Cassandra Clare

Though I am not in the target demographic by more than a few years, I do enjoy reading a lot of YA fiction. The Gone novels by Michael Grant being a particular favorite of mine, and I have read Harry Potter and Twilight (talk about going from one extreme to the other). I picked up the first book in Cassandra Clare’s Mortal Instruments series, CITY OF BONES, because it had some plot elements that appealed to me, namely old school supernatural monsters like vampires and werewolves, not to show more mention warlocks, spells and magic. I went into this series cold, not having seen any of the TV and screen adaptations, and with no knowledge of the controversy surrounding the author with charges of outright plagiarism, not to mention a general reputation for very unoriginal writing.

That CITY OF BONES cribs most of its plot, characters, and themes, from Harry Potter and Star Wars is evident before the half way mark. The central character is Clary Fray, a fifteen year old girl who is drawn into the paranormal world of the Shadowhunters, an ancient society of warriors who battle monsters and demons who escape to earth from Downworld. As the story unfolds, Clary becomes aware that she has more than a passing connection to these Shadowhunters and the teenage boy, Jace Wayland, who leads the group she falls in with. Jace seems to be a dreamier version of Draco Malfoy, and there are other characters who are equal parts knock off versions of Hermione Granger, Ron and Ginny Weasley, Lupin and Snape, Peter Pettigrew and Sirius Black, not to mention Padme and Professor X for good measure. The Big Bad of the story is named Valentine, whose name shares a first letter of the alphabet with Voldemort and Darth Vader, and whose motivation is very similar to Magneto’s. Simon, Clary’s muggle—I mean mundane—best friend, who is obviously in love with her even if she doesn’t notice it, bares more than a passing resemblance to Xander from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. There’s a plot twist near the end of the book involving Clary, Jace, and Valentine that would make even George Lucas groan. Bottom line, the whole book felt like a huge cut and paste job from the most popular pop culture phenomenas of the past few decades.

All that being said, I certainly didn’t hate CITY OF BONES in the way that other reviewers who poured their wrath and venom on the book, as most YA fiction, especially when it comes to the paranormal, are hardly original. I think Cassandra Clare was just a little more blatant about it, and her past FF writing didn’t endear her to many readers. As unoriginal as it might be, CITY OF BONES held my interest, and I kept turning the pages to see what happened next. My biggest complaint is that Clare wrote the book from Clary’s POV through a shaky 3rd person when the story would have been much better served by having told in 1st person with Clary’s voice clear and present. But that leads to another problem in that Clary, as written, comes off as vague and generic when she needs to be distinct and unique. CITY OF BONES was written in the mid 2000s, back before the insufferable teenage girl had become such a trope, but a little more attitude it would have helped her character a lot. I kept thinking that the story would have been so much better if it had been told from the POV of Jace, or Alec and Isabelle Lightwood, even Simon, all of whom had some real personality.

As the first book in a series, the finale of CITY OF BONES felt very anticlimactic, with dangling plot threads in all directions, and for that reason, I am going to give Cassandra Clare, and CITY OF ASHES, a chance. show less

I just reread Draco Dormiens, the first novel in Cassandra Claire's Draco Trilogy. The works have been deleted by the author, but if you look for them it's easy to find PDF versions. If you look more deeply, you can also find well-formatted epubs to use with e-readers.

It's impossible to talk about these books without addressing the controversy surrounding them, but I'll do so at the end of my review. Let's talk about the story first.

As I remembered it, Draco Dormiens is an excellent show more fanfiction novel. It's not a long novel, at around 70.000 words, while the other two books in the trilogy are much longer.

It only follows canon up to Goblet of Fire, since it was written before Order of the Phoenix. The premise is this: During a Potions class, there's a weird accident with Polyjuice Potion and Harry and Draco become indefinitely bodyswapped. The need to keep this a secret, the even greater need to find an antidote and avoid a conspiration against Harry's life, and a love triangle where both Draco and Harry are interested in Hermione (no slash), power the plot of the novel.

The relatively short length suits Draco Dormiens. It's a YA romantic comedy and it's also an adventure novel, and the two things coexist together quite well. The plotting is tight and fast-paced and it never feels like fluff. I think this is an advantage, because even if you are not a great fan of YA romantic comedy you can enjoy this story.

At the time I originally read this, it made me look at the character of Draco Malfoy in a different way. Not that I thought a redemption arc for him was likely to happen in canon, but it made me think that it would be cool if it did. What's the fascination with Draco? Well, as depicted here he's sophisticated, snarky, fashion-conscious, strong, bright and sharp. A bad boy on the surface, with some seriously evil relatives, but not evil himself. Of course, canon did not go that way. Canon!Draco turned out to be pathetic rather than dashing. He fought on evil's side but turned out not to have the stomach for it, and ended up demoralized and happy just to survive. A more realistic Draco, I think, but probably not as attractive or interesting as the one in this fanfic.

As an adventure story it's good, and as romantic comedy it works too. It's a pleasant read, but I wouldn't have wanted canon to go that way. The price of having this fine romantic comedy is placing Draco, Harry and Hermione in the spotlight and leaving little room for other characters. A clear victim of this is Ron, but at least I liked that there was no Ron bashing. Ron may be under the spotlight less often than in canon, but when he is, he is quite cool too.

The characters were all a bit OOC, but not enough to make them feel like different people. Hermione tended to flirt more than in canon, but she was still Hermione. Draco was the most OOC, of course. It's an idealized Draco rather than the pathetic Draco in canon. Harry was also Harry and his always snarky relationship and gradual bonding with this version of Draco rang true. Among the secondary characters, I was surprised by how wise Sirius was. Not the grudge-holding, act-before-you-think Sirius from canon.

All in all, a very good read. Definitely of professional quality.

Now let's talk a bit about the controversy...

Some context: It's difficult to explain to those who were not there how huge the Draco trilogy was in the early 2000s. This and a very limited amount of other fandom works at that time opened people's eyes to the possibility that fanfiction could actually be very good, that in some senses it could be as good as canon.

I was disconnected from fandom for years, reading mainstream work, but when I came back I learned of the vicious controversy that these books had ended up originating within fandom. Probably you are aware of it, but if not here's an overview:

https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Draco_Trilogy

https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Cassandra_Claire_Plagiarism_Debacle

Make of that what you may. Reading the evidence, and as much as I admire her and am grateful to her for entertaining me for so many hours, there's no question that Cassandra Claire acted wrongly. I'm not sure whether it was a cunning plan to gain prestige and get a professional contract or whether it was just the naivety of early pioneers of fanfiction figuring out what was allowable and what wasn't... I mean, if fanfiction is not for profit and it is all about taking someone else's characters and world and using them to tell stories, is it so wrong to use snarky one-liners from other works and put them in your characters' mouths? But if you do that, is it so much wronger to use a few descriptive passages from other works? ... Slippery slope indeed! If you go that way, where does it end?

Still, even though she did wrong, I'm not quite ready to lynch her. Perhaps she was dishonest, but perhaps she was just a young but talented fan writer making mistakes while trying to get out the best fanfiction she could, or perhaps it was a combination of the two. In any case, I still have to respect the talent and the extenuating work of writing such fanfiction novels. I mean, I could steal quotes from Blackadder and Buffy and other places, and still I would not be able to put together a coherent and well-written novel. Writing is a lot of work, and writing well takes work and talent. If someone argues that this novel would be nothing without those quotes, I have to respectfully disagree. There's solid writing here, beyond the borrowed elements. On the other hand, those quotes made the characters funnier, so part of the admiration she was getting for her fanfiction should have gone to the real authors of those quotes.

So that's enough about the writer. I'm reading her fanfiction, after all, not marrying her. I understand if some people are turned off by this controversy, but I have always found it easy to separate the author's behavior from the quality of the story.


TLDR: I enjoyed this fanfiction a lot, despite the plagiarism controversy around it. show less

I’ll admit, I wasn’t sure what to expect with City of Bones. But wow, I was hooked right away. Clary Fray is just an ordinary girl in New York City—until she witnesses a murder that changes everything. Turns out, the killers are Shadowhunters, warriors who protect humans from demons, and Clary gets thrown into a hidden world full of magic, creatures, and danger.

What really sold me on this book was the characters. Clary is relatable—confused, scared, but also pretty brave. And Jace? show more He’s the sarcastic, brooding fae prince with more than a few secrets, and his chemistry with Clary is off the charts. Their banter kept me laughing, even during the intense parts.

The plot is fast-paced, with tons of action, surprises, and twists. It’s got magic, romance, and a great mix of humor and darker moments. The world-building is solid, and I was completely pulled into this hidden world of demons, warlocks, and faeries.

If you like urban fantasy with a lot of heart, action, and humor, give this book a try. It’ll keep you turning the pages, and trust me, you’ll be eager for the next book.

Rating: 5/5 stars. It was a fun, fast read, and I can’t wait to see what happens next! show less

"Ave atque vale. . . Hail and farewell. He had not given much thought to the words before, had never thought about why they were not just a farewell but also a greeting. Every meeting led to a parting, and so it would, as long as life was mortal. In every meeting there was some of the sorrow of parting, but in every parting there was some of the joy of meeting as well."

By the Angel, Cassandra Clare, the things you do to my emotions should be against the Law. I love you. I hate you. I want to show more shower you with the tears of my praise. I am truly sad to see this series come to an end, but I feel that everything is as it should be. I laughed, I cried (and cried, and cried), and I am at peace with this parting. Well done, Clare, well done. show less