Add this book to the series of things Meyers has ruined for me.
I recently finished the third book in the series, City of Glass. I haven't read the two newer ones yet, though I probably will at some point. I'm quite a late-comer to the series, as I began reading the first book in 2013. I will freely admit that I would probably have started reading them sooner if it didn't have two things against it. First off, and I'm not particularly proud of this one, very prominent on the cover of all the books it has a strong recommendation from Stephenie Meyer, author of the twilight books. I understand that just because an author I strongly dislike endorses something, that does not make that something bad. However, that was a big part of it. Secondly, my sister and everyone, seemingly, in the world wanted me to read these books, and I've always had a tendency to avoid things I perceive as mainstream.
Putting that aside, I have to say that I did enjoy the books overall. There were times when the books lagged for me, but I did find them to move along nicely for the most part. After the first book, which I would describe as poorly written (sorry Cassandra), the quality of writing greatly improved. It isn't Steinbeck, but it wasn't bad either. So all in all I'd say the writing was adequate, after the first book.
So it was written well, but what about the substance? Well, and this may be an unpopular position, but I've always been of the opinion, when it comes to the differences between male and female writers, that men tend to be better at plot and story, while women tend to be better at characterization and character interaction. Now this isn't always the case, I've read plenty of books written by women with wonderfully complex and clever plot, and plenty of books by men with deep and powerful characters.
And plenty of the converse as well *Shudders*
That being said I definitely think that Clare's strongest point is her characters. Her characters are all decent, and some are really good. I didn't find the main character, Claire Jocelyn, to be boring, as I often find female protagonists. She's an honest-to-goodness strong female lead, trying to find her way in a difficult time in anyone's life, complicated by the hectic events of the books. I found the male lead, Jace, to be kind of boring. His character motivations aren't sympathetic, and he isn't really cool or interesting. I found Simon to be more interesting, what with his never ending D&D references, though again he seems too simple. Jace's adopted family are somewhat more interesting, but it isn't their story, so the deeper intricacies of their life aren't really explored. Hmm, it seems like I went into this section meaning to say nice things, but when I thought about it, I really don't have a lot of nice things to say about her characters. I guess they feel real. None of them seems stilted or one dimensional.
I'm very much a dialogue man. What do I mean by that? Well for me, I can ignore a lot of crap from books if they have good dialogue. On the converse if a book has bad dialogue, there isn't much that can make up for it. A perfect example is Jack Campbell's The Lost Fleet: Dauntless. this is a series of six hard science fiction books. I'm in love with hard science fiction, but I couldn't get through the first book because the dialogue was so stilted and clunky. The good news here is that Clare has good dialogue. Even in her first book she has good dialogue, and it gets better. So kudos there.
Someday... Maybe
This point only deserves mention because I am an avid Table Top RPG gamer, and I know my way around anime as well. Anyone who's read the books knows that Simon is basically a nonstop fount of one liners referring to D&D and anime and basically all of nerd culture. My first instinct here is to take it at face value. I'm generally fairly trusting, and when my sister told me about Simon I said, "cool." However, reading the books, I'm not convinced that Clare actually knows anything about D&D or anime. She definitely got most of the terms right (Seeing her picture online I can definitely believe she is a gamer [this isn't a dig at her appearance, but very attractive girls tend not to get into D&D]). Now, its impossible for me to divine the truth on this matter without actually consulting Claire (or doing two, maybe three minutes of research. I don't have that kind of time here), but there's basically two ways that this could go. One she doesn't use more technical, but well known terms from D&D (like roll for initiative, +number whatever of something, or natural twenty) because she didn't want to confuse her non-gamer audience. Or two because she isn't really a gamer and consequently only knows the small bits of lingo she's heard from some friend or relative. Either way, it equates to not quite sounding legit.
Featured: Natural Twenties joke T-Shirt
The last point is the setting. World building is another thing I think men tend to be better at. I know that Stephanie Meyer is in love with the world of The Mortal Instruments but I'm not. It's quite frankly not that clever in my opinion. It isn't bad, but it isn't good either. I mean, you take the shadowhunters, which I grant are kind of an interesting idea with their tattoo based magic, and that's the last original thing in the book. I give her props for making her vampires more interesting and engaging than Meyers, but come on, that's not an accomplishment. That's avoiding sucking to a staggering degree. so congrats, I guess? The werewolves are typical werewolves. The fair folk are typical fair folk. The magic in the world is never clearly set out, so we don't understand how it works, what it can and can't do etc.. So that's a wash. The special abilities of Jace and Claire are never really quantified either, so again, it's just whatever it needs to be for plot convenience, which I think is really the problem with the world. Clare (also, this is why I would never name a character in my book after myself, I'm the one writing this and I'm getting confused by the clares/claires) had an idea for a plot and built a very ho hum cliche world and fit it into it. The end product isn't bad, but it makes me yearn for a much better world she could have created.
All in all the books are okay. If you're in to fantasy and coming of age romance then you'll probably like these books. Also they're all fairly short, less than 300 pages, so there's that.
