City of Bones (The Mortal Instruments, #1) by Cassandra Clare

"Every teenager in the world feels like that, feels broken or out of place, different somehow, royalty mistakenly born into a family of peasants. The difference in your case is that it's true. You are different. Maybe not better - but different."

I've been meaning to read this book for ages. I heard about it quite a long time ago and kept reminding myself that I needed to get my hands on it, only to have it pushed back on my reading list once again. Finally, the movie adaptation came into theaters and I figured it was about time I buckled down and read it. I don't intend to see the movie until it comes out on DVD and I've read the second book (because movie adaptations are notorious for using bits from later books to cushion the first and I don't want any spoilers), but I figured it was about time I got started.

City of Bones is told from the perspective of Clary Fray, a teenage girl who witnesses a murder in the back room of a New York City club she visits frequently with her best friend, Simon. Only, this isn't a normal murder. How could it be? After all, she is the only one who can see the murderers. And the boy who died? He disappeared seconds after he took his last breath.

Only a few days later, Clary comes home to a demon that seems to have killed or taken her mother and threatens to end her as well. She barely manages to kill it before it kills her, but not without collateral damage. It has managed to wound her pretty badly and who should come to her aid but one of the murderers from the club.

As it turns out, the boy whom she saw killed was actually a demon in disguise. Jace, the one who comes to her aid after her own brush with a demon, explains that he and his friends are Shadowhunters, descendants of the Nephilim and sworn to protect humanity from the demons who threaten to overrun it. By inking special runes on their skin, they can make themselves invisible to mundanes (humans) or demons, stronger, or a number of other things. The thing that neither of them can figure out, though, is how a mundane like Clary could possibly have seen them or the demon in their home.

The more she sees the more she wonders what connects her to this world of strange mythical creatures and seeming humans with inhuman power. And why has she never seen them before now? Clary soon realizes that her mother has kept far more from her than she could have ever dreamed and the only way to get answers is to find the person who kept the questions from her in the first place.

I had really hoped I would like this novel, which made me more than happy to find myself with my nose in this book at every given opportunity. I simply could not put it down!

I love the entire paranormal mythos that is presented in this book. There are fairies and pixies, vampires and werewolves, even demons and intensely creepy monks. Though these themes are common in fantasy as of late, it is in no way campy or unoriginal. Clare puts her own spin on the creatures we've heard about since childhood and weaves it all into a deeply enthralling tale that will keep you wanting more.

There is so much I could praise about this book: its original take on well-known tales, its characters' vast differences and similarities that make them each profoundly human and realistic, the gray areas that remind the reader that there isn't always a black and white answer. I could go on, but I won't. If you're not convinced this is a worthwhile read already, then I'm not sure what else I can say.

The point is that this book was immensely satisfying and definitely worth giving a read. It won't disappoint.

Rating: ★★★★★

"Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. 'I told you to make it obedient,' his father said, and dropped the falcon's lifeless body to the ground. 'Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.'
"Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he'd learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed."