She lives! And her computer sort of does, too! Chapter 23 + Epilogue of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: Why the fuck didn't y'all tell me there was an epilogue? ALWAYS WARN SOMEONE THERE IS AN EPILOGUE.

actual footage of me

[Here's chapter one if you wanna re-live it!]

Okay, I know. It’s July and I’m finally updating and finishing this novel—I’m so sorry! My computer has hand-to-God been unable to stay on for longer than 2 minutes for the last three months. Thankfully, it happened after exams and final papers, but, still, it was not a fun time. I will most likely have to replace it soon but everyone cross their fingers that it lasts at least another few months!

Here it is, though! The last chapter (unless there’s an epilogue—oh god, is there an epilogue?) of this series.

I just checked, there’s an epilogue. Fuck my life.

sidenote: why is The Nanny not on Netflix yet

Okay anyway, I just essentially found out that Jace and Clary are siblings. I’m really mad about this, because blind-siding me with incest is not something I would say I want to have in the fiction I read. Does it count as a plot twist if it’s just not something anyone would ever consider fucking ever?

I’m honestly hoping that there's another plan for this and it turns out they aren't related because all the promotion I’ve seen for the movie is about their love and whatnot and that seems really not 'Hollywood' to promote incest.

Moving on.

This chapter is called ‘Valentine’, even though I feel as if I’ve already seen that chapter title in the novel.

There’s a pet peeve of mine that happens a lot in the novel (and others, of course) that I keep noticing so I’m gonna bring it up:

“This is Clary. Clarissa Fray. She’s a friend of mine. She—”
Valentine’s black eyes raked her slowly, from the top of her disheveled head to the toes of her scuffed sneakers.

What cut Jace off? It doesn’t say at all. I really hate when dialogue is sloppily crafted like this—tell me if Voldentine’s stare silenced him, say that he trailed off, tell me that there was a reason for this sentence to end other than you felt that it made the scene more urgent.

Also, petition to have the word 'raked' in relation to looking at someone removed from the English language, because all I can think of is an actual rake and I have yet to find it used in a passable context.

Fairy is (understandably) freaking out since this guy is a mass murderer, and Jace is just so willing to accept that this is his father. I have hope that Voldentine is just fucking with him right now, as that's what Fairy seems to believe, but God I'm uncomfortable.

Jace angry, Jace hostile, furious, she could have dealt with, but this new Jace, fragile and shining in the light of his own personal miracle, was a stranger to her.

That is MAD fucked-up. How can you claim to be in love with someone and have never seen them in a single fragile, vulnerable moment? You can deal with them at their murderous vengeance but you can't fathom them when they're close to happiness?

WHY DO YOU GUYS LOVE THIS RELATIONSHIP SO MUCH?

Voldentine, like any other good super villain, tells Fairy to take a chair because it’s story time!!! You gotta have the long-winded villain ramble before the end of any novel, of course.

Have some more sloppy dialogue:

“I’ll let you know,” Clary told him, “if that happens.”

Didn’t that just hurt to read? I still have like thirty pages of this.

Fairy is trying to tell him that he’s just tricking everyone into believing that Jace is his son (please let him be doing this please dear God let that be the case) and we finally found out where Fairy’s pretentious personality comes from!

They're discussing how Jace has the Wayland family ring, so of course he can't be from Voldentine's family (the Morgenstern's) and Voldentine says this:

“The ring. Funny, isn’t it, how an M worn upside down resembles a W? Of course, if you’d bothered to think about it, you’d probably have thought it a little strange that the symbol of the Wayland family would be a falling star. But not at all strange that it would be the symbol of the Morgensterns.”
Clary stared. “I have no idea what you mean.”
“I forget how regrettably lax mundane education is,” Valentine said. “Morgenstern means ‘morning star.’ As in ‘How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! How art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!’”

Sure, he knows that, but the minute he can’t figure out his wifi suddenly you’re the greatest human being on earth...

Two conflicting stories are being told here, and I can't decide which of them I hate more.

“No,” said Jace. “No, Hodge was the one who wanted the Mortal Cup all along. He was the one who sent the Raveners after your mother. My father—Valentine only found out about it afterward, and came to stop him. He brought your mother here to heal her, not to hurt her.”

SO, Jace has drunk heavily of the Kool-aid, which is not surprising in the least. Fairy keeps insisting that he's lying and Voldentine is not his father.

“Why are you so determined not to believe us?”
“Because she loves you,” said Valentine.

But, also, even Ronald Weasley would have seen that one coming, Jace. Like, how could you not have known that she did.

Anyway, I’m about to read Jace finding out that he has made out with and most likely had a boner for his own sister so everyone hold my hand for some emotional support okay thanks.

“Jocelyn is your mother, Jonathan. And Clary—Clary is your sister.”
Jace jerked his hand back. The wineglass tipped, spilling frothing scarlet liquid across the white tablecloth. Jace had gone an awful color, a sort of greenish white. “That’s not true,” he said. “There’s been a mistake. It couldn’t possibly be true.”

I’m with you, Jace.

We’re going into another incredibly long-winded story time, which might take a while, and I wish I could drink wine but I have to work tomorrow so I have to do this sober.

So, Voldentine creepily pretended to be Michael Wayland (a dead guy, the fuck is with all these people pretending to be dead people) and raised Jace in quiet, all the while emotionally scarring and abusing this child, as we have learned from past anecdotes.

He was left-handed, Clary saw. Like Jace.

WELL THANK GOD I KNOW THAT TIDBIT NOW. SURE GLAD THAT’S CUTTING INTO THIS PART OF THE STORY.

Voldentine gets a letter that someone knows his true identity, so he stages his own death to let Jace be raised by the Waylands.

"It was on Michael’s account that they loved him, not mine.”
“Maybe they loved him on his own account,” said Clary.
“A commendably sentimental interpretation,” said Valentine, “but unlikely. You do not know the Lightwoods as I once did.” He did not seem to see Jace’s flinch, or if he did, he ignored it.

The amount of emotional trauma that is being inflicted that will likely never be brought up again or if if is it will be handled in a clumsy manner makes me really sad. Jace is a really tragic character, but he's tragic in a strange way, because his tragedy only exists to further Fairy's plot so that she seems noble for loving someone so broken.

Voldentine suggests that they all just hop into the portal and go back to their family manor, and Fairy actually has an inner monologue which directly matches mine for the first time ever:

That sounds terrific, thought Clary. Just you, your comatose wife, your shell-shocked son, and your daughter who hates your guts. Not to mention that your two kids may be in love with each other. Yeah, that sounds like a perfect family reunion.

Luke comes to the rescue, and this book still isn't over. It also turns out that Voldentine carries some pretty fancy weaponry, so at least we know the man has style.

Valentine roared with sudden savagery, and drew his sword from the sheath at his waist. The blade was flat and matte black, patterned with a design of silver stars. He leveled the blade at Luke’s heart.

So apparently Luke didn’t know Jace was Jonathan (silent prayer continuing: please don’t be please don’t be please don’t be), but Luke and Voldentine are having the most melodramatic fight ever.

Complete with:

“You taught me that move yourself.”
“But that was years ago,” said Valentine in a voice like raw silk, “and since then, you’ve hardly had need of a knife, have you? Not when you have claws and fangs at your disposal.”
“All the better to tear your heart out with.”
Valentine shook his head. “You tore my heart out years ago,” he said, and even Clary could not tell if the sorrow in his voice was real or feigned.

Do... do they need a moment alone? Because I feel like I’m reading this really weird romantic reunion.

Fairy and Jace are also having a very dramatic conversation that is frankly, kinda boring, about whether or not Jocelyn abandoned him. I'm not even gonna bother to quote it here because it's like every other climactic conversation about whether or not the 'hero' can convince someone that they're being betrayed or whatever.

Then Fairy runs to save Luke’s life, Jace throws a blade to knock Voldentine’s sword out of his hand and stop him from killing Fairy, everything is boring and taking a long time, and I’m so done with this book.

Fairy then does something that honestly made me like her more than anything in the whole book—she actually stands up to someone, and not in a snarky sullen teenage way.

"You murdered your wife’s parents, not in battle but in cold blood,” she said. “And I bet you murdered Michael Wayland and his little boy, too. Threw their bones in with my grandparents’ so that my mother would think you and Jace were dead. Put your necklace around Michael Wayland’s neck before you burned him so everyone would think those bones were yours. After all your talk about the untainted blood of the Clave—you didn’t care at all about their blood or their innocence when you killed them, did you? Slaughtering old people and children in cold blood, that’s monstrous.”

BRAVO, FAIRY. Everyone take a shot of the closest alcohol because that's the last time I will ever agree with her, ever.

Jace full-out takes Fairy away from Luke so that Voldentine can murder him, which is horrifying, because I don’t care if that's his dad, if he really even liked Fairy at all, Jace would at least try and protect someone who clearly means the world to her. I mean, hell, he protected Simon even though he hates the guy's guts.

Jace ends up saving Luke and turning the sword on Voldentine, and there’s some more dialogue about family and why Voldentine did what he did and why Jace is kindhearted and all that stuff and... and... you guys... there is 20 pages left.

I'm sorry, is Jace the hero in this book or is it Fairy?

Jace moves away and lets Luke hold the sword—please remember that two pages have passed with dialogue happening while Jace holds a sword at his father’s throat. Two. Whole. Pages.

Clary ached to touch him, put her arms around him, knew he’d never let her.

paging Cersei Lannister

Alaric the wolf dies, which... would probably be sad if we hadn’t met him (her?) like... three chapters ago. Maybe I just don’t really care about any of these people.

pictured: me during all of these recaps

Jace agrees to follow Voldentine into the portal to get the Cup, because, hey, remember how that’s what this is all about? That thing that has been mentioned probably only like... four times in the last book of this novel? The reason everyone is dying and fighting?

Yeah, that cup.

Voldentine disappears through a portal and breaks it so they can’t follow him. Jace is really mad at himself for not killing his own father (very Oedipus Rex of him).

“It’s not your fault,” Luke said, looking down at Clary. His blue eyes were steady. They said: Your brother needs you; stay with him.

So, we’re really doing this? We’re really just gonna pretend that they didn’t make out and like fall in love with each other? This book is super fucking popular and y’all just let this slide?

You fuckers.

He smelled of salt and blood, and only when his mouth came close to her ear did she understand what he was saying, what he had been whispering before, and it was the simplest litany of all: her name, just her name.

OH MY GOD STOOOOOPPPP.

What pisses me off is if they weren't siblings? That would be a really poignant way to end the chapter, and affirm to me that they're in love or whatever. But instead I just feel like I need a shower.

I made it. That’s the end of the final chapter, but since CC thinks she’s some fancy-ass writer, I have to make it through the epilogue. But, you guys, I did it—I did it.

The epilogue begins in a hospital, where Jocelyn is staying. The creepy dementor-lite Silent Brothers are visiting and speaking in riddles, which is the least helpful thing in the whole world. Honestly, nothing in this novel makes any goddamn sense.

I do get to find out by proxy of him that Alec is alive though! Bane cured him, which makes me super freaking happy because he’s still the only character worth following in this whole damn series.

Fairy leaves her mother with Luke, which... again... I’m not judging but honestly if my mother was in the hospital............

Hey, it had been almost like five whole chapters since we talked about Fairy’s appearance, but it comes back again!

She sighed again, tugging on a wayward curl of copper hair.

Why does every novel heroine seem to have a wayward curl? Is it the same curl? Is it like a jerry curl? Does anyone actually know the colour of copper anymore because I’m fairly certain that no one has hair naturally that colour?

They’re headed toward the institute, and Simon is chatting with her in the van, and they mention the time frame this whole novel happened in:

Simon, she thought, had grown up a lot in these past two weeks, just as she had.

I mean. No.

Which was good, since she wouldn’t have wanted to leave him behind. He was part of her, as much as her drawing talent, the dusty air of Brooklyn, her mother’s laughter, and her own Shadowhunter blood.

This just in—Fairy is not her own human but a sloppily put-together character made up of all the traits of those surrounding her.

Wait, we knew that already.

She wondered if Jace had ever seen her looking as prim as she did today—she’d dressed for the hospital in a black pleated skirt, pink lip gloss, and a vintage sailor-collared blouse. She thought she looked about eight.

WHY. WHY DID YOU DRESS THAT WAY—WHY WOULD YOU DRESS TO GO SEE YOUR COMATOSE MOTHER THAT WAY. THERE IS NO DRESS CODE IN THE HOSPITAL. JUST FESS UP AND SAY IT’S BECAUSE YOU WANT TO BONE YOUR BROTHER YOU WEIRDO.

ALSO, PSA TO ALL FUCKING AUTHORS EVERYWHERE, STOP SEXUALISING/INSINUATING THAT SOMEONE WHO LOOKS YOUNG IS SEXY. IT'S NASTY, YOU'RE NASTY.

“Clary!” It was Isabelle, swooping into the foyer in a long red skirt, her hair piled on top of her head with jeweled clips. “It’s so great to see you!”

Any time an author only describes one part of what a person is wearing, I always assume that’s it for their outfit. So, right now, as far as my knowledge goes, Isabelle is topless.

Also, that hairstyle is ripped straight outta the Delia catalogue.

Isabelle and Fairy have a dumb heart-to-heart:

"And I guess I resented you at first, but I realize now that was stupid. Just because I’ve never had a friend who was a girl doesn’t mean I couldn’t learn how to have one.”
“Me too, actually,” said Clary. “And Isabelle?”
“Yeah?”
“You don’t have to pretend to be nice. I like it better when you just act like yourself.”
“Bitchy, you mean?” Isabelle said, and laughed.

Is this a novel in which the characters have all gone through highly traumatic events or am I watching a horribly made teen movie?

They’re all trying to figure out how Magnus Bane figured out that Alec needed him (that would be because they are true loves sorry) and Isabelle says this gag-worthy line:

“I guess he heard about it somewhere. He does seem to be hooked into an enormous gossip network. He’s such a girl.”

Jace is hanging out in the Greenhouse, probably reminiscing on all the gross thoughts he had about his sister, and I’m really mad that this epilogue is so fucking long. At this point, it's an extra goddamn chapter.

She could see his still-fading bruises, like the dark spots on the white flesh of an apple.

That’s... that’s gross, but okay.

There’s some really gross victim blaming dressed up as Fairy being an understanding hero, and I don’t even want to copy-paste it. If it was addressed in a conscious way, it could potentially be great, but I know Fairy is just gonna use it to guilt him some more, and I honestly don’t have the energy to explain why a protagonist making a victim of emotional and physical abuse feel guilty for having fond memories of their childhood is fucked up. It just is.

She talks him into going to see their mom at the hospital, and they go via motorcycle, because CC is determined to parallel every one of their romantic moments now that we know they’re siblings.

Her hands tightened convulsively on his belt as they dipped lower and lower over the river. “Jace!”

It ends on some bullshit high note, but who cares you guys because I finished. It’s over and now I have something really exciting to tell you (and also potentially horrifying):

I bought the second book. And I also bought Divergent. And I'm gonna do some videos of reading them in tandem with this blog.

Will my computer be able to handle me editing videos on it? Likely not. Do I care? Hell. No.

I would honestly give this book 2 stars out of 5 (and I have on my goodreads). It was just enjoyable enough to keep reading, but the way it was written was grating and extremely reminiscent of bad fanfiction. I dislike when authors cannot seem to pick a tone in a novel, and I doubly dislike when they spoon feed you information about the plot. Coupled with a terrible incest-y ending, I'm hesitant to even give it 2 stars, but I did enjoy some parts of it, so I won't.

Onwards and upwards, my friends! But first I gotta go get the taste of this book outta my mouth with a bottle of wine, or three.