City of Heavenly Fire

3.6 / 5

well, here we are. the grand finale of the sibling smut smack down. can i really say that these books are good? can i REALLY encourage others to do this to themselves? i took this upon myself so YOU don’t have to. altogether, this series is over 2,500 pages. i cant help but ask myself: why did i do this? what did i hope to gain? what’s left for me now? i spent a good two and a half weeks on this series and FOR WHAT?

right off the bat, i’m gonna say that the last 3 books of this series didn’t need to happen. i thought sebastian was interesting in some places, but not consistently enough to deserve a 3 book plot arc. i enjoyed little bits and pieces of the last 3 books, but ultimately they felt directionless - the show more overarching plot is allllll over the place. and the plot was ALREADY all over the place in the first 3.

this book in particular felt … unmotivated. i didn’t feel the tension or the build up, i didn’t feel the stakes, i didn’t care as much as i should have. i was bored by every couple in this book - even jace and clary are boring together in this one. it all felt so… tired. i was bored, the characters are boring, and the plot is SO stupid. i cant say that i felt like this was a fitting conclusion in any way. yeah yeah yeah, they travel to hell, there’s SEX, there’s tea and drama, but GOD - none of it was very compelling! i forgot everything that happened in this book the minute it was done happening. nothing made an impression on me.

what i do appreciate about this book is clary. she’s changed so much since the first book, and that’s the ONLY reason i kept reading. the scene where clary cries for all that’s happened, and then cries for herself? the version of herself that she’s lost? yeeppppp. that was the best part of the book and i’m not kidding. it was the ONLY part where i thought “i’m really thinking rn”. clary managed to be the only interesting character in this whole entire book.

the whole emma / julian / blackwoods plot? NOPE. HATED IT. so bored the whole time, literally i was begging CASSANDRA CLARE to take me out back and shoot me. i wanted to be put out of my misery!

one thing that was certainly missing from this series: a more in depth discussion of god. we’re talking about angels, demons, and princes of hell but we can’t talk about GOD? like? that would have elevated this series i think - my guess is that CASSANDRA CLARE was lowkey afraid to go there.

i will concede and recognize this one thing: these books are vestiges of a time long past. a time when fantasy didn’t have to be GOOD to be highly consumable. and these books are consumable as FUCK!! but they’re not good. they’re just not good. no matter how you slice and dice it, these books miss the mark. the character work is compelling in some places, but isn’t consistent: some characters feel fleshed out and alive, and other characters feel like one dimensional pieces of flotsam, just floating down the river of insane plot devices. there was a kind of kinetic energy in the first books - and you know what? I’M GONNA SAY IT - it was the sibling stuff. I KNOW, I KNOW, but that was such a great way to create tension! everything after the third book is lackluster and is missing the energy that keeps the pages turning.

i’m… disappointed i think. the ending wraps up in the most milquetoast, kumbaya way EVER. and i’m MAD about it. i did not put away 2,500 pages of MEDIOCRE PROSE for this. i don’t know what i DID read 2,500 pages for… but it wasn’t to read some feeble attempt at soft launching a spin off series. in short - i very much disliked the ending.

i have beef with a lot of the characters, but i’m not going to waste my breath on them. HONESTLY?? i might just be done wasting my breath on this series show less

Cannot comprehend how this book is rated highest in the series. The second half of the Mortal Instruments saga was drawn out already, and then this 640-page monstrosity just...wouldn't...end. It had some of the best/wittiest dialogue, but the plot devices were worthy of more than just a passing eye-roll.
Jordan, Simon, and even f'ing Raphael deserved better. Clare did them dirty. I said what I said.
I couldn't have been less interested in the Emma/Julian story. Those passages got the speed reading treatment.
But I think what disappoints and infuriates me the most is that the Clave learned nothing! The entire series was a tapestry of their past wrongs turned vengeance incarnate against them. Literally, an essay in Karma! Everything these show more characters went through got them back to square one. So that's why I'm pissed. 3000 pages later, and the end did not justify the means. show less

I have absolutely adored the Mortal Instruments up to this point. I had always adored the characters and their believability, the sarcasm and goading and hate and love. I had loved the heartbreak that went along with the series, how the characters actually struggled. Wether is be Jace and Clary and their "are we siblings?" mixup or Max's death, all the characters had been injured (mentaly and physically) and that forged an emotional connection between them and the reader. The City of Heavenly Fire lacked quite a few of the things that made me originally fall in love with the Mortal Instruments series. I didn't feel that kinship with the most of the characters, and didn't really feel badly for the characters when I obviously should have. show more While on the other hand, Cassandra did a very fulfilling* and happy ending that is sure to give readers the closure they need. So, City of Heavenly Fire was alright. Shall we take a deeper look?

I'm going to admit, I feel like a bit of a weirdo. All throughout the book I found myself rooting for the bad guy. Sebastian was my favorite character. There, I said it. Bite Me. He was sad and vengeful, so broken and tarnished. But all at the same time he wanted to be loved. That right there is why he was my favorite character. Because it took me two sentences to describe him. He was the only character that had more that one dimension. Sebastian was interesting and out there while the rest of the cast felt predictable and rather full of angst. Thank you, Cassandra Clare, for bringing this guy into existence. He's one of my favorite villains anywhere.

The only other real redeemable character was Alec. He was the only one that maintained his sass. Jace got docile and boring, and Clary was too worried about him to do much more than drool. Not to mention the weird sex scene in hell. Come on now, what happened to keeping it classy? Anyway, Alec and Magnus were great, and helped salvage the book for me.

When I read the epilogue, a strange mental picture popped itself into my head. It depicted Ms. Clare skipping down the line of characters handing them all something out of a basket. "A Happy Ending for You!" she sing-songed to Clary. "And another one for you!" She said to Jace. And along she went down the line handing everyone the happiest of endings. And frankly, it pissed me off. And you know what made it worse? When she got near the end of the line, where the Blackthorn children were standing, her happy demeanor dropped a bit. She said to them "I'm sorry kids. You guys don't get one. Instead, you've got dead parents, a promise of forbidden romance, and a book deal." She patted Jules on the head and skipped off, already formulating how much she'll make on their cute little faces.That being said, I'll still probably read that series, giddy with hope over Emma and Jule's budding relationship and anticipation about the future of the children .

Cassandra Clare:1 Me:0

All in all the book was good, I'm just not blown away. It was no Deathly Hallows, but it definitely did keep my attention. All in all, I did like it. I did almost cry when Simon volunteered his immortality and memories of the shadowhunters to save Magnus but other than that it lacked that emotional tug and felt a bit...dull. But I always love me some Jace and Sebastian drama. Even with Sebastian, City of Heavenly Fire just didn't live up to the high standard set by the previous books. show less

Where do I start? Seriously, I don’t even know. I haven’t been this disappointed in a book…ever.

Fine, I’ll start with the length.

Point 1: This book is 725 pages long (hardback). It is about 300 pages TOO long. At least. There was so much filler stuffed into this book that it was more bloated than a Thanksgiving turkey. I could have torn out entire CHAPTERS, and the plot of the story wouldn’t have changed. At all. There was so much redundancy, so much unnecessary fluff, so much…every pointless thing that you could possibly jam into a story to make it longer was jammed into this book.

I lost interest in this book about 100 pages in. I had to force myself to read the last 600 pages. And it was hard.

Because this book was show more boring.

Point 2: NOTHING unexpected happened in this story. The only real “twist” was so frequently “hinted” at that by the time it came to pass it had stopped being interesting 200 pages before. And the rest of the plot was completely predictable. Anything that could have made for a real surprise was given away at the beginning, so the rest of the book just plodded along as the CHARACTERS discovered all the important information you already knew. All the characters. Over and over. One at a time. Learning the SAME STUFF.

Don’t get me wrong: I like dramatic irony. But it ceases to be dramatic when it pertains to everything important to the plot for the entire duration of the story.

This brings me to Point 3: what happened to the characters? I swear to God I actually liked some of these characters once upon a time (years and years go when I started reading this series at, like, age fourteen). But in this book, they were all so FLAT. Half of them spent the entire book pining for their boyfriends/girlfriends and angsting about their complicated relationships. Scene after scene after scene of needless introspection about the difficulties of young love.

Also, the sarcasm that defined a lot of the great dialogue in past books was GONE. Nonexistent. There were, like, three jokes in this book, and they all sucked. They weren’t funny. Sometime between this book and the previous someone, somebody decided to wipe all the humor out of every single character’s personality, leaving them totally dull and uninteresting. Combined with the endless pining, I’m not even sure how I actually managed to read this entire book.

Point 4: there were too many POVs. I’ve complained about adding unnecessary POVs before, but I have never been so intensely angry at the handling of POVs as I am with this book’s. Not only were there too many POVs, but the book broke EVERY SINGLE RULE about using multiple POVs.

1) It ALWAYS cut to a different POV right when the tension was highest, and by the time it got back to that tense scene? All the tension was gone. Diffused. 2) It had different characters describe the SAME EVENTS from slightly different angles; and the angles didn’t serve any purpose whatsoever. They didn’t ADD anything. 3) They were totally UNEVEN in their usage. Some characters had tons of scenes; some only had a few. Meaning that plot points that were supposedly important got dropped for long periods of time, and when they were finally reopened, I’d forgotten they existed in the first place and didn’t particularly care anymore.

Everything that you could do wrong with multiple POVs, this book did.

Point 5: there were NO STAKES. None. Not for any of the main characters anyway. Sure, some minor characters died. But all the ones that mattered? Oh, no! They couldn’t POSSIBLY face any real adversity at the end of the story. No, sir! Every single one got a “Happily Every After.” For a brief moment, you think ONE character might get the sad ending — but nope, that immediately gets negated and the happy ending is restored.

This is one of the major reasons why this book was so freaking boring. Because it was so apparent that no one important was going to die. Apparent that nothing particularly bad was going to happen to any major characters. And that sucked all the possible suspense and tension out of the overall story.

There were no stakes, and it was obvious — the entirely predictable ending, the fact that all the important characters kept easily avoiding death over and over and over.

It was obvious, and for that reason, this book was totally un-engaging.

Point 6: The climax was anti-climactic. I’ve never been more bored at the climax of a novel than I was when I read this. I saw it coming miles away, and it happened exactly as I expected it to happen. There were no surprises. There were no shock moments. And the entire plot of the last three books was wrapped up far too neatly and far too easily and in the most standard, boring, uncreative manner possible. I waded through 600 pages of boredom just to get NOTHING remotely interesting.

Point 7 — my final and angriest point.

This book was a PILOT for The Dark Artifices, the next series in the Shadowhunter universe. That’s right; this book is spinoff pilot, a la television shows. It introduced a number of completely irrelevant characters whose existence contributed NOTHING important to the plot, who bogged down the already bloated story with even MORE POVs, and who served only to make me strongly dislike them even before they got their own books.

For the record, I won’t be reading The Dark Artifices.

This just made me…irrationally angry. Because in a book whose plot was SO THIN and SO CONTRIVED and SO BORING, there just had to be a massive hunk of completely irrelevant material added so that it could double as the introduction to the characters for ANOTHER series.

Now, I don’t necessarily have a problem with introducing characters who will be in a spinoff — that isn’t the issue. The issue is that THEY DIDN’T FIT here. At all. All of their scenes felt forced, as if they were last minute additions to the book. They didn’t read like they belonged. And they didn’t add anything to the story that we couldn’t otherwise have gotten from the actual main characters of THIS series.

If they’d simply been periphery characters who showed up in a few scenes with a few hints at their futures, that would have been FINE. But no, they HAD to get a unnecessary amount of screen time. They just HAD to.

To summarize: this book had basically no plot, plodded along for 725 pages, was in its entirety one huge anti-climax, was totally predictable, stripped a bunch of characters of their personalities, and was missing all of the humor that made the previous books enjoyable.

You know, I never really liked the whole “second trilogy” thing for The Mortal Instruments. But even the fourth and fifth books weren’t THIS bad.

This book was AWFUL. show less

**SPOILER ALERT: THIS REVIEW CONTAINS SPOILERS, YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED**



If that wasn’t one of THE ALL-TIME BEST endings to a series, I don’t know what is.



*bulgy eyes* I don’t even know where to start!



I guess I’ll start off how the book does (though I may end up rambling by the end because FEELS). Clare does a really good job of introducing us to and incorporating Emma Carstairs and the Blackthorn children into this story–the main characters of the next series in the Shadow World, The Dark Artifices. You’re with them as the Los Angeles Institute is attacked and they’re all left orphaned. You grow attached to them and are invested in their future.



Especially since Emma is a Carstairs.



Which leads me to the whole Brother show more Zachariah situation. Holy heavenly fire, I was NOT expecting Zachariah to become Jem again when he tried to help Jace reign in the heavenly fire. The ending of The Infernal Devices was bittersweet to me, but here we have Jem back and at the end of the book, Tessa is with him and it made the ending to their story even sweeter! Yet it’s not really the end, is it? Because you know they’re going to Los Angeles and will end up in TDA.



If you only read TMI and never read TID, I’d DEFINITELY recommend reading TID. It enhances the story so much! It adds a whole nother layer of feels and emotional attachment!



Speaking of emotional attachments–COUPLES!



We didn’t see as much of Magnus and Alec together because of the break up and how Magnus was one of the kidnapped Downworlder representatives on the Council. But even though they aren’t technically together throughout the book, you can still feel how devoted they are to each other as Alec does everything he can to save him.



Jace and Clary. Can I just tell you how much I LOVE Jace and Clary? alotalotalotalotALOT! This book did not disappoint in the hot and heavy swoons department–HOLY HELL ( show less

What can I say... I needed my closure :) I like Cassandra Clare's writing style most of the time: it genuinely makes me laugh out loud, ignoring some cringe-y, tiresome tearjerking/I'm-quirky lines. The biggest thing I had about this was that I quite like this universe, and given how many books she's spent fleshing it out (like really), there's a lot of potential for really interesting, deeper storylines or characterisations maybe. As much as I love Alec and Magnus (thank goodness for this one toning down slightly the Jace/Clary drama), it really feels like way too much time is spent waxing lyrical about each person's love life, and it does get to a point where the reader's like: "Okay... So..." There's that. No idea if I'll read the show more next series (holy cow), but honestly, knowing myself I'll probably pick it up when I'm feeling kinda lazy.

EDIT 10 minutes later: actually I'm gonna go ahead and change this from three to two stars. Having sort of come off the high of finishing the book, more things occurred to me that are super confusing and weird that I don't really understand. I can't help but make comparisons between YA fantasy/adventure/action stories like this and Harry Potter (I know, I know; it's not fair) and there's a lot that makes the latter work—and indeed, burrow itself into a home in the reader's heart—that this book/series doesn't/won't/can't do. CoHF was a little disappointing as the grand finale of a six-book long series. I think in some way, the characters as well as the readers deserve to experience loss, and death, and heavy, real pain. It's not enough to declare "WORLD DESTRUCTION" and "LIFE-OR-DEATH" and "MAJOR SACRIFICES" and "INTENSELY HIGH STAKES" and then completely disregard those tag lines in the actual story. What have this motley crew of lovable misfits lost, really? Max, somewhere in the series. Um... Sebastian? I guess? I mean... Jordan, Raphael... A character death, especially at these climaxes at the final points of a journey, when the author owes it to everyone to really do justice to the integrity of her world and her creations, should hit you hard; it should hurt as much as Sirius falling through the the Veil or Tonks and Lupin lying pale and peaceful together or Dobby cradled in Harry's arms. (Sorry, but see how it still stays with you?) The nominal tragedies in TMI aren't sucker punches; they're more like minor scratches on your legs that fade fairly quickly, because it doesn't feel like there's a lot of effort put into letting the reader get to know them, or making them people that matter enough to be worth sobbing over. To be cynical about it, it's almost as if a few teenagers/young-adults were thrown together, sent on field trip of exciting ups-and-downs of not much consequence, cried a bit over their being jilted lovers, encountered some scary bad guys who don't seem to be all that much of a threat, then manage to save the day and have a happy-ever-after. It feels like a cop-out, and I'm reminded of the series finale of How I Met Your Mother, which, to me, negated nine seasons of character development and failed to give a true send-off to the beloved characters, who were supposed to be versions of their Season 1 selves with more experience, more maturity, and different world views.

There's more that I want to say about this series but I can barely put those thoughts into words yet so until then... two stars and this rant. show less

It's so very, very surreal to have finished this book at last. I remember back when I first read City of Glass several years ago, the news had just come out that Cassandra Clare was going to add three more books to the Mortal Instruments series, and I was thrilled that I wasn't going to have to say goodbye to Clary, Jace, Simon, Alec, Isabelle, Magnus, and the rest just yet. And now here I am again, at the real end of their story, and it feels just like the best series ends should; deeply satisfying, with just a flicker of loss and nostalgia.

As in City of Glass, the Shadowhunter country of Idris is the focal point for the final clash that is this entire book; all the conflicts of blood, family, relationship, loyalty, and humanity flow show more together. But this time the main enemy is Sebastian, and in a lot of ways he's scarier than Valentine ever was, because the characters and reader have gotten to know him through the narrative much more intimately. There's a lot of doubt, despair, and loss on a scale we haven't previously seen in these books. There are tricks and traps and horrific one-sided battles. And when the panicked and desperate Clave is unable to pull together to present a united front to Sebastian, Clary and her group will have to put all their faith in each other one more time, as they go to the demon realms themselves to confront Sebastian on the final stage.

There are a lot of great moments in the body of this book, more of them involving Emma and Julian than I would have expected, which is wonderful considering they'll be the stars of the next series. There are a few great and genuinely surprising twists, while others are not so well hidden. I'll say that some parts of the book probably could have been expanded and paced better (especially in the demon realms), but like the series-closer that was Clockwork Princess, it's such a perfect storm of emotion in the right places that I'm able to overlook the flaws.

But as its been from the beginning, it's the characters that truly shine, and the it's the characters that have allowed this series to take up such powerful residence in my heart. I wrote in my review of City of Glass that everyone kind of got their 'moment' - that happens here too. But they almost mean more, because of the extra growth everyone has been through, the extra doubt and failure and loss and triumph they've experienced along the way. It may sound strange, but I leave them with a feeling of so much love and pride in how far they've come - I'm just so thrilled with them all and the people they've become. But a special shout-out must go to Simon, who was my first favorite character, whose name Cassandra Clare signed herself into my copy of City of Bones because I told her that, and who traversed possibly the greatest roller coaster ride of the entire series with loyalty, good humor, courage, and an incredible, indomitable strength of spirit. I utterly loved how Simon's arc concluded, and I think he deserves it with all my heart.

And the cameos of Infernal Devices characters sprinkled here and there were heartwarming (and occasionally badass, see: Jem/Zachariah with chakrams!), as you at last understand and appreciate their history and the ways in which they feel tied to the characters of present day.

The last thing I felt this book did really right was the way that Clare began smoothly weaving the beginning threads of Emma, Julian, and the Blackthorns into this book. It provides a great foundation and makes me truly excited to see what the Dark Artifices series will bring. There are few things better for me as a reader than those first stirrings of curiosity and attachment towards great new characters. As touching and hopeful as the ending turned out to be, there are still plenty of questions and unresolved plot threads waiting to be addressed in the Shadowhunter world, and the setting of Los Angeles is much closer to what I'm familiar with!

So Ave atque vale to those who fell, the best of love and luck to those who fought through to their happy endings, and a heartfelt 'see you soon' to all the characters who will helm the next trilogy. I'll be waiting. show less