has already given Clary hi heart, so he might as well give her the single, most important inanimate object in his life. Something he has had since he was a boy. Something that became a part of him. The Morgenstern Ring.

     The last few lines of the letter read:

I don’t blame you if you hate me, I wish you would. As long as I can still dream, I will dream of you.

                        -Jace

To be honest, I have very mixed feelings about City of Fallen Angels. Before I got the novel, I looked at some of the (spoiler free) reviews. Some said “suck”, some said “yay”, and others said “ehh, it was okay. This was my least favorite so far, but I’m still going to see the series through.” Still having not read City of Fallen Angels, and being a big Cassandra Clare fan, my thoughts read: “You lie!” in a big scary voice with mild sarcasm.

     Well, now that I’ve read it, I have to go with the latter – the people who said it was okay. The immediate “sucks” and “yays” were either long time Cassie Haters or Die Hard Fans. Or maybe latter changed former, or vice versa. Saying that City of Fallen Angels sucked to the max and was a complete waste of time is far too harsh, and frankly, just plain mean. But saying that it was absolutely amazing, best of the series, seems to be jumping to another extreme. City of Fallen Angels is good, but not heart-crushing-adrenalin-pumping good.

When reading CoFA, one must remember that it is the second arc of the TMI series, and that it is a different writing time for Cassandra Clare. For the first three TMI books, Cassandra Clare had the plot for the TRILOGY, all set up. Then, inspiration hit, and now we the Infernal Devices. Inspiration and literary magnificence hit again, and now we have the second arc of the TMI series, in which Clary – as it seems – is no longer the main character. By this time, Cassandra Clare is no longer starting from ground zero. She now has several new scenarios, which she can, or cannot link or reference together.

     Something that raised my objection was the Infernal Devices references:

Alec raised his blue eyes. “Who’s Will?”

Magnus exhaled a sort of laugh. “Will. Dear god. That was a long time ago. Will was a Shadowhunter, like you. And yes, he did look like you, but you’re not anything like him. Jace is much more the way Will was, in personality at least – and my relationship with you is nothing like the one I had with Will. Is that what’s bothering you?”

I don’t see why we have these references. The series was amazing even without them. The first three books were bloody brilliant without them. You won’t see TMI references in ID.  Consistency is good.

The plot for CoFA was slightly messy. The plot went, for the first three books, in a solid, straight path. By CoFA, the single path has dispersed into many other paths which all meet at the end. The journey to the reunion of the plot (more or less) was not an easy one. With each mini plot, you had to memorize so much information only to realize that half you information is useless until City of Lost Souls or City of Heavenly Fire. What lead to this mass confusion? Multiple leading roles. Well, actually there were only two main leading roles – Simon and Clary, from who the main PoV’s are taken from. But in each PoV we are exposed to several other takes on other PoV’s.

One thing about CoFA I absolutely hated was all the drama. So. Much. Drama. Well, relationship drama. Is it wrong to love the pain of others? Is it wrong to hate the fact that you love the pain of others? This confliction is what made me hate this drama.

     Things heat up between Clary and Jace. Simon’s in a love triangle, through which 66% of the party have absolutely no idea that they are even in a love triangle. And then if this love triangle could get anymore complicated, it became a love square, then it kind of split into two.  And then, some other things got thrown in. Yup, complicated.

The overall ending of the story was a major cliffhanger, but again, the path to the ending was new and confusing. We are fed new information, which make the new plot work, which is understandable because it is a new arc. But, it’s just weird. It’s like what they are doing in the plot of the novel. They are trying to bring back the dead. When you’re reading a series, you expect the plot to be consistent. Not end, be silent, and then all of a sudden, you have it brought back to life.

What I love about CoFA? Well, the basic fact that it exists. I love the Shadowhunter novels. They are absolutely amazing. I cannot wait until the rest.