City of Bones by Cassandra Clare (reviewed by Joe Stradling)

This is the first book of an amazing series and documents a truly impressive fantasy world. It is set in New York City and spins around a world set in the background of the mundane which holds angels and demons in constant war, with vampires, werewolves, the fair folk, warlocks, and shadowhunters, or Nephilim, arrayed between. This book starts when Clarissa, a redheaded artist living with her mother, goes to a club with her best friend, Simon. Clary witnesses a brief glimpse of shadowhunters killing a demon intent on exsanguinating humans.

After leaving the scene of this sudden execution, Clary goes to her house to find that her mother has been taken by demons, as well as a rear guard resolved to kill her. She was saved by a shadowhunter by the name of Jonathan Wayland, or Jace, who takes her to hallowed ground that houses a sanctuary filled with other shadowhunters. It is revealed to her that she and her mother are shadowhunters and her mother posseses the mortal cup, a member of the objects that the angel Raziel passed on to humans to help fight the evil that the demons were spreading in the world. The man who abducted Clary’s mother, Valentine Morganstern, is a fanatical Nephilim, banished for trying to overthrow Nephilim government, or the Clave, and who is looking for the cup. She gets her friend Simon into a deep mess, is taken to a city made of the bones of Nephilim, falls deeply in love with Jace, and finds out that her mothers best friend is a werewolf. She finds her mother and her father and her brother and a traitor in the people that she hates and loves, encounters triumph, evil, loss and pain and discovers the whereabouts of the mortal cup.

I liked this book and this series a great deal. Not only was it based on a clever and intricate history and structure, it also had engaging dynamic characters, a cute love story, amazing narrative drive, spectacular settings, a viable conflict, and, best of all, a sequel.

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Mmm, Shadowhunters. (amIright?!) Click here to check our catalog to see if City of Bones is on the shelves.

Joe reviewed City of Bones as part of our special summer promotion: review a book and get the ADVANCE READING COPY (ARC) of the prequel, giving him a chance to read it MONTHS before it was released! How did Joe find out about this amazing promotion?! He's signed up for the library's teen e-mail list, so he gets to hear about all the latest news, promotions, programs, and events first. Want to be on the list? Send us an e-mail at ysweb @ lacnm dot us to get added! You can also hear about what's happening by visiting the library's teen website!