Review „The Mortal Instruments 2: City of Ashes“ (Cassandra Clare) l Werbung

Yours is the gift of words that cannot be spoken, and you brother’s is the Angel’s own gift.

p. 162

Attention: this ist the second book of the series, if you don’t know the contents of the previous book, you may be spoiled! You’ll find my review of the first book here.

It’s been a long time since I read this book, but then again I had to replunge into this wonderful wold of Shadowhunters, Downworldlers and Mundanes.

The structure of the book, being devided into three parts – each part is introduced by a quote of a famous author i.e. his/her famous work – remains in the second volume. I like the fact, that this remained here (and also in the other books of the series) because it has some kind of recognition factor.

Clary and Jace have a hard time together, after they received the news, that they are siblings. Thus they fight a lot, ignore each other, suffer in silence and can’t stop loving each other the way they do. Simon taking his chance to be with Clary and hoping that she might love him, too one day pushes him to his borders and he realizes slowly, that Clary will only love one person consumingly and that is not him. This triangle relationship between the three of them partly was lengthening some passages in the book, but all together it wasn’t that annoying. It’s authentic – it’s the way teenagers would feel in such a situation – so it has a good right to be this way.

I  love the role of Magnus Bane in this book because he is such a colourful, sarcastic – and being in love with Alec – such a fun person! Most passages that included his role were so entertaining, I just loved that. Alec’s specific role in this grows and I wish he had more courage to take the step toward him, and away from his first and only love till then. Valentine – the villain – goes to new ends and takes high risks, to get what he wants; and he gets what he wants for sure. He has a perfect villain-role: he’s the one whom everybody hates and the one everybody fears. Till the end of this book, he tightened the news and had to retreat in a way, that he certainly didn’t expect.

The end was really amazing, partly unpredictable and very exciting till the very end of the first real battle against Valentine after such a long time. And I say this although this book is the one I least liked to read – still it is amazing!

‚What if I mess it up this time?‘

Jace turned his head toward her, and for a moment their eyes met. His were the gold of distant sunlight. ‚You won’t,‘ he said.

p. 321

City of Ashes, the sequel of The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare is the book I least liked to read, because of the triangle relationship between Clary, Jace and Simon but still it’s just developing in such a wonderful manner, that I still love it very much. Especially thanks to the very entertaining comments of Magnus Bane or the fatherly concerns of Luke toward Clary and even Jace are so wonderfully written, that despite all negative comments from my side, I still think you have to love LOVE this story and recommend it to everybody who is a huge fan of fantasy books!

Kurzrezension (deutsch)

Im zweiten Band dieser wundervollen Welt der Schattenjäger und Unterweltler geht es endlich zur Sache, was eine direkte Konfrontation mit Valentin, dem Schurken in der Geschichte, anbelangt. Diesen Band lese ich am wenigsten, was u.a. an der Dreiecks-Beziehung zwischen den Protagonisten Clary, Jace und Simon liegt, das sich in einigen Passagen auch zieht. Aber Im Großen und Ganzen empfand ich das nicht schlimm, denn die Spannung blieb erhalten und hat einfach ganz wunderbar unterhalten. Die Rolle von Magnus Bane hat mir mitunter am besten gefallen, weil seine sarkastischen Kommentare und ironischen Bemerkungen einfach großartig sind. Obwohl ich die Bücher schon mal gelesen habe, gab es die eine oder andere Sache, die ich nicht mehr auf dem Schirm hatte und die mich daher auch überraschend auflachen ließ – es ist einfach wunderbar. Obwohl dieser Teil nicht zu meinen Favoriten aus der ganzen Serie gehört, ist es aufgrund des Gesamtbildes ein Lieblingsbookie und wird daher auch mit der Kategorie Tauchliebe bewertet.

• title Mortal Instruments 2: City of Ashes
• author Cassandra Clare
• pages 411 pages
• price 7,97€ (Kindle Edition), 16,99€ (Hardcover), 8,39€ (Softcover)
• publisher Margaret K. McElderry Books (25. März 2008)

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?

In this breathtaking sequel to City of Bones, Cassandra Clare lures her readers back into the dark grip of New York City’s Downworld, where love is never safe and power becomes the deadliest temptation. Source