Book Blog #164: City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

Title: City of Heavenly Fire
Author: Cassandra Clare
# of Pages: 725 (paperback)
Genre: YA, Paranormal-Romance, Fantasy
Rating: ★★★★☆
Synopsis: Lives will be lost, love sacrificed, and the whole world changed in the sixth and last instalment of the internationally bestselling The Mortal Instruments series. Erchomai, Sebastian had said. I am coming. Darkness returns to the Shadowhunter world. As their society falls apart around them, Clary, Jace, Simon and their friends must band together to fight the greatest evil the Nephilim have ever faced: Clary's own brother. Nothing in this world can defeat him - must they journey to another world to find the chance?
Review: I've stayed up late in order to finish this book, so I'm going to try to portray what I am feeling right now as accurately but quickly as possible.

The first hundred pages were hard to get into. I was a little thrown off by the prologue with Emma and Julian, two characters who weren't very important in the previous book and who I had not recollection of. What threw me off even more is how big their role was in the book. The problem is, I didn't drag my way through five books just to hear about some random 12 year-olds. They wasted my time and made the book just that much longer.

The book really didn't need to be as long as it is. Most scenes could have been condensed with an exception to the final scene/climax. Clare's writing style is still rough in some areas (e.g. I didn't like how she wrote some of the dialogue for Emma, especially when she talks to Clary; 12 year-olds may be young, but they aren't THAT young).

I had been torn between three stars and four stars because of my continued dislike for Clare and Alec, along with the reasons I have mentioned above, but decided to go with the latter. The reason was because the last two hundred pages flowed really well. I was not expecting to read over three hundred pages today (my goal  was to read 150), but I was engaged in the plot.

I was a little upset for a while about Simon; I hated Clare for taking his memories away. I was ranting to anyone who would listen; why did she have to do it to SIMON of all people? She couldn't have settled for Clary or Jace or Alec or evnn Magnus? But I shouldn't have been so quick to judge because the epilogue made me extremely satisfied.

But the epilogue also felt like a giant ad for the rest of Clare's books. She mentions the Codex, hints at the Bane Chronicles, and the whole book was leading up to The Dark Artifices series. The only series I'm interested in reading is The Infernal Devices, which was also viciously advertised through mentions of Tessa and her mysterious relationships with various people CoHF.

Overall, one of the better books of the series, despite its unnecessary length. While I expect most of you to be TMI fans who I going to read the book regardless of what I say, I recommend it.