Chapter 16 of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: If a YA Novel Doesn't Have a Love Triangle, Does It Really Count as a YA Novel?

I know Julianne Hough is in this gif and that's distracting BUT LOOK AT ALFIE ENOCH AND TELL ME THAT ISN'T THE FUNNIEST FACE EVER.

Hey hey y’all! Exams are done, school is out for the year (until like two weeks from now), and I finally have time to update my blog again!

We left our ‘heroes’ escaping very undramatically from a gang of werewolves and vampires, and then letting Simon mack on her so Jace could have his stoic man!pain.

They get back to The Institution and Hodge is Very Upset With Them:

[Hodge] immediately launched into a lecture that would have done Clary’s mother proud. He didn’t forget to include the part about lying to him about where they were going—which Jace, apparently, had—or the part about never trusting Jace again, and even added extra embellishments, like some bits about breaking the Law, getting tossed out of the Clave, and bringing shame on the proud and ancient name of Wayland.

We don’t really know Fairy’s mother; we’ve heard her talk maybe once or twice and really only know things about her that Fairy has narrated to us, so this is actually a good time to have the character speak the dialogue. I bet it would have even taken up less space to have him speak it than this whole explanation of it.

Jace and Simon both have to get healed in the infirmary (which, honestly, people doting on other people is my favourite thing to read so I’ll let this slide), and it turns out that Isabelle has been helping Simon feel better.

“Glad she’s taking good care of you.” Clary let a small amount of acid creep into her voice.

Simon leaned forward, not taking his eyes off Clary. “I want to talk to you.”
Clary nodded in half-reluctant agreement.“I’m going to my room. Come and see me
after Hodge fixes you up, okay?”
“Sure.” To her surprise he leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. It was a butterfly kiss, a quick brush of lips on skin.

So we’re clearly beginning to really get into the love triangle aspect of the book. Normally I love a good ol’ fashioned love triangle (they work in novels for a reason), but I have the worst feeling that this one will slow down the plot even more than it already is.

Out in the hallway, she touched her cheek in bemusement. A peck on the cheek didn’t mean much, but it was so out of character for Simon. Maybe he was trying to make a point to Isabelle? Men, Clary thought, they were so baffling. And Jace, doing his wounded-prince routine. She’d left before he could start complaining about the thread count of the sheets.

Fairy, a monkey learns faster than you.

Look, I am so not here for the whole ‘heroine can’t understand why these MEN are acting like this around her GOSH MEN AMIRITE SO DIFFICULT TO UNDERSTAND’ when they are clearly not being difficult to understand and in fact it’s plain to anyone around what is happening.

That shit isn’t fun to read. When it’s already obvious to the reader that two characters are in love with the protagonist it becomes really obnoxious to read, simply because it makes the protagonist look dumber than they actually are. Any sane person would see the actions and think “Oh, wow. They like me.” To force that willful ignorance on your protagonist frankly makes me hate them even more—a feat I didn’t think I could accomplish with Fairy.

Alec shows up to play the pining dejected lover, which is such bullshit. We can’t have one character that might accidentally stand in the way of us liking Fairy actually be nice and likeable.

You know what it means if you have to make everyone around your character into a shitty person in order to make your character likeable? It means you wrote a really shitty character and should probably re-evaluate.

Anyway, Alec and her get into this huge blowout—Alec accuses her of not caring about whether Jace lives or dies and not understanding him properly, and Fairy is like “He makes his own decisions”, and then they start insulting each other for no actual reason.

I don’t get this, the drama in this story is so manufactured when there are so many good reasons for these characters to be arguing and fighting?

She could see how she was hurting him, and it made her glad. Someone else ought to be in pain for a change. “You can rant all you want about honor and honesty and how mundanes don’t have any of either, but if you were honest, you’d admit this tantrum is just because you’re in love with him. It doesn’t have anything to do with—”
Alec moved, blindingly fast. A sharp crack resounded through her head. He had shoved
her against the wall so hard that the back of her skull had struck the wood paneling.

Okay, so, a bunch of things are happening here. One, CC has made Alec into the most unlikeable character ever (which, what a surprise since he likes Jace too) by making him attack Fairy (and he also threatens to kill her). This is NOT OKAY. Why have a male character react with such violence toward her?

But the problem is that because this happens right after she says all of those things, everyone is going to overlook that what she said was extremely hurtful and not okay in the slightest.

I am in no way condoning what Alec did, and not saying that Fairy deserved it (as much as I hate her). Here we have a closeted brother of another character who is deeply in love with someone who was his best friend until this random girl showed up, and she suddenly decides it’s her mission to make him face these facts? She doesn’t even know him, not to mention how terrible it is of her to mention it while they’re within earshot of the infirmary.

Basically: it’s none of her fucking business. Neither of them were in the right, but considering that all their lives were turned upside down by her appearance, I think it’s fair that there might be some anger involved.

(And the line “someone else ought to be in pain for a change” made me throw up in my mouth the first time I read it. Fairy, please go crawl up your own asshole and die.)

So, Alec is on the Asshole List now, which sucks. Not that I was really attached to him, but the number of characters I liked reading about is big enough to fit on the head of a pin now.

She should have fallen instantly into bed, but despite her exhaustion, sleep remained out of reach. Eventually she pulled her sketchpad out of her backpack and started drawing, propping the tablet against her knees.

Remember, guys, our protagonist has another talent besides whining and having the consistency of bland oatmeal.

Simon comes in and they start to have this weird heart-to-heart, which feels kind of awkward for two people who are supposed to have been best friends forever:

“I mean,” said Simon, as if he were surprised to find himself explaining something that should have been obvious, “I’ve always been the one who needed you more than you needed me.”

Yep, that sounds about right so far.

"I’ve had to say things six, seven times before you’d even respond, you were so far away. And then you’d turn to me and smile that funny smile, and I’d know you’d forgotten all about me and just remembered—but I was never mad at you. Half of your attention is better than all of anyone else’s.”

Forgot About Dre: 37845789290484782 according to this new information.

Here's my question: Why is Simon still friends with her? What a complete 'Nice Guy' set-up; poor, unassuming Simon is being gallant and staying friends with Fairy even though she won't give him the time of day. I mean, not to really defend her being a shitty friend, but as far as she's concerned, their friendship is stable and fine.

They start having a cosy huddle, which is cute (though again, we only read about them having some of the conversation and don’t see it), but then of course the conversation turns back to the inevitable: Isabelle and Jace and how many times we can bash a woman in a minute.

“You know, initially I thought Isabelle seemed, I don’t know—cool. Exciting. Different. Then, at the party, I realized she was actually crazy.”

It drives me insane when men use the word ‘crazy’ to describe women, and it actually has a long history of sexist use, so I’m super fucking wary of what made Simon describe her as crazy (“She showed sexual autonomy! SO SCARY AAAH!”).

Simon falls asleep eventually, and then Jace knocks on the door so that we can begin our other side of the love triangle.

Clean, in jeans and a gray shirt, his washed hair a halo of damp gold.

Damp gold just sounds really gross, honestly.

He grinned. Unlike his hair, his teeth weren’t perfect. An upper incisor was slightly, endearingly chipped.

Okay seriously what the fuck is it with Fairy and this guy’s hair? Does she have a fetish? Just admit it, girl.

Also, pretty sure one chipped tooth doesn’t count as making someone’s teeth ‘not perfect’—assuming that they are all straight and white, since she didn’t bother commenting on it.

Jace has remembered it’s her birthday, and stolen some food so they can have a late-night snack in the Greenhouse, and the chapter ends there.

So, they’ve put everyone in the Clave in actual danger, upset two huge gangs of other-worldly creatures, seriously injured themselves, and we just spent an entire chapter reading about how Jace and Simon both have boners for Fairy.

This is grand.