Chapter 14 of The Mortal Instruments: The City of Bones: Now with added self-loathing and token minorities!

Hey guys! So I’ve been a bit MIA because I’m moving in two weeks and just finished that lovely season of University where you’re handing in essays and doing midterms. I have a bit of a break right now (I use the term break lightly) and I thought, why not read another chapter!

Chapter 14 is called “The Hotel Dumort” which is a cute French pun, but also kinda annoying when you realise she named the vampire hideout that.

I’m thinking about skipping her long paragraphs of travelling description, but I feel like that will be cheating a bit, so I’ll suffer through them for you.

Chapter 13 of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: I can grudgingly admit that I'm enjoying this but I feel like that has everything to do with Magnus Bane.

I have a confession to make: this has been sitting open and unfinished on my laptop for like a week now. I know, I know, I’m sorry, but life got crazy and I couldn’t do anything about it!

We left the last chapter on another underwhelming cliff-hanger, as is the norm in this book, I feel. Again, I wouldn’t have as much of a problem with it if it weren’t for the fact that they’re so soap-opera-esque that it makes the book funny in places there shouldn’t be humour.

There is a teeny tiny rape content warning just for a mention of the word/discussion of it, just as a forewarning.

Chapter 12 of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: This chapter was mercifully short and I'm pleased with that, at least.

School just started so I bet I’m gonna go a week without updating this but I’m gonna try really hard not to! They really only take about an hour, mainly because I’m usually so busy trying actively to not read it, because it sucks.

Remember how at the end of the next chapter I told you that I bet the beginning of this chapter would start with them travelling to this party? Guess what:

They made their way from the subway station, Isabelle navigating with the Sensor, which seemed to have a sort of mapping system built in.

just imagine these as all of my facial expressions while reading this book from now on.

Chapter 11 of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: apparently I just wanted to reference some awesome 90s movies today.

Jace leaned forward and banged his hand against the partition separating them from the cab driver. “Turn left! Left! I said to take Broadway, you brain-dead moron!”

And this is how the 11th chapter of this wondrous book opens up—our romantic hero abusing a service worker—sooooo charming, right ladies? I’m sure we’re all just falling over ourselves to find someone like him.

Basically, Jace wants breakfast and he wants it now. I don’t get this—we literally left off with Clary finding out someone really fucking powerful left a block in her brain and it’s up to her to figure it out so she can find her mother, and yet here we are listening to Jace invite the whole freaking gang out for breakfast because... why? Does this scene need to happen?

Chapter 10 of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: I'm really sick right now so cut me some slack.

First, I’d like to apologise for being such a level 10 butt and not updating for two whole weeks, because apparently I got super busy and couldn’t deal with it. So, yeah, my bad!

I last left this book on an intolerable cliffhanger, obviously, since I didn’t think about this story the whole two weeks, which is exactly what you want as a writer. We found out that Valentine (Voldy) was married to Fairy’s mom, which... I guess is something I didn’t see coming. But the thing is, she never dropped any hints that this was a possibility to the reader the whole time, so it’s not really a big reveal if she just held all the cards under the table and was like ‘nothing to see here! Move along!’ until she decided she was ready. Part of the fun of reading is guessing what’s behind the cards.

Hodge raised his hands wearily. “Children—”
“I’m not a child.” Clary spun away from the desk.

Ah, the wonderful “I’m not a little girl anymore omg!!!11!!” line, slotted in to make all the teenagers reading this novel feel older. I get it, I definitely felt like an adult at 15, but man is it weird to read this as an actual adult, because... yes you are, Fairy.

Chapter 9 of The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones: I abuse italics way more than I should in this recap.

We’re back for another episode of ‘How Many Ways Can Cassandra Clare Use Weird and Totally Not Accurate Equivalent Similes to Describe Things That Don’t Need Describing’! Hope you’re all excited!

We start off with some lovely sentence confusion that probably could’ve been cleared up with some editing:

Clary stepped forward to touch Jace’s arm, say something, anything—what did you say to someone who’d just seen his father’s killers? Her hesitation turned out not to matter; Jace shrugged her touch off as if it stung.

SO, Clary moved forward to touch his arm, but this sets it up as if she’s in motion and hasn’t actually reached his arm yet, but then the next sentence is Jace shrugging off her touch, which I assumed hadn’t actually happened yet. THIS BOOK, GUYS.

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?