The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones; City of Ashes; City of Glass (edition 2010)

I love this collection, edgier than Twilight e.g there are gay relationships, sex before marriage etc. etc. Obviously there is a brooding male, Jace who is supernatural and troubled. Clary is a strong female lead, independent and mature, all the ingredients you would expect in this kind of series. Clary is a shadowhunter, a group of people who hunt demons and keep the balance of the supernatural/mortal world aligned. Clary's mum has kept this fact hidden from her to protect her, but inevitably she finds out when she sees Jace, a shadowhunter in a nightclub, she is not supposed to be able to him so the truth comes out. Immediate chemistry is the name of the game here and Clary embarks on a journey of self discovery, romance, intrigue that also envelops her best friend Simon, who gets attacked and becomes a vampire. It turns out her step-father is also leader of the local werewolf pack. Clary's real father has turned to the dark side and returns to cause all sorts of trouble. Long story short, although the ingredients sound predictable and ridiculous, it is not. I enjoyed them immensely, they are well written, multi layered and real page turners. So good in fact, that they have made a movie and it comes out in August 2013. ( )

awesome series. I got sucked in and loved the characters and the plot twists were crazy at times. It is easy to fall in love with Clary and Jace. This is one of my favorite series and I highly recommend it!. ( )

Entertaining enough, but lacking in so many things- and they didn't get better. Good characters at first, but by the fourth book you would think they would have settled SOME of their petty dramas already.

There's plenty of controversy surrounding these books. They've been criticized for the apparent incestuousness of the relationship between the two main characters for about 2 books out of 3, for two secondary characters being gay and another a rather promiscuous lady. There's blood and gore and cold-hearted twistedness and frankly I don't think these are YA books. The characters are teenagers, but to me that's not enough to make a book suitable for teen reading. Then of course there was the scandal of Cassandra Clare allegedly plagiarizing everything fantasy from TV to books in her Harry Potter fanfiction. I haven't seen or read the allegedly plagiarized works or the said fanfic so am not qualified to have an opinion on this, I can say though that there are elements in MI that are common to other stories. The extremely powerful and charismatic villain with a group of supporters he gathered while they were all in school and the orphan courageous enough to stand up to him come to mind immediately and I think we all know what they're reminiscent of. Here's what makes that not matter to me: anything after the folk tales, myths and legends is a repeat, anything written now has been done before in one way or another and the important thing is not to create something absolutely original (that I think would be next to impossible) but to make something familiar your own and different. I think Cassandra Clare does that beautifully.
I really enjoyed these books, could hardly put them down really. Ms. Clare's writing is witty, the characters are realistic enough with all their flaws and fine qualities, there's plenty of action and lovelorn adolescent angst to satisfy both types of readers. Even mild character continuity problems, like the bookish Clary who regularly skipped PE in the first book all of a sudden becoming strong and agile in the second, didn't ruin the experience. I loved how developed the world is with plenty of fantastical creatures, their intricate dynamics and how the fantasy world coexists with the regular world with the 'mundie' humans suspecting not a thing. If you are the kind of reader who can manage to not let the things I talked about in the first paragraph make these books unpalatable I think you're in for a treat and you should put them on your To Read list. They've made it to my To Buy list. ( )

This series is definitely a page turner. I won't be describing the plot much as I do not wish to accidentally spoil anything for those who plan on reading it sometime soon.

This is all you need to know, the story introduces all creatures, from vampires to werewolves and even evil faeries! There is adventure and romance, as well as twists and turns, but you will enjoy every minute of it!

Be warned… each book has a major cliffhanger so if you don’t own all three before beginning to read the first book, you will regret it because you will definitely want to know what happens next!

In case you are not aware of it, there is a fourth book coming out in which continues the series titled “City of Fallen Angels”, as well as another book in relation to this series titled “Clockwork Angel”. ( )