City of Heavenly Fire Review

This review is going up really late and I’m so sorry about that! I read the book the week it came out and then completely forget that I was going to write a review on it (I also forgot to write my cover analysis of Blood of Olympus because the blogger mobile app wasn’t working quite right. I’ll get that up soon, hopefully!)

So, City of Heavenly Fire. How do I begin to describe this book? This book is flawless. Well, as close to flawless as a book can get. It was the perfect conclusion to The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. From the action to the suspense to the character development, all of it was on point and kept me hooked until I finished the book (which may have been a very bad thing, considering my copy had arrived during finals week). Not to mention the fact that this book is huge! It's 725 pages in the US edition, which is even longer than Oblivion by Anthony Horowitz (which is a giant itself - and I highly recommend it).

The plot, oh my. I have virtually no words to describe it. Whatever I was expecting from this book, it wasn’t that. It was better. There isn’t much I can say about the plot itself without spoiling anything (and as you should know if you’re a regular BLB reader, my blog is entirely spoiler free), but I can say that there are a lot of twists – some of those ending happily, others ending in intense feels. Most of the loose ends have been tied up, though there is an introduction to some new characters that will be appearing in The Dark Artifices.

And let’s not forget the characters. Though the timeline in the series is only about six months, I feel like all the characters have grown up and matured since the first book. The character development is amazing. This is especially true for Alec who, to be honest, kind of bored me until this book. But now we get to see more of the character than just small glimpses and oh my god he is insanely sassy.

Speaking of Alec, this book in particular has to be one of the few books in pop culture that is not specifically in the LGBTQ+ genre, but actually includes decent representation that goes beyond “that one gay character.” And yes, this is something that has been in all of the books to date, but there is more of it here (the exception might be the Bane Chronicles, which is entirely from the perspective of a “freewheeling bisexual” warlock). That, and the fact that there is still a clear reflection between how society looks at the subject of sexuality and how the Clave looks at it (as in, it’s gotten more accepting).

Overall, I am giving this book a five out of five. Yes, a perfect score! There were no extremely awkward parts to read in terms of poor writing. The characters were all well developed. The book held me right to the end with its perfection. A quick word of warning is that there is an implied sex scene as well as some moderate violence, but come on. If you’ve gotten to this book, it’s all the same stuff that has happened in the previous books.

City of Heavenly Fire Cover Analysis

I promised you all a high quality version of the photo, and here it is. Now that I can see the photo more clearly, there are a lot more details that I missed at first glance.

First off, the cover is pretty normal for The Mortal Instruments. Russell Gordon has a very distinctive style with the editing of these covers: the light illuminating from the runes, the city scape, the model(s) on the cover where you can't see their entire face (Though City of Fallen Angels was an exception to this with Clary's face on full view). This cover incorporates all of the classic details.

The first thing I noticed was that Clary was wearing white. In Shadowhunter culture, white is the colour of mourning - the sort of thing that would be worn to a funeral. Cassie has already told us that there will be a number of deaths in the book (6 characters that we already know, I believe is the number she gave us). Does this mean that someone close to her dies? Simon, Luke, Jocelyn... Possibly even Jace. Again. In today's society, white also represents purity and "good", so it could be saying something about, as Simon put it, "team good" and "team evil". She is also holding the hilt of a weapon. The way that she is holding it implies that instead of using it to slash at something, it was used to stab. Who did she stab? It could have been Sebastian, considering he's right in front of her. It could also be representing the Angel blade which Clary had used to stab Jace with (and causing his body to be filled with heavenly fire - which is what the book is named).

Next there is Clary's posture to consider. See how she's standing with her back towards the viewer? This could be representing her turning her back upon something or someone. The clave? Jace? But she also isn't facing Sebastian full on. She's turned slightly away, as though she's trying to avoid him but he's in the way. Or she's trying to avoid the disaster that would surely follow him. Though it's difficult to see, it looks like she's looking downwards. Possibly, she could be looking at the disaster that's around her on the cover.

Clary's hair is something in itself. Besides it slightly mimicking an old Windows screen saver, it also looks like fire (*cough* City of Heavenly Fire *cough*). This could be because she was the one who put the heavenly fire into Jace. Also, in City of Lost Souls, Sebastian says that "this world will be consumed by hellfire." Could some of the bad things that happen in the book be because of Clary herself - making her almost a personification of this "hellfire" that Sebastian speaks of?

Enough about Clary. Sebastian is standing in a shadow, looking at Clary. The juxtaposition between the light Clary and the darkened Sebastian could be representing the fact that Clary is more angel while Sebastian is more demon. It could also represent (along with the fact that Clary is facing the darkness) that the ginger may be joining Sebastian on the "dark side." It's a bit of a stretch, but hey. Anything could happen in this book. Sebastian's gaze in Clary's direction could be showing that he wants something that he cannot have. As shown in the book prior, there are some seemingly sexual feelings on his end towards his sister (going into incest there, click here to see Clare on the topic). It could also been seen as slightly hateful or resentful, considering Clary had put a damper on his plans by taking Jace away from him..

And then there are Sebastian's wings. The wings are a reoccurring thing throughout the books - mostly in Clary's dreams. I assume that it's safe to say that they are supposed to represent his demonic angelicness. If my memory proves correct, in one of Clary's dreams she had seen him with dark wings (though please do correct me if I'm wrong). I doubt that he will actually grow wings in the book. On the other side of this, the wings could be there to represent that fact that some angels may be appearing in this book. As Raphael put it in CoLS, "even the Angels will be destroyed." So will there be a mildly more friendly appearance of angels in this book? Or will they appear to scorch some Shadowhunters (or Sebastian's crowd). It could also be referencing to the ending of the previous book where Sebastian had placed a pair of bloodied angel wings in the New York Institute.

Then there is the background. This cover is the first one in the series in which the city scape is behind the character(s) on the cover. So why the sudden change? This could be because the world is coming to an end and that life as they [the characters] know it. This idea is also supported by the parched and cracked land in front of it. But back to the city for a moment, what city is it? It would be a bit of a stretch to say that some of the buildings look similar to the ones of the cover of City of Glass, considering most taller structures do look pretty similar when you can't see any small details on them. But there are a few pointed buildings which, in fact, imply that this may be Alicante. It's a possibility that this landscape is indeed the home to the Nephilim.

As for the fire in the foreground, part of that comes into the obvious bit that it comes from the title of the book. It's implied through the dry land right behind it that the fire consumed part of it. This could be literal and have fire sweeping across lands. Raphael in CoLS seems to have a pretty good prediction of things as well, proved when he said "there is a great darkness coming it will sweep the Earth with fire and shadow." There is certainly earth being shown, along with fire at the foreground and Sebastian as the shadow.

So what does the cover say about City of Heavenly Fire as a whole? Well, we can be sure that this book is going to be dark - most likely the darkest out of all of them - with a whole lot of feels to go around. The book will be released on on 27 May, so it's not too far now! It's a whole lot closer than series four of Sherlock. What are you all expecting to see from this book? Any other interpretations of the cover you can think of? Feel free to comment them below!

City of Heavenly Fire cover

If you haven't seen it yet, here it is! The cover of the final book in The Mortal Instruments: City of Heavenly Fire. Expect a better quality photo at a later time. Not much of an analysis I can give quite yet, but we do know for a fact that it's Sebastian (Jonathan) and Clary on the cover, and that Clary is in white (which, if you remember, if the colour that Shadowhunters wear for mourning). When I get a better quality picture, I'll have a full analysis for you guys!

Happy 2014! Overview of 2013

Happy 2014 everyone! Last year was a huge one for literature, with countless series both starting and ending (autumn was extremely busy with so many books coming out – some of which I still have yet to read). You had the Divergent series coming to a close with Allegiant, James Dashner’s new book The Eye of Minds - the first in the Mortality Doctrine series, Cassandra Clare’s The Infernal Devices: Clockwork Princess, The Alex Rider prequel Russian Roulette, the US release of Oblivion - the final book in Anthony Horowitz's Gatekeepers... So many books in such a short time! Not to mention all the books that got turned into movies.

Of course, with so many books coming out, you did have the good and the bad and the controversial. The much anticipated Allegiant was one of the greatest flops of the year. Poorly written, it left more than just a few fans unhappy with it. On the other hand, there was Light, the final Gone novel written by Michael Grant and Clockwork Princess, both of which have received overall high reviews.

            One of the biggest biggies of the year was definitely The House of Hades, written by Rick Riordan. He took a huge risk with *mini spoiler* making Nico gay (if you didn’t know that already, you probably haven’t used Tumblr since before October). There was a lot of controversy over that, with many parents upset with the fact that he chose to make that decision. Then again, the book series was about Greek mythology and if someone can’t stand non-heterosexual relationships, they should probably avoid that area in general.

And then there were the movies! I lost count of how many adaptations I had seen. There was The Great Gatsby, directed by Baz Luhrmann, The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones directed by Harald Zwart... Let’s not forget The Sea of Monsters, which Thor Freudenthal (hehe... Thor...) directed and ended up with very mixed reviews (hey, I give him credit for working with the mess of a film the first one was and managing to do a fairly decent job). There was also Catching Fire, directed by Francis Lawrence, which was possibly the most successful book-to-film adaption that I ever seen in my entire life. And that was just a few of them.

2014 is going to be a huge year. We have the film Divergent coming out, directed by Neil Burger, first of all. The casting may be a bit iffy, but I have a feeling that it’ll be a pretty decent film. There’s also going to be The Fault in out Stars, directed by Josh Boone, so prepare your tissue stash when you go to the cinema.

And as for actual books, by the gods there will be a lot. We’ll be having the second book in The Mortality Doctrine; The Rule of Thoughts by James Dashner, which is supposed to be released in the autumn. The Mortal Instruments will have its conclusion with City of Heavenly Fire, which is planned to be released on 27 May – but don’t worry. Cassandra Clare is planning on writing yet another series in the Shadowhunter Chronicles; The Dark Artifices (The first book is planned to be titled Lady Midnight). Let’s not forget about The Blood of Olympus, the final book in the Heroes of Olympus series by Rick Riordan.

            Finally, there is no way we can forget about the film based around Newt Scamander who had written Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them to the Harry Potter universe – with a screenplay written by the brilliant J.K. Rowling. There are also rumours that she may be writing more books based around the HP universe, so keep your eyes peeled for more news about that.

            2013 has been a giant year full of new releases, and I expect nothing less from 2014. Have a happy new year, and don’t forget to keep reading!

The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones Review

I'm not lying when I said that I was very apprehensive about reading the book City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. It seemed to fall too much into the whole supernatural-romance-Twilight genre and I did not, in any way, want to read yet another one of those. I picked it up eventually after much pestering from my friends, and to my great surprise, I loved it.

The City of Bones is a story about a teenage girl named Clary living in Brookland, New York who seems to be an absolutely normal person until she starts seeing things that her best friend, Simon, can’t – specifically, a murder. Her mother disappears, she finds out she isn't human and is instead a Shadowhunter (Nephilim), and life as she knew it completely changes. The book ends with a twist that unless you've seen the movie or someone has spoiled it for you, leaves you sitting there in shock (or in my case, so frustrated to the point where you nearly threw the book at the wall).

Despite the fact that this book uses a fairly overused plot (I'm now starting to see similarities between the plot summary of CoB and The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan), it’s well executed. This book follows fairly true to the original myths of creatures (or Downworlders, as they’re called in the books), such as vampires, fairies, and werewolves, a nice change from all these Twilight-esque books that are finally falling out of popularity. Vampires in this series can’t go out in the sun and sleep during the day. Werewolves are made up of those infected with Lycanthropy and they change on the full moon. Fairies aren't the innocent creatures that Disney makes them out to be. I was pleasantly surprised when I saw these details in the book, and so I applaud Cassandra for doing her research.

The thing that struck me the most out of this book was the societal aspect of it. This book was written in 2007, right around the time that people started to get riled up about the fact that gays couldn't get married. This is one of the few books that I've read that actually includes gay characters and I couldn't be happier about this (other books include Harry Potter and Perks of Being a Wallflower). Many authors (not naming any names), are insistent in not including characters that have any differing sexualities, so when I came across the characters Alec and Magnus in this book, to say I was surprised is an understatement. And it isn't just that she included the character in the books, but she also included it as a more major part of the Shadowhunter society (or rather, the way that the Clave was very much against gays). Going back to my original statement of society, Cassandra also created a separate society for the Shadowhunters called the Clave, which plays a huge role in this book. It was a very well thought out idea.

Now onto characterisation. The main character, Clary, is a very round, dynamic character. She starts the book as a girl who loved art and didn't always get along with her mum. She ended the book more independent and with a new perspective of the world around her. The downside is that I have seen this exact character before, both in personality (artistic, sassy, and confused all at the same time), as well as her physical description (ginger hair and green eyes). Besides this, mostly all of the main characters go through a deep change somewhere in this book (or in later books, for the sake of Simon and Alec).

Overall, I'd give the book a 4 out of 5 rating. I like the way it was written and I love the characters. The reason why I won't give it a 5 is because I have seen similar characters and a similar plot line before. If it had been just a bit more original, it would have been even better.