Review: City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

Jace is now a servant of evil, bound for all eternity to Sebastian. Only a small band of Shadowhunters believe he can be saved. To do this they must defy the Clave. And they must act without Clary. For Clary is playing a dangerous game utterly alone. The price of losing is not just her own life, but Jace's soul.

Clary is willing to do anything for Jace, but can she still trust him? Or is he truly lost?

What price is too high to pay, even for love?

Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series.




Review:

Warning. (Hehe. My first warning review!) This is more of a rant. Ye be warned.

So. City of Lost Souls. The title makes sense. So does the next one actually.

I have no idea why I'm writing this review. Actually. No. I do. Because if I don't write the review I'll forget about all the things that frustrates me with this book and I'll just be possessed by who-knows-what to write about all the good things in this review.

First off: Too. Friggin'. Long.

I swear, the first half of this book could have easily been cut in half. Because all these POV changes in each chapter (this book is 500+ pages long and all 22 chapters long, including the Epilogue) dragged the plot. It felt like Clare was forcing the character's to take a turn narrating. If I didn't like looking at the cover and the new-ness of it, I would be tempted to grab a red pen and cross out scene after scene because they weren't needed! They didn't add to the plot. They certainly didn't make the pace quicker. We--the readers--didn't have to have them to understand what was going on. They just went on and on and on, much like this paragraph.

I think we would have survived with just two or three POVs every few chapters. Not four+ every single chapter.

Another thing with changing POVs so often is that you start to loose each character's voice. And I certainly noticed it. These characters didn't have their own voice. It all sort of blended together. Maia, Simon, Clary, Alex, Jocelyn, Jordan... That's six characters right there that I definitely remember having POVs. SIX*.

URGH!

Right now, that's my biggest pet peeve.

Oh. Another pet peeve. The next book's release date has been pushed a year later... to 2014. Am I the only one who suspects this is because of the movie? Filming begins in August, take a few months to film, a few months to edit, more months until it comes out. The book could easily follow the movie's release date a few months after.

But, City of Lost Souls was an improvement. I think over the months I've grown to dislike City of Fallen Angels a little bit more, but COLS is so much better. Clary stuck up for herself, the second half of the novel was more fast paced than the first half, the epilogue was absolutely amazing and everything I expected (too bad it was only chapter and not the entire book), and it was interesting this time round. However, there are still so many flaws. The POV changes weren't needed, the characters lost their individual voices, and my gosh, if I came across one more sentence that could have been shorter and made more sense, I would have shot the book.

I'm not sure where I sit with COLS. I liked it and I hated it. But the fact that it's an improvement from COFA has me wanting to read COHF, if I can even feel excited at its release because of the huge publication date jumps.

**

Okay. I've decided. 3.5 stars. Because to be fair to myself, while this book was a lot better than COFA, the first half of COLS had me falling asleep. And that extra half star to make it clear that it was better than COFA, which I rated three.

*Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong.

Review: 3.5 star
Date Published: May 8th 2012
Publisher: Walker Books
Source: Bought
Format: paperback
Date Read: May 2012
Page Count: 540
Series/Stand Alone: The Mortal Instruments #5