Chapter 8 of The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones: Simon's character death is getting so painful for me. :(

And we’re back! Of all the books I’ve planned to read this summer, I cannot believe this one is taking me this long. Especially because I still haven’t finished my Dickens novel and I feel like I’m cheating by wasting time on this but WHATEVER.

Fairy just fell through a portal... thing, and the first sentence (like every other first sentence of each chapter in this book) made me stop and go “WHY”:

The sensation of falling was the worst part: her heart flew up into her throat and her stomach turned to water.

As opposed to the entirely solid stuff that your stomach has in it in the first place?

Turns out that the portal dumped them in the middle of The Forest of Dean a forest, and Jace is all “looking after you is a full time job” which... he’s right.

Apparently the portal dumped them in front of Luke’s house, and he lives behind/in a bookstore that he runs (I am so jealous).

Fairy decides to break into his house at which point I really do want to smack her, but we find out that he usually leaves his back door unlocked.

In the middle of NYC.

So... that’s.... even dumber of him.

They sneak around the back and jump over the fence and Jace lands on Simon? Which is hilarious, how do you not notice a person when you’re trying to jump a fence? How do they not notice you? And if it’s dark enough to not notice each other then how come they couldn’t just sneak away?

Jace chases after Simon, catches him, and Fairy’s all “omg what are you doing here I totally ignored you why were you worried” and he’s all “YOU’RE NOT MY MOM FAIRY”:

“But what were you doing hiding in Luke’s bushes?” Clary asked, brushing leaves out of Simon’s hair. He suffered her ministrations with glaring bad grace. Somehow when she’d pictured her reunion with Simon, when all this was over, he’d been in a better mood. “That’s the part I don’t get.”
“All right, that’s enough. I can fix my own hair, Fray,” Simon said, jerking away from her touch.

Really, Fairy? You just weren’t going to talk to him until ‘all this’ was over? You don’t even know what ‘all this’ is or how long it could take! And judging by the fact that I have 200+ pages to go it’s gonna take a few weeks!

I’ve never really understood the whole “last name as a nickname” thing, either. I mean, my last name is heinously long and so I guess I’m not one to talk, but as a trope it’s usually used by villains/antagonists, so it’s weird that Fairy’s best friend refers to her by her last name.

Pause for this hilarious image of Jace as high-maintenance nightmare to be around:

Jace had propped himself on the porch railing and was assiduously pretending to ignore them, while using the stele to file the edges of his fingernails.

Suddenly, Jace is Edward from Growing Up Cullen and I love it so much.

Simon reacts pretty reasonably I’d say to his best friend fucking off for a few days and not saying anything:

“The main thing is that you’re all right.”
“That I’m all right?” Simon laughed, a sharp, unhappy sound. “Clary, do you have any idea what I’ve been through this past couple of days? The last time I saw you, you were running out of Java Jones like a bat out of hell, and then you just … disappeared. You never picked up your cell—then your home phone was disconnected—then Luke told me you were off staying with some relatives upstate when I know you don’t have any other relatives. I thought I’d done something to piss you off.”

The only thing that’s kinda iffy about this whole thing for me is that Simon kind acts as if the only reason she could’ve bailed on him was that he’d upset her—it reeks of insecurity in their friendship. I’ve been pretty mad at most of my friends, but I would never cut off both of my phones and feed them a bullshit lie about relatives. That, alone, would've tipped me off to something being wrong.

And then Simon continues his downfall from great character to gigantic prick and shows it’s really more important that she was with another guy, not that she could’ve been dead or in danger:

“Yeah, well, you clearly also couldn’t be bothered to call me and tell me you were shacking up with some dyed-blond wannabe goth you probably met at Pandemonium,” Simon pointed out sourly. “After I spent the past three days wondering if you were dead.”

But Celina, you say, he says he was worried that she was dead! Well, my friend, he only says that to guilt Fairy for deigning to spend any time with a man that isn’t him, so it really isn’t the same thing. If he was truly worried about her life, he would’ve just been relieved that she was alive (and then he has the right to be like WHY DIDN’T YOU CALL ME ARE YOU INSANE).

“And my hair is naturally blond,” said Jace. “Just for the record.”

Uh-huh, sure Jace. We believe you.

Also, please imagine that he’s saying this while still filing his nails because it makes the image that much more hilarious.

Simon says he was hiding at Luke’s place because he went there looking for Fairy and suspected that Luke was lying: which is totally normal behaviour and not at all fucking creepy. Apparently after Luke shooed Simon off, he packed a gigantic bag of weapons and peaced out, which really terrifies me but whatever.

Then Fairy tells Simon everything that has just happened in the story which is boring and I’m so glad she at least did a time jump for it, and Simon is like THAT IS SO WICKED:

“That is so awesome,” he said.
Jace looked as startled as Clary felt. “Awesome?”
Simon nodded enthusiastically enough to make the dark curls bounce on his forehead. “Totally. It’s like Dungeons and Dragons, but real.”

Simon is all of us, you guys.

And then he again disappoints me:

“Real elves are about eight inches tall,” Jace pointed out. “Also, they bite.”
“But vampires are hot, right?” Simon said. “I mean, some of the vampires are babes, aren’t they?”

SIMON. THIS IS NOT THE TIME. Also, he totally just outed himself as a fan of either True Blood, Twilight, or Vampire Diaries.

They get into Luke’s apartment and it’s all pretty spooky and this happens:

At first she thought he was pointing at what looked like a pair of ornamental sconces. As her eyes adjusted, she realized they were actually loops of metal attached to short chains, the ends of which were sunk into the wall. “Are those—”
“Manacles,” said Simon, picking his way through the boxes. “That’s, ah …”
“Don’t say ‘kinky.’” Clary shot him a warning look. “This is Luke we’re talking about.”

Yes, none of the adults in your life have anything but vanilla sex, Fairy.

Regardless, there’s apparently blood on them so this is probably not the Fifty Shades of Grey crossover portion of this book, and Luke is probably in trouble or something. Or a bad guy. Or both?

This part of the book also serves as a convenient costume change for Fairy, since she apparently spent so much time here she kept a bag of stuff:

Quickly she changed, stripping of Isabelle’s too-big—and now grass-stained and sweaty—clothes, and pulling on a pair of her own sandblasted cords, soft as worn paper, and a blue tank top with a design of Chinese characters across the front.

If those ‘chinese characters’ don’t say something like “you’re a fucking idiot” I’m going to be so disappointed.

Also, I'm not one to talk because I use hyphen breaks a whole lot in my writing (it's something my profs have literally had to make me edit out of essays because it's excessive) but doesn't that seem like a really strange place to have one? It totally interrupts the flow of the sentence-- I actually had to go back and make sure that wasn't an editing error on my part.

Luke returns to his own apartment with backup or Warlocks or something, and they all have to hide so that he doesn’t kill them because it’s suddenly very obvious that Luke is Not A Good Guy. They hide behind a screen and Jace conveniently makes it sorta transparent and we then have some astounding lip reading skills occur:

Jace shook his head at them both, mouthing words: They can’t see us through it, but we can see them.

It also turns out Warlocks have the most fucking hilarious names for themselves:

“Consider this a friendly follow-up, Graymark,” said the man with the gray mustache.
His smile showed teeth so sharp they looked as if they’d been filed to cannibal points.
“There’s nothing friendly about you, Pangborn.” Luke sat down on the edge of his desk, angling his body so it blocked the men’s view of his duffel bag and its contents.
[ ... ]
“Blackwell, don’t touch that—it’s valuable,” Luke said sternly.

So, first of all, these are all clearly Death Eater lite characters; the names are very reminiscent of JKR’s naming scheme (which is totally fine), but also ‘Pangborn’ is probably Greyback based on the description. 

But can we seriously please focus on the names? Pangborn? Graymark? Blackwell? What's next, Evilbucket? Baddude? Totallynotagoodguybridge?

Also, this (strikethrough mine):

“Do you remember the Uprising, Lucius Lucian?” he said softly. “That was a great and terrible day. Do you remember how we trained together for the battle?”

so... I definitely picture Luke wrong.

So we have some pretty well done exposition here (points to you, CC), in that we find out through a conversation that is totally plausible that Jocelyn (Fairy’s mom) is captured by Voldemort Valentine, he’s looking for information on the Mortal Cup (one of the instruments of the namesake of this book), and they’re also looking for Fairy. Luke is probably a Snape-like character, because he’s toeing that line of “double-agent” that is morally grey, but all in all it’s a well done summary of what is happening.

Fairy reacts in a way that’s totally normal to finding out your surrogate Father figure is actually a double-crossing asshole, and Simon is seriously making me question if he’s actually her best friend:

She felt a hand on her shoulder. “Clary?” It was Simon, his voice hesitant, almost gentle. “Are you okay?”
She shook her head, mutely. She felt far from okay. In fact, she felt like she’d never be okay again.
“Of course she isn’t.” It was Jace, his voice sharp and cold as ice shards.

Why is it the dude who barely knows her and just met her that is telling her best friend how she’s feeling right now? This exchange should have happened the other way around: Jace shouldn’t know how to read her emotions yet. Of course, this is just another step to show us that Jace is totes her tru luv omg! so I don’t know why I’m really surprised.

Also, "his voice hesitant, almost gentle"? Why can't it be gentle? What does an almost gentle voice sound like? Is it almost whispering? I don't understand any of the reasons she has behind her writing!

The chapter ends with a cliffhanger so cheesy I literally heard the Criminal Minds music that happens when there's a suspenseful moment before a commercial break in my head as I read it:

She looked at him hard. “What makes you so sure? Do you know them?”
The laughter had gone from his voice entirely when he replied. “Do I know them?” he echoed. “You might say that. Those are the men who murdered my father.”

I'm gonna go watch this after to clean my brain.

So Jace has been exercising some brilliant self-control this whole chapter, then, which is pretty great. But it helps highlight something that's been bothering me about Fairy the whole book so far; this is an excerpt of earlier when the Warlocks (who turn out to be Shadowhunters from what I gather) enter the room with Luke at first:

“Those are warlocks?” Clary whispered softly.
Jace didn’t answer. He had gone rigid all over, stiff as a bar of iron. 

He’s afraid I’ll make a run for it, try to get to Luke, Clary thought.

Fairy is selfish. Not in an actual character flaw way (because that would be actually interesting), but in a lazy writing way. She can't stop and think that maybe Jace (who actually has a real connection to this world that Fairy has been thrust into) might have a connection to these people, and instead has already started thinking of herself as the centre of this entire battle. How is it that Jace was able to tell (when Simon couldn't) that she wasn't okay, but Fairy can't even stop to consider that Jace might have gone stiff because he was seeing the two men whom he'd witnessed murdering his father?

So that’s that! We’re moving along quite nicely now, and I bet Simon finds more ways to disappoint me and continue his fall from grace; He’s in good company with Fairy and Jace at this point. Join me next week as I continue on my journey of self-loathing.