City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

Confession: I liked The Mortal Instruments trilogy. I know it’s not literary genius, and I was okay with that. I know it’s a laughing stock in the YA community, and that’s okay with me. I know the fandom wank about Cassandra Clare and blah blah blah, but I will admit to you: she has a talent. She wrote a riveting story that sucked me in, despite its overuse of metaphors and similes. Some of the characters entertained me and, as if in a morbid sense of fascination, I wanted to see where the series went and how it could possibly end. Over all, I was pleased with the ending of City of Glass. I would have preferred that Jace stayed dead, but we all knew better than that. The fact Clary asked for him out of everything in the world annoyed me, as I prefer my protags to have a bit more substance, but, I was fine with the ending. I was content to let Clary and Jace go off and be disgustingly in love and let Simon roam the world as a Daywalking vampire and Magnus and Alec could go be in lurve~ and just let the world be.

I was fine. I liked it. It made me happy.

Clare then began her new series, and against my better judgment, I preordered it. You’ll learn this is a terrible habit of mine, and one whose mistakes I never learn from. To my immense surprise, it was GOOD. So good that I had renewed hopes for Clare’s announcement she would add three new books to the TMI trilogy. I thought, “Her writing has improved so much! She chucked some of those similes and metaphors! Maybe City of Fallen Angels will be good!”

Again, I preordered. How could Clare let me down after the beautiful improvement of her Infernal Devices series?

One day, I will learn my lesson.

Maybe had Angie not read the book before me, I wouldn’t be so reluctant to read. I remember sitting around, waiting for the book to arrive from Amazon. I remember Angie talking to me on MSN while she read the book, and I remember how each time she spoke of the book, my hope faded more and more, until it’d nearly completely diminished.

Once the book was in my hands, I was all hesitance. I tried the first chapter – and nothing. The book opens with Simon, which should have been great! I’m a very vocal Simon fangirl. I love him, and I prefer him to Jace. But I just couldn’t get into it, because I knew what waited ahead: drivel.

Nearly eight months later, I decided to reopen the book and suffer through – mostly because Angie kept begging me so she could have someone with whom to bitch, but also because I figured I may as well. There you have my feelings summed up: I may as well.

What. Did. I. Just. Read?

No.

Really.

What was the plot? Because as far as I’m concerned, this book felt like a massive fanfiction written by someone who missed the TMI series. Everything was shipping, and everything hurt!

Loosely, the plot can be summed up as: Shadowhunters whom were previously supporters of Valentine are falling dead and no one knows who’s doing it. But that’s okay! Because I promise you, this plot has next to nothing to do with the book. Really! Don’t worry about it! Simon is coming to grips with being a vampire and trying to find the balance of humanity and monster, but he’s kicked out of his house and trying to fight his instincts, he’s dating two girls, and he is propositioned by a vampire to take over the NYC vampire clan. As for Clary and Jace? Oh, don’t worry – Jace just keeps having dreams in which he kills Clary so, rather than do anything rational or tell her about it, he just freezes her out, refuses to break up with her, and occasionally mouthrapes her before fleeing off into the night to be BFF with Simon.

And honestly? That’s the best part of this book for me. I rather LIKED Jace when he hung out with Simon, and I could totally get behind a Jace/Simon bromance, except I know better than to expect so much. But really. That was the best. They were funny, awfully delightful, and it was a great reprieve from the disgustingly corny drama of Jace and Clary.

Seriously.

I’m probably biased, in my dislike for Clary/Jace. I’m probably TERRIBLY biased in my near disdain for Clary. Another confession: I skimmed so much. Every time I was in Clary or Jace’s head, they just ANGSTED the entire time about the other. “Oh noes why doesn’t Jace look at me, doesn’t he love me, he won’t kiss me, he’s avoiding me, waaah my life is over my life is ending!” “Oh noes, I dream I’m killing Clary, clearly I am my father, by the Angel, I can speak of this to no one lest they find out I’m a monster, what should I do, oh NOES!”

I just… all that clichéd drivel; and it was SO repetitive. Every few pages, it would pick up again, as if MAYBE I’d forgotten JUST HOW DETRIMENTAL THIS WAS.

There was also this other underlying plot involving the attempted recreation of Sebastian and a lot of dead babies infected with demon blood. It was meant to be a bit more horrific, I think, than I found it.

I just… I can’t wrap my head around what I read. What I FORCED myself to read. At times, I felt as if I was literally pushing myself along, encouraging myself to complete this, just to say I could.

And frankly, this book should never have existed.

The ending of the TMI trilogy was great! The books were a fanciful guilty pleasure, a great, fun read, and when they ended, I felt at peace. I was excited for her Infernal Devices series. And then… this: an obvious cashcow piggybacking on her own success of a trilogy swarming with obsessive, rabid fangirls in love with the obviously mental-issue-ridden Jace, crazy about the selfish Clary. And if I’m to be perfectly honest, I feel that’s’ all this book is. A continuation of the Clary/Jace relationship, which probably explains why I didn’t care for it. There was no overall plot; everything was just SHIPPING romance and terribly repetitive dramas.

Even the “villains” in this book didn’t come across as realistic.

Here we have LILITH the UBERDEMON of Demons. The MOTHER of Downworlders. And she felt like a villain from Scooby-Doo! Her speech came across as terribly unrealistic, and she did like all great Scooby-Doo villains do, by telling us exactly what her plan was, assuming it infallible, and most offensively, assuming readers not clever enough to read into subtle clues and figure out what was about to happen. It was one of the worst dialogue-driven info dumps I’d read in ages. I didn’t feel ANXIOUS for anyone, I didn’t expect anything BAD to happen. And once Lilith explained just what she was doing, I couldn’t even be arsed to CARE.

Amongst all this, I’d hoped perhaps Magnus, fabulous Magnus, could entertain me a little, but no such luck. After returning from exploring the world with Alec and meeting up with his old boo, Camille, Alec turned into a jealous fifteen year old. “Waaah, waaaah, my immortal warlock boyfriend is immortal and has loved before me. Waaah waaaah waaaah, who was Will, how dare you know others in your past? Waaah waaaah waaaaah every time you mention someone from your past I will assume they meant something to you. Waaaaaaaaaaaah I clearly mean nothing to you but a fleeting romance until you tire of me and my pretty face.”

OH MY GOD HE NEVER STOPPED THAT PETULANT BRAT ALL HE DID WAS BITCH AND MOAN AND POUT. HE ACTUALLY KICKED A CHAIR. HE. KICKED. A. CHAIR. WHAT? WHAT? WHAT? WHY?! Ugh.

I TOLD YOU. All this book became was SHIPPING DRAMA out the WAZOOO.

I’d actually FORGOTTEN about the dying Shadowhunters.

Even after reading, I’m left with one last question. (That’s a lie: there’s a LOT of questions, most about the idiocy of the book and the lack of plot.) WHERE THE HELL DOES THE TITLE COME FROM?! IT STILL MAKES NO SENSE TO ME.

And you know what’s even worse? Knowing that, because I’m 4 of 6, I will finish reading the last freaking books of this damn series, just because I can’t bear to own an incomplete series. City of Lost Souls and City of Heavenly Fire will find their way on my shelves and I will only pray they were have some actual plot, as opposed to more shipping drama to ~distract me from the complete lack of story.

Take Michelle’s advice. Don’t buy them brand new. Don’t preorder them. When City of Lost Souls comes out, wait a week or two for the people who LOATHED the book to show up on Amazon begging people to “please, PLEASE take this drivel off their hands for a measly $2 dollars PLEASE I beg of you.” I assure you, you’ll be better off that way. Because, if you’re like me and you’re compelled to finish off this forsaken new trilogy, you may as well save as much money as possible.

★

Fallen by Lauren Kate

Confession: I'm a sucker for book covers.If the cover is pretty, interesting-looking or just different, there is around a ninety-seven percent chance that I will buy the book. It doesn't matter if the summary on the book jacket sounds silly or potentially rage-inducing; I will buy said book because the cover is pretty and for all I know the book may actually turn out to be good.

Because of this, I've stumbled across books that I've immensely enjoyed (Julie Anne Peters' Luna, I'm looking at you) and books that I've absolutely detested (the first four House of Night books, for instance, which - yuck). As of late, however, the results of my ludicrous book-shopping tendencies have either fallen in the 'it was okay/mediocre' or just 'What the hell did I just read?' categories. As such, I've quite rightly (Hah!) grown wary of books with pretty covers.

And so, when I stumbled across this particular book, my eyes narrowed and my lips pursed[1] because while the cover is not necessarily 'pretty' it is certainly interesting enough for most people to look at it at least twice. The summary on the book jacket was kind of ambiguous, and to tell you the truth, rather formulaic. And by that I mean that it sounded like the story of just another Plain Jane (who, of course, really isn't a Plain Jane and everyone knows it but her) pining after a boy who not only doesn't return her feelings (except that, of course, he totally does) but also goes out of his way to publicly humiliate her (which is, of course, done for her own good).

See? Formulaic. And rage-inducing.

Even so, I shrugged off my doubts, admired the pretty, long black hair the model on the cover of the book possessed [2] and paid for the book, hoping for the best. Or at the very least, very little disappointment.

Fallen tells the story of Lucinda (Luce) Price, a girl who was sent to a school with he most ridiculous name to ever exist (Sword and Cross) because she's suspected of Arson. The place the school is located in dates back the Civil War, complete with its own cemetery and church-turned-gym. The students are strange or crazy, many with tracking bracelets on their wrists; there are security cameras everywhere and a fence to keep them in. Within an hour of being there, Luce immediately befriends a slightly questionable (albeit tolerable to me, as the reader) girl called Arriane and sooner than you may think, she's already drawn to a beautiful boy[3] called Daniel. Strangely, Luce has the feeling that she knows him from somewhere, but she doesn't get the chance to ask him if they've met because as soon as Daniel spots her, he gives her the finger[4] Luce is (quite rightly) surprised by the reaction this complete strange had to her, but nevertheless she doesn't find it in her to return the feeling of animosity he has towards her.

Throw into the mix an awkward best friend, an incredibly handsome suitor and the shadows that have been chasing Lucinda since the day she was born, and you have something that may even be mildly interesting.

It isn't.

I compare reading Fallen to have the shadows that chase Luce cover your eyes and make you walk down the street, with only your ears to help you narrowly miss (though not always) the passing cars. Except it's not the shadows the ones who deserve the blame for this; the culprit is the main character, Lucinda, and by extension, Lauren Kate. I don't really know what anything looked like; the prose was laughable and thus, the descriptions were poorly drawn, and sometimes conflicted. Visualizing the setting was impossible, and though I'd like to blame it on the fact that I've never been to Georgia (where Sword and Cross is), it just has a lot to do with the fact that Kate spends pages describing the staggering beauty of Luce's love interests and barely a paragraph at all on the reform school the main character attends to. I know sexual tension is the driving force in paranormal romances, but the plots have to at least make sense, as do the settings. This reform school she was sent to, had cameras everywhere but lacked the adult supervision that is common in normal boarding schools. I wasn't ever satisfied with an explanation why Luce, present at the scene of a tragic accident that happened before the book started, needed to even be at a reform school.

Whatever plot there is moves excruciatingly slowly, and every time something with the potential of being remotely interesting happened, Lauren Kate utilized her favourite tactic: She made Luce downright stupid, ignorant of everything but her school crushes. Although, if I'm being honest, this was something that happened all the time; Luce wavers through every single scene, allowing others to take control of her life and tell her exactly what to do and say - or not to do or say.Whenever she was called 'a bore' or a 'selfish, stupid teenager' I was inclined to agree, found myself having no sympathy for her at all, and rooting for the villain. To say that I understood the rest of the characters would be a lie, as Kate seems to go out of her way to stifle any possible character development there could be, because maybe it may be a spoiler for something she has in store for her next book[5]. But not unlike Luce, I wasn't supposed to notice that I wasn't getting any answers (except I did). I was supposed to be consumed by the hot guys the main character spent the entirety of the book lusting after (but I wasn't).

In short, Fallen is almost five hundred pages of Luce's internal dialogue of self-deprecation and confusion with the story sometimes happening in the background.[6]

NOTES

1- That was surprisingly not a shout out to the fact that Luce seems to do those exact two gestures every other page. It's kind of the way she reacts to everything:

Person A: Luce, the dog pooped in the living room!
Luce: *Narrows eyes and purses lips*
Person A: Luce, have you seen my chapstick?
Luce: *Narrows eyes and purses lips*
Person: LUCE, THE WORLD IS ABOUT TO END AND I NEED YOU TO KNOW THAT I LOVE YOU!
Luce: *Narrows eyes and purses lips*

2- I've always had a fascination with black hair. Blame JRK's description of Harry having jet-black hair (I blame her for a lot of things, so it's okay if you do) if you want, but that doesn't change the fact that I LOVE black hair. It also doesn't help that I've actually, in my entire life, only a met one girl who happened to have natural black hair.
3- Whatever happened to falling in love with a perfectly cute, albeit kind of average looking boy? I realize that there's nothing ~fascinating~ about that, but come on. Not only does it get old but IT'S ALSO UNREALISTIC, which I know shouldn't even be brought up because this is all fictional, but still. What message does that sent? That only people with outstanding good looks can be qualified as your One True Love. Fuck that right in the, er, place where the sun normally doesn't reach you? Anyways.
4- You'll have to forgive my excessive use of capslock but, I AM TIRED OF FICTIONAL GIRLS PUTTING UP WITH WHATEVER CRAP BEHAVIOUR HER LOVE INTEREST GIVES HER AT FIRST. I KNOW DANIEL HAD ~LEGITIMATE REASONS~ FOR HIS BEHAVIOUR [7] BUT THAT DOESN'T CHANGE THE FACT THAT HE WAS STILL AN UTTER ASS TO HER FOR ABOUT ONE HUNDRED PAGES! AND THEN, SUDDENLY (FOR WHATEVER ASININE REASON I CAN'T REMEMBER BECAUSE LUCE IS A BORE) HE ISN'T AND HE'S IN LOVE WITH HER AND SHE'S READY TO DIE FOR HIM (this is a legitimate quote from the book, right after he kisses her, which - WHAT THE HELL!!!) EVEN THOUGH ALL SHE KNOWS ABOUT HIM IS THAT HE'S BEEN A CONSTANT ASS TO HER EVER SINCE HE SAW HER. BUT OF COURSE ~FORGIVING~ THIS IS EASY BECAUSE A-) SHE FEELS AS THOUGH SHE'S KNOWN HIM ALL HER LIFE (BARF!!!) [8] AND B-) BECAUSE HE'S FINALLY PAYING ATTENTION TO HER.


I CAN'T EVEN WITH THIS CRAP REASONING.


GIRLS, HAVE SOME SELF-RESPECT, I BEG YOU. AND I NEVER BEG.


5- The sequel of this book is called Torment, and is already out and I won't be reading because I know that the only one who will be in torment if I read it will be me and not stupid Lice, I mean Luce.
6- Sound familiar? It should! Because it's Twilight all over again! And just about 75% of all the YA novels out there right now, too! Ugh.
7- Did I mention that the main plot of the book is that Luce is basically an old soul (LOL!) who is destined to meet Daniel, fall in love with thim and then die because a-) their love is forbidden since b-) he's a fallen angel. (another LOL!) If I didn't mention, though, my apologies; I just kind of have a hard time remembering that THIS is the plot of the entire book when it doesn't really get the importance it deserves because lusting after two hot boys (who happen to be fallen angels who don't like each other, of course!) is way better. Yipee!

7.1 I'm not even going to go over the fact that both of these themes (old souls and fallen angels) are fairly popular right now, because I actually like them. The problem is that writers rarely make them work, and Lauren Kate was obviously not the exception to this rule.
7.2 Don't ask me for specifics or any mythology in regards to the fallen angels or the old souls. Because there was none. All I know is that the shadows had something to do with both, but the details were quite poorly given (if at all) because, again - lusting after two hot boys is way more important than the things that have brought you misery for the past sixteen years or so. Yipee!

8- I just realized number eight was rather unnecessary. See: old souls.

★