City of Ashes – Book Review

This blog has been pretty inactive lately. Sorry for that! We've all been really busy, and I actually finished this a few days ago but am just getting to this review now. We'll try to blog more once our first week of school is over. Now, for the review:

*NOTE: The date says September 11 but this was really published September 13. Blogging problems!!!!!*

One of the main things about City of Ashes is that it doesn't have a very solid plotline. The story kind of meanders around, with less focus on action and more focus on the politics of the Shadowhunters and the Clave. That's not bad, but it was different from City of Bones. Strangely, that philosophy seems to be thrown out the window at the end, when the book ends with a strangely placed (but still awesome) battle. It also sets up City of Glass nicely. Aaah I can't wait for it to arrive at my library branch!!

Spoilers in the following paragraph.

Another thing of note is that this book addressed something lacking from City of Bones: what makes Clary special. Other than being Valentine's daughter, what is there that separates Clary from other Shadowhunters? Most good sci-fi/fantasy books have something that distinguishes the character apart: Harry Potter and Percy Jackson each had prophecies about the title characters, Divergent's Tris was Divergent, His Dark Materials's Lyra could read the golden compass, etc. City of Bones didn't really have that with Clary. In City of Ashes, it's revealed that Clary can create new runes, which is both incredibly awesome and very useful. It also gives the character something that separates her from other Shadowhunters.

Spoilers over.

In conclusion, City of Ashes was not what I was expecting. Sometimes that was good, sometimes that was bad.

Final score: 8.9 out of 10

***News***

The production date for the City of Ashes movie has been pushed back indefinitely. Cassandra Clare says it's because they're rewriting the script. You probably should take that with a grain of salt, though, considering City of Bones's awful performance in movie theaters. (Note that when I said a few weeks ago that a movie needed to double its budget to be a hit, I was wrong. It needs to double its budget to be profitable, because studios only receive half of the revenue from movie tickets–theaters receive the other half. As of 9/13/13, City of Bones has only made $66 million.) City of Ashes's chances could be seriously hurt by CoB, so this delay can't be good news. Read more here: http://www.hypable.com/2013/09/13/cassandra-clare-city-of-ashes-movie-delayed-canceled-response/

 – Nick