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

Title: City of Ashes

Series: The Mortal Instruments #2

Previous book in this series: City of Bones

Author: Cassandra Clare

Genre: YA, urban fantasy

Publication date: March 2008

Published by: Margaret K. McElderry

Source: Own hardcover

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Synopsis:

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 rating: ★★★★★
I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: I love this series! The Mortal Instruments is one of my all time favorite series and I’ve honestly lost count how many times I’ve re-read the first three books in the series. Lol.


One of my favorite things about this series is the fun banter between the characters.

“I am not,” Alec said, through gritted teeth. “Just because you said dragon demons were extinct—”
“I said mostly extinct.”
Alec jabbed a finger toward him. “Mostly extinct,” he said, his voice trembling with rage, “is NOT EXTINCT ENOUGH.”
“I see,” Jace said. “I’ll just have them change the entry in the demonology textbook from ‘almost extinct’ to ‘not extinct enough for Alec. He prefers his monsters really, really extinct.’ Will that make you happy?”

😂 I love this! That sibling relationship between Jace, Alec, and Izzy—I love it! Oh, and don’t even get me started on the blooming relationship between Alec and Magnus 😍 They are so freaking cute together!
Also, this:

“You have something on your neck,” [Jace] observed.
Alec’s hand flew to his throat. “What?”
“Looks like a bite mark,” said Jace. “What have you been doing all day, anyway?”
“Nothing.” Beet red, his hand still clamped to his neck, Alec started down the corridor. Jace followed him. “I went walking in the park. Tried to clear my head.”
“And ran into a vampire?”
“What? No! I fell.”
“On your neck?” Alec made a noise, and Jace decided the issue was clearly better dropped.

😂 I could not stop laughing! This is probably one of my favorite scenes in the entire book! It is SO funny! I love it! And I just love Magnus in general. He is really good for Alec—I mean, we get a joking Alec in this book! Who would’ve thought? Lol. But besides that, Magnus is just really sassy and such a fun character.

[Magnus’s] gaze rested for a moment on Alec’s face with amusement and a hint of something else before moving onto Jace, prone on the grass. “Is he dead?” he inquired. “He looks dead.”
“No,” snapped Maryse. “He’s not dead.”
“Have you check? I could kick him if you want.”

Oh, but let me tell you about one relationship I was not into: Simon and Clary. No fluffing thank you. Not into it. Get it out of my brain asap! I’m sorry, but at this point in the series I just didn’t like Simon. Well, I do have to admit that I liked Simon when he wasn’t romancing Clary and he was just having some fun banter with the other characters. Every time Clary and Simon were together being cute, I cringed. Big time. I just wasn’t into it 🤷‍♀️

But even though I didn’t really love him in this book, I did feel kinda bad for him when he turned into a vampire. Poor Simon 😬

Oh, but Clary and Jace? Yes please! Give me more!


So, spoiler alert for City of Bones: we find out that Clary and Jace are brother and sister, which yikes. But also, it just breaks my heart 💔

Something inside Clary cracked and broke, and words came pouring out. “What do you want me to tell you? The truth? The truth is that I love Simon like I should love you, and I wish he was my brother and you weren’t, but I can’t do anything about that and neither can you.”

Even now after all these re-reads, it hurts 😩

“I know,” [Jace] said. “Every time you almost die, I almost die myself.”

It’s just so heartbreaking! And I don’t know what it says about me that I still ship them anyway... but to be fair, I have read the entire TMI series so I know how things turn out 😅 Anyway, those tender moments between Clary and Jace in this book?

And Valentine is such a dick! Not only for what he did to Jace, but he is just a narcissistic prick! He is an awful human being! His motives for doing what he’s doing, as he was explaining it to Clary, they almost make sense. Like, I get it, but the way he is going about fixing the issue at hand is super messed up.

We also find out that this asshole experimented on Clary and Jace. Wtf bro! This is also very messed up, but we get to see some really cool results come from that. I mean come on, Clary’s power of being able to create runes is awesome! The way she brought down that ship was incredible! Still not cool experimenting on kids, though.

Anyway, while Clary and Simon are over there making out *blech* my poor Jace is over here suffering and I just can’t 😭 I love Jace and it hurts seeing him hurt.

So, pretty early on in the book Maryse kicks Jace out of the institute because she thinks that he is spying on them for Valentine. Maryse not believing in Jace... that broke my soul. But then this conversation happened:

Maryse took a deep breath. “I thought you would break my heart like Valentine did,” she said. “You were the first thing I loved, you see, after him, that wasn't my own blood. The first living creature. And you were just a child—”
“You thought I was someone else.”
“No. I’ve always known just who you are. Ever since the first time I saw you getting off the ship from Idris when you were ten years old—you walked into my heart just as my own children did when they were born.”

And you bet I cried! Yes, even on this latest re-read. It gets me every time 😢 But not only is he dealing with this family drama, but at one point he is locked up in the Silent City like a criminal 😩 My poor Jace... he didn’t deserve that 😭

But while this situation Jace found himself in hurt me, I can admit that he can be a real dick when he’s hurt.

“I don’t want to be a man,” said Jace. “I want to be an angst-ridden teenager who can’t confront his own inner demons and takes it out verbally on other people instead.”
“Well,” said Luke, “you’re doing a fantastic job.”

Coping mechanism? Probably, yeah. Does it make it okay anyway? Definitely no. Do I love him anyway? Uh, duh! Lol.

There was one part in particular that made me love Jace even more... the part where he unknowingly turns Simon into a Daylighter. So Jace is on the ship looking for Simon, and it’s all for Clary because he loves her 💗 He doesn’t particularly care about Simon (which, honestly, same), but when he finds him half dead, Jace does not hesitate to offer up his blood to save him. In part, he did this for Clary, but deep down under all that arrogance, Jace is just a good person, and that is why I love him! 😍

Even though this was a re-read for me and I remember a lot about it, there were still some parts that surprised me, which is always fun. I also found myself re-reading a lot of the passages I marked as I looked back through the book when I was writing this review... that’s how much I love this series and world! I get lost in it even unintentionally. Lol. So yeah, I adored this! I love the rich world and the lovable characters. It had lots of action (the showdown on a ship was so cool and so intense!), an intriguing story, and just plain fun banter between the characters! It’s funny, it’s heartbreaking... it’s my favorite series for a reason 🥰

Have you read this book? If so, what did you think about it? If not, what do you think? Does it sound like something you might want to read? Leave me a link to your review or comment below! 😊