Book Review: City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare (Spoiler Free!)

8755785Genre: 

Young Adult, buy Urban Fantasy

Pages: 

725

Part of a Series?:

The final book of The Mortal Instruments series

Release Date: 

May 27th, stuff 2014

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

Author Website

GoodReads Summary:

I am coming.

Darkness returns to the Shadowhunter world. As their society falls apart around them, Clary, Jace, Simon and their friends must band together to fight the greatest evil the Nephilim have ever faced: Clary’s own brother. Nothing in the world can defeat him — must they journey to another world to find the chance? Lives will be lost, love sacrificed, and the whole world changed in the sixth and last installment of the Mortal Instruments series!

My Review:

I will warn you now: there will be NO NO NO NO NO spoilers for City of Heavenly Fire in this review, but there will be spoilers for City of Bones, Ashes, Glass, Fallen Angels and Lost Souls. If you’re reading this and you haven’t read the first five, I can’t imagine why you’re here, but I would suggest not reading this review.

Now I’m going to jump in. I was very excited for this book but also incredibly apprehensive. I loved the way the first trilogy of this series ended, City of Glass is beautiful and it remains my favorite. Fallen Angels was disappointing to me, and Lost Souls was better but I just didn’t feel like the second half of the series was good for me. I was happy with how City of Glass ended.

That being said, now after reading City of Heavenly Fire, I can say…that City of Glass is still probably my favorite of the entire series but City of Heavenly Fire was incredible and I’m highly impressed and I thought that the ending was really great.

It wasn’t perfect though, but I’ll get to that later. I’m going to be as spoiler free as I can possibly be, but if you literally want to know nothing before you read this book, I suggest you go. I promise to be spoiler free, and vague but it still may not be enough for you.

First off, the story. When we leave Sebastian at the end of Lost Souls, with the Infernal Cup, and the ability to transform the Nephilim into darker versions of himself, I thought, where on earth is this going? We know Sebastian is insane, and that the demon blood in his body has made him into a sick person but I couldn’t see exactly where the story was going in this book. It opens up with Sebastian attacking Institutes in order to build up his Dark Shadowhunter army. The fear of him is real, and the building tension and fear throughout the story is very real. I was clutching the pages, anxious to get through because I had to know what happened next. It wasn’t just the whole “it’s the end of the series” anxiety but also the “Ohmygod, what is happening, what is Sebastian doing, what is going to happen to my favorite characters” anxiety.

The romance in the story is absolutely beautiful too. There are so many great romances in the Mortal Instruments series and seeing them interact and struggle and work together, it was beautiful, and I loved all of it. I do love that we get to see Jace and Clary fight together, side by side for the first time in the series. Its the first time we really truly see them as equals and I absolutely loved it. There are a few couples that don’t make it, all heartbreaking but done in ways that killed your heart but also made sense too, if that made sense. Its hard to explain without feeling like I’m revealing stuff but the couples that didn’t make it together, it hurt but it was done in a way that it made sense and it was heartbreaking in all the right ways. Plus there are a lot of FANTASTIC sexy scenes, enough to get all of us Shadowhunters all hot and bothered.

We’ve known for awhile now that we would meet the main characters of The Dark Artifices-Emma Carstairs and Julian Blackthorn-would be introduced in this and I was surprised with the…frequency that they appeared in the story. I won’t say more than that but what little we get to know of them as young Shadowhunters-in-training in CoHF makes me absolutely love them and I can’t wait to dive into their stories later. I also like that we get what seems like hints for Lady Midnight in this book.

Again, from the hints, and from Clockwork Princess (if you haven’t read that, please skip to the next paragraph), that Brother Zachariah would be…no longer a Silent Brother anymore. Again, no spoilers, but this scene caused me to burst into uncontrollable tears and the interaction between him and Jace was beautiful. I marked it in my book because it was truly one of my favorite scenes in the book.

I did have some issues with the end. I think that Cassandra Clare could have been…harsher than she was, and that she could have taken more risks than she ended up taking. I was disappointed that the sort of sacrifices she made didn’t make as much of an impact as she could have. Its so hard to talk about it without spoilers but I just thought Cassie could have taken more risks. I thought that the direction she took with Simon’s story was the sort of risk I was looking for but it changed in the end to something I didn’t expect and was also kind of disappointing too. I think she went safe in the ending of the book, though heartbreaking and heart wrenching, could have been…more realistic, I guess is the word I’m looking for.

The conclusion of Sebastian’s story, I’ll just do words: unexpected. but kind of expected. perfectly written. perfect in general.

I had two favorite parts: when Zachariah, no longer a Silent Brother, meets Jace. Then there is a part when…a group of our favorite characters come into contact with a demon that makes them…see things. The things they see…its very emotional and I had to pause after I read that part in order to wipe the tears literally streaming down my face.

Basically, I am highly impressed with this book, and the fact that it brought together so much that has happened in the Shadowhunter world. We got flashes to the time of Tessa, Jem and Will, we got hints at the time of their children. We have everything of the Mortal Instruments time come together and wrap up and we have hints at what is to come in the future, and I think it all comes through nearly flawlessly and I applaud Cassie Clare a million times. I am proud to wear the fearless rune permanently on my shoulder :)

One last thing that’s SLIGHTLY (very slightly) spoilery: Simon’s band finally picks a name. And its WONDERFUL.

Ave Atque Vale, Shadowhunters. Until Lady Midnight!

Rating:

4 out of 5 Stars

What A Nerd Girl Says’ Mortal Instruments Read-A-Thon!

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I really did try to come up with a better name for this. Obviously I failed miserably. This is why I don’t name things, viagra buy guys. I let other people do that work for me!

Moving on…

In just over a month, the final installment of The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare, City of Heavenly Fire, will be hitting bookstores. War will be waged, battles will be fought, tears will definitely be shed.

You can read my City of Heavenly Fire synopsis reaction here.

And in order to celebrate and prepare for this ending, What A Nerd Girl Says is going Shadowhunter.

I’ll be re-reading the Mortal Instruments books until the release, and profiling each one a week until the release. I would encourage you to join in whatever you way you can: on your blog, on Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, whatever way you’d like!

I’ll be tweeting, instagraming and tumblring as much as possible and will be using the hashtag: #anerdgirlsaysTMIreadathon, so please join in! I’d love to hear from you as we make our way back through the TMI series and prepare for the heartbreak that is sure to be City of Heavenly Fire.

Here is the schedule that I’ll be doing for my TMI Read-A-Thon

City of Bones – Week of April 21st

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Tuesday 4/22: Tuesday Top Ten: Favorite City of Bones Moments

Thursday 4/24: Book of the Week: City of Bones

Friday 4/25: City of Bones: Favorite Quotes

Saturday 4/26: Fictional Crush of the Week: Jace Wayland (Re-Post)

City of Ashes – Week of April 28th

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Tuesday 4/29: Tuesday Top Ten: Favorite City of Ashes Moments

Thursday 5/1: Book of the Week: City of Ashes

Friday 5/2: City of Ashes: Favorite Quotes

Saturday 5/3: Fictional Crush of the Week: Isabelle Lightwood (Re-Post)

City of Glass – Week of May 5th

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Tuesday 5/6: Tuesday Top Ten: Favorite City of Glass Moments

Thursday 5/8: Book of the Week: City of Glass

Friday 5/9: City of Glass: Favorite Quotes

Saturday 5/10: Fictional Crush of the Week: Alec Lightwood (Re-Post)

City of Fallen Angels – Week of May 12th 

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Tuesday 5/13: Tuesday Top Ten: Favorite City of Fallen Angels Moments

Thursday 5/15: Book of the Week: City of Fallen Angels

Friday 5/16: City of Fallen Angels: Favorite Quotes

Saturday 5/17: Fictional Crush of the Week: Simon Lewis

City of Lost Souls – Week of May 19th

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Tuesday 5/20: Tuesday Top Ten: Favorite City of Lost Souls Moments

Thursday 5/22: Book of the Week: City of Lost Souls

Friday 5/23: City of Lost Souls: Favorite Quotes

Saturday 5/24: Fictional Crush of the Week: Magnus Bane

City of Heavenly Fire – Week of May 26th 

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Tuesday 5/27: Happy Book Birthday to Cassandra Clare!

Wednesday 5/29: Vlog Reaction to City of Heavenly Fire (Spoilers!)

Thursday 5/30: Book of the Week: City of Heavenly Fire (No Spoilers!)

Friday 5/31: City of Heavenly Fire: Favorite Quotes/Moments

Saturday 6/1: Fictional Crush of the Week: Clary Fray

*     *     *     *     *     *     *     *     *

I hope that you can all join me! I know that not everyone can read as quickly as me, though, so I made these posts sort of easy so that if you’ve read the books before, you can participate!

Happy Reading everyone, and don’t forget to follow here on the Blog, the Tumblr, the Twitter, the Facebook and the Instagram to be a part of the Read-A-Thon!

City of Heavenly Fire Official Synopsis and Reaction

Now, here you guys know that I’m not a news site. I don’t post news, because frankly, I have too much going on in my life to keep up with that sort of thing. I wish I did. I try to post as much as I can on the Facebook page but honestly, I just don’t have the patience.

This is a fan experience and fan opinion and all around fangirl site.

But that means I can share the official synopsis of City of Heavenly Fire, and I can share my reaction to it.

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And here is the synopsis:

In the long awaited conclusion to the acclaimed Mortal Instruments series, Clary and her friends fight the greatest evil they have ever faced: Clary’s own brother. 

 

Sebastian Morgenstern is on the move, systematically turning Shadowhunter against Shadowhunter. Bearing the Dark Cup, he transforms Shadowhunters into creatures out of nightmare, tearing apart families and lovers as the ranks of his Endarkened army swell.
 
The embattled Shadowhunters withdraw to Idris — but not even the famed demon towers of Alicante can keep Sebastian at bay. And with the Nephilim trapped in Idris, who will guard the world against demons? 

 

When one of the greatest betrayals the Nephilim has ever known is revealed, Clary, Jace, Isabelle, Simon and Alec must flee –even if their journey takes them deep into the demon realms, where no Shadowhunter has set foot before, and from which no human being has ever returned…

 

Love will be sacrificed and lives lost in the terrible battle for the fate of the world in the thrilling final installment of the classic urban fantasy series The Mortal Instruments. 

Jeez.

My heart is breaking and I haven’t even read the book yet. Its going to be a Clockwork Princess kind of night when CoHF is released. I’m going to stay up until 3 or 4 am reading it, and walk around the next day with complete blood shot eyes. Sigh.

Let’s break this down:

“transforms Shadowhunters into creatures out of nightmare, tearing apart families and lovers”

That KILLS me. I wonder if any Shadowhunters we know are going to become a dark Shadowhunter the way Amatis did in CoLS. And I hate the way it says lovers. It makes me thing that Luke will be turned against Jocelyn, or vice versa or that Alec or Isabelle or Jace or any of them will turn bad and turn against their friends. It makes me wonder who Sebastian is going to get his claws on.

“not even the famed demon towers of Alicante can keep Sebastian at bay” 

Um, why? What’s going on? He has demon blood so we know that he can knock out the wards, the way he did in City of Glass. Is he just going to march into Idris and take it over?

“the Nephilim are trapped in Idris”

Sebastian is totally taking over Idris. The Shadowhunters are going to be under his thumb while he just wreaks destruction upon the world. Because the word ‘trapped’ means its more than just them seeking refuge there. Trapped suggests that they can’t leave. Why can’t they leave? AGH!

“one of the greatest betrayals the Nephilim has ever known is revealed”

Um, excuse me? What? WHAT? Who is betraying who? Why is it so crazy? What is going on? Ohmygod I can’t stand this kind of anticipation. Who is going to betray who? Is it going to be absolutely heartbreaking? AGH!

“even if their journey takes them deep into the demon realms, where no Shadowhunter has set foot before, and from which no human being has ever returned”

Someone is going to die, someone is going to die, someone is going to die, and my TMI feels can’t handle this because I don’t want Clary or Jace or Isabelle or Alec or Simon to die but one of them is going to die and I’m going to became a tragic mess.

Basically all this as shown me is that I am so incredibly unprepared for the release of City of Heavenly Fire. I honestly have no idea how I am going to handle it but its going to be an emotional night. And I can’t wait for it.

What are your reactions to the official City of Heavenly Fire synopsis? Share in the comments!