Sunday 30 October 2016

Book Series Review: The Mortal Instruments (Cassandra Clare)


Hello everyone! Today I'm going to be talking about and reviewing book series by Cassandra Clare - The Mortal Instruments (yes, I know the picture I posted right above these lines is from City of Bones - the movie, but it's so beautiful!).


So let's make a quite review of the books these series entitles:


I had read the first four books quite a while ago, and I couldn't remember why I stopped, which made me want to read them again, because it's not that I hand't liked them - I had just stopped. Also, they are a bunch of quite famous books in the YA world, so I thought I'd include them in my 2016 Finishing The Series Challenge

In case you don't know them, they are YA books about a teenage girl named Clary Fray who finds out her mum has been hiding a whole world from her for the part 15 years: Shadowhunters - a subset of humans that descend from angels and the role of whom in the world is to protect it and people from demons. She suddenly finds herself seeing unusual things happen which no-one else can see, and that's how she meets handsome shadowhunter Jace Wayland, who introduces her to the world of magic and adventure.

I started reading them again this past summer, and I listened to the first two on audiobook, which was quite entertaining. The narration was OK, but it was weird listening to something I had already read - the characters' expression wasn't quite the one I had taken when I read the series, but it was similar enough, so I was quite happy in general :) In terms of audiobook-rating, I think they were fine ones. It was a sole female narrator in both books, but their tone-changing made differentiating between dialoguing characters easy enough. Apparently, there are different narrators for each book in the series, which I don't really like - it's like changing your character's actor in every movie. In my opinion, each book series should have just one narrator, but that wasn't possible for this one, I guess... Apart from that, the audiobooks were just fine. And... that adds two more audiobooks to my 2016 Audiobook Challenge! :D

About the books themselves, this is my overall impression: I really enjoyed the first three books, and I wasn't really impressed with the following three.

Originally, this book series was going to be a trilogy - and the third book does feel like the end of a trilogy, but then you find there is a continuation and you're like "OK, sure! Why not?". However, (and I know there are lots of people who don't think the same way) I feel like the story is a bit over-stretched after the first three books. I took a long time to finish the fourth book, and I wasn't motivated to read the fifth one. In spite of it, I did, and I quite enjoyed it, so I though "yeah, let's go for the sixth one!". And so I did, but I wasn't feeling it... It was taking me so long to read just a few pages every night, so when I got to 40% I decided I would just stop there. I wasn't at all interested in where the story was going to go, and I found the way Clary acted sometimes quite stupid and immature - like her character hadn't grown all that much after a whole 5 books of the story. She kept making the same mistakes over again. And I think the same happens in general with the rest of the characters. The two characters I think made the greatest development were Simon (Clary's best friend) and Alec (Jace's step-brother). 

I was not excited to read the next page, and there plenty of fish in the sea (or a lot of books on my shelves ;D), so, you know... I just didn't feel like wasting my time. It's not that I disliked it, but it was too long for the little I was enjoying it. 

In terms of writing, the series is correct and easy to follow.

I would recommend reading it to people aged 12-15, and if I could go back in time to when I was reading these books, I would tell myself to read up to the third one and stop there. Nice, clean cut that leaves you satisfied :)

Ratings:

1. City of Bones 

2. City of Ashes

3. City of Glass

4. City of Fallen Angels

5. City of Lost Souls

6. City of Heavenly Fire


What did you think of this series? I'm genuinely interested in knowing what other people thought of it! Am I weird for not liking it as much?

I've heard that The Infernal Devices trilogy also by Cassandra Clare is better than The Mortal Instruments. I think I'll give it a go sometime, but I don't think that'll be any time soon.  


Happy reading!

If you'd like to try this audiobook or any other one for free, you can follow the link below and get two free audiobooks plus 30% off any other audiobook you may like - a month's Audible membership trial, all free of charge and you can cancel at any time! I'll get a small something is you use my link :)

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2 comments:

  1. I really liked The Mortal Instrument series but I loved loved loved The Infernal Devices!! I would recommend you to give them a try! If you want you can also check my reviews on my blog! Have an amazing day!!

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    1. That's what I hear from people! I should definitely check them out then :D thank you!

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