City
of Glass is the third book in Cassandra Clare’s The Mortal Instruments series and picks
up shortly after the conclusion of the events of City of Ashes. Simon and Clary have (thankfully) decided that
they are better off as friends, and Jace is determined to be Clary’s brother only
and to adhere to all limitations that places on their relationship. Valentine has escaped with the Mortal Cup and
the Mortal Sword, and now only needs the Mortal Mirror to complete the ritual
that will allow him to summon the Angel Raziel.
The mortal instruments can be used only once to summon the Angel, who
will heed the Shadowhunter's call (it is believed that the one who summons Raziel can demand
one action from the Angel), and Heaven only knows what Valentine has planned. Luckily the Shadowhunters have some time on
their side as nobody knows what exactly the Mortal Mirror is, or where it can
be found.
Clary
is finally contacted by someone who might be able to help her save her
mother. Madeline, her mother’s oldest
friend, tells Clary that her only chance of saving the comatose Jocelyn is
finding a Warlock named Ragnor Fell.
Clary’s best chance of tracking him down is to go to Alicante, Idris, the
home city the Nephilim. As fate would
have it all of the Lightwoods are headed to Idris and they agree to take Clary
with them, much to Jace’s dismay. Jace
is the only one who knows what Clary did on Valentine’s ship, and he fears for her
safety should the Clave ever find how powerful she truly is. Jace wilfully causes several
misunderstandings in order to get the Lightwoods to leave for Idris without
Clary, but he really should have known better.
Clary finds a (very stupid, very dangerous) way to follow the Lightwoods
into Idris and sets off a chain of events that has serious consequences. Clary entered Alicante illegally and must
find a way to track down Ragnor Fell without alerting the Clave to her
presence.
Jace
and Clary’s relationship is on shaky ground following Jace’s deliberate
deception as well as Jace and the Lightwoods keeping a major secret from Clary
regarding Simon’s whereabouts, and Jace deliberately hurting Clary in his
efforts to get her to leave Idris. Their
relationship becomes even more complicated with turbulent and confusing
feelings when Jace seems to be attracted to family friend Aline, and her cousin
Sebastian makes a play for Clary.
The
state of their relationship becomes the least of their worries when Clary and
Jace discover a horrible truth about what Valentine did to both of them before
they were even born. They learn that
Valentine experimented on his children by secretly feeding Jocelyn demon blood
and angel blood respectively during each of her pregnancies. This explains both of their extraordinary
talents as Shadowhunters. Discovering
the truth about the demon blood sends Jace down a slippery slope of
self-loathing and self-destruction that not even Clary might be able to pull
him back from.
City of Ashes is
my favourite book of The Mortal
Instruments series so far. The story
is fast-paced, flows perfectly and keeps you at the edge of your seat. Danger surrounds Clary in her quest to save
Jocelyn as she is in foreign surroundings and has no idea who she can trust –
especially since Jace and the Lightwoods inexplicably treat her coldly.
Alicante is not as safe as the Shadowhunters
would like to believe, and the freedom of all Shadowhunters is threatened when
Valentine sets an ultimatum most Shadowhunters are unwilling to resist.
A major issue I have with City of Glass
is that the Shadowhunters aren’t portrayed as a force to be reckoned
with. At one point Alicante is attacked
by demons, and complete chaos reigns.
It’s just a whole lot of running and screaming. I understand that at
this point the adults were all converging in Gard, and that the young and the
old were left to fight, yet I would have liked to see the Shadowhunters do more
damage. Following the attack several
families flee Idris. Also, the majority
of Shadowhunters are too scared to oppose Valentine and refuse his ultimatum,
despite the fact that they knew what giving in to him would mean. I did appreciate that this gave Clary the
opportunity to have a moment and come to the rescue, but to me this book made
the majority of Shadowhunters look weak.
Alec
and Isabelle have larger roles to play this time around, and it was good to see
so much more of them. Isabelle has
always been a complex character, but in City
of Glass she becomes even more so.
She also has two great action scenes in this book which does her
character justice. She is also
discovering that other girls are not there merely to be hated, and I like how
Isabelle and Clary’s friendship is steadily growing at a natural, believable
tempo. Alec comes into his own in
this book and makes a life-changing decision regarding his future. Simon is also becoming a much more pleasant
character. Now that Simon and Clary’s
relationship is purely platonic and he is no longer trying to force his
feelings on her, I can actually see what brought them together. They have a great dynamic when their time
together is not clouded by unrequited love.
Simon truly is a really good friend.
Jace
and Clary remain the central characters, of course, and Clare did a great job of highlighting the complexities of their
relationship and their feelings for each other, and showing character
development in both of them. The tone of
this book is slightly darker than the previous ones, and Jace doesn't make many
smartass comments, which I really miss.
Major spoilers as to the events in this
book, so if you have not read it yet and would like to be surprised, this is
where you stop reading.
Clary
and Jace find a way to help Magnus Bane save the comatose Jocelyn, and she
returns to Idris. Through Jocelyn, Jace
and Clary finally discover that they are not brother and sister, but that Jace
is in fact the son of Stephen Herondale! Jace is the grandson of the previous
Inquisitor, and that explains why she sacrificed her life to save his in City of Ashes, and what she was trying
to tell him as she died. Jace’s parents
died before he was born, and having secretly fed Jace’s mother angel blood as
well, Valentine cut the baby from her womb and raised Jace as his own son, just
as he raised the real Jonathan Christopher in another house - Clary’s brother is indeed alive, and his true identity
is revealed, leading to a whole new set of complications.
Valentine
finds the Mortal Mirror, but his plans go awry when he underestimates his
daughter and the integrity of the Angel.
I LOVED that part of the book.
Valentine thought that by summoning Raziel, he could command him – we’re
dealing with an Angel here. I loved that the Angel did not
let himself be ordered about by likes of Valentine, and that when Valentine
went on and on about glory, the Angel’s response was “Glory belongs to God alone”.
Amen!
I am
quite eager to start City of Fallen
Angels, the next book in the series.
I am not at all sure what to expect.
Clary and Jace are finally together, a happy couple at last, and it will
be good to see the two of them together.
It will also be interesting to see where the story goes now that
Valentine is no longer a threat. All
seems pretty blissful at the conclusion of City
of Glass, but Clary did refuse to do the Seelie Queen a favour – I doubt
she will let that slide…
