The Mortal Instruments 2: City of Ashes - Cassandra Clare

Warning: spoilers for book 1 in the summary!

Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn't ready to let her go — especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary's only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil — and also her father.

To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings — and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father?

Clary is the most naive person I know
Oh no, oh.. no... 
I find her so annoying, maybe some people pity her, but I just can't take her seriously. She is sooo naive that it's just unbearable. She really does feel the need to do everything herself, and she always wants everything her way. Meanwhile, Jace and the other shadowhunters are way more experienced and know better than her how to handle things. But no, Clary does what she wants and she still has two boys who love and adore her. Also, when she talked about Isabelle and how beautiful she was and how 'slutty' she actually looked I was so done. Women should support other women.

Jace's sarcasm
Okay, yes, he was actually bearable and great in this book. I live for the moments where he calls Clary out on her naiveness. What bothers me though, is how he's obviously still in love with Clary and he wants to date her in secret. She's your sister! Come on! (Yes, I know what happens in later books). He actually didn't care at all and still wanted a relationship with her. Unnatural, pretty much disgusting. There are many things I support but incest is definitely not one of them. I also don't understand how people like this asshole. While he wasn't as much of an asshole as in the first book, he's still just not a nice person.

  Incest. 
Right. Hell no. Everytime Clary longed for Jace or Jace touched Clary, I slightly gagged. That isn't right. You should try to avoid each other and every time the thought even passes your mind, you should try to push it out.Also, DON'T KISS? I know that love is a complicated thing, and I actually do quite like Clace, I just don't support incest and that is the biggest problem with this book.

Alec and Magnus
The Purest. Best. Relationship. In. This. Book. Series. No one can tell me otherwise. Seeing Alec struggle with his homosexuality while Magnus is so open about his (bisexuality, probably, but I do not feel the need to label), is just lovely. This book came out in 2007, when homesexuality (in America) was still very much not accepted. I absolutely love the fact that Cassandra Clare still used it and tried to let people know about the struggles of homosexuals in a very discreet way. I hope to see more of them in the future, because I adore them.

  Valentine, the ending and future books
Valentine honestly isn't that bad. I hate him more in the tv show than I did in this book, to be honest. Anyway, I was really excited to see what this book's Mortal Instrument, the Mortal Sword, could do. But how much information about it do we get? Almost nothing! 
The ending was also not that great. It didn't grab me as much as it should have, and deaths didn't affect me. Maybe I've just become numb to this book series. While I really do want to read The Infernal Devices after City of Glass (which I am currently reading), and while I do absolutely love this world Clare created, I am not looking forward to reading the fourth book in this series, since people say it is not as amazing. My rating for this book. I honestly have no idea. I liked this book, I really did, it was fun and addicting even though the characters weren't the best. I feel like my rating would not be 3.5, but 4/5 stars. It really was entertaining, even though I just bashed this whole book because it is quite problematic.

Currently reading City of Glass, liking it wayyy more than this book. Hope the entire book is good.

Dominique