City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare Series: The Mortal Instruments #5
Published by Margaret K. McElderry Books on May 8, 2012
Genres: Paranormal, Young Adult
Goodreads
The New York Times bestselling Mortal Instruments continues—and so do the thrills and danger for Jace, Clary, and Simon.
What price is too high to pay, even for love? When Jace and Clary meet again, Clary is horrified to discover that the demon Lilith’s magic has bound her beloved Jace together with her evil brother Sebastian, and that Jace has become a servant of evil. The Clave is out to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. As Alec, Magnus, Simon, and Isabelle wheedle and bargain with Seelies, demons, and the merciless Iron Sisters to try to save Jace, Clary plays a dangerous game of her own. The price of losing is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she still trust him? Or is he truly lost?
Love. Blood. Betrayal. Revenge. Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series
Our book club has decided to read the entire Mortal Instruments series, one each month, leading up to the movie coming out in August. We started reading this series in March 2013. Feel free to read along with us! We’d love to hear your thoughts on this series.
Rose’s Review
I am sorry, but I am getting really bored with this series… to be fair, it was never my thing to begin with… and now it is just dragging on and on and on….. sigh. I also probably do not like this series because there are so many other books I want to read right now, that I guess I am jealous of the time suck this series tolled on me and my TBR list. BUT I read all the books and AM excited for the movie next month! YAY!
Okay, so what I did NOT like about this book: the fact that it exists. I really feel like the series was basically over after the third book. I DID like the fourth book, but mainly because it seemed to be all about relationships and that is right up my alley. However, this book seems to drag on and on and it seems to me like we are repeating the same problems over and over again.
Things I DID like about this book: the cover is really pretty. Ummmm yep. That is pretty much it.
I gave this book 2 stars. It probably deserves better than 2 stars as it was well written. Cassandra Clare’s writing style has gotten better as the series progressed, but unfortunately this book just couldn’t make me care about the characters or keep me interested or want to keep reading. I will not finish this series. I will however, go see the movie!!!! And if it is good, who knows, perhaps it will encourage me to one day finish the series. Perhaps.
Julie’s Review
Yes, I only rated City of Lost Souls two stars. I really enjoyed the first three books: they were wonderful and exciting. Then the next books happened and the excitement dissipated. This fifth book in the series has some of what I’ve seen called “second book syndrome”. Book 4 felt like a first in a new series and was lacking the spark the original 3 books had. For most of City of Lost souls I felt like nothing much happened. This book was mostly filler, 550 pages of mostly filler. When things did happen to move the plot along, sometimes they felt a bit convenient. There were also some random plot developments that didn’t make much sense in this book, but I’m guessing we’ll see where the story is going in the final book.
There were things I did like though, so there were some redeeming qualities.
1) Clary has become kick-ass! She’s gotten so much stronger and braver and is just awesome now. What she has to do at the end of the book to Jace was heartbreaking and not something I think she would have been brave enough to try in an earlier book.
2) Jace. Even when bonded to Clary’s evil brother, we still saw the depth of his feelings for Clary and got some great quotables. Also, Jace is just yummy.
But we’re still super excited about the movie! Here‘s a super awesome extended scene with the cast members intro!
