Clary was just living a normal teenager life, until she chose to go to an all-age bar with her best friend Simon. She stumbles upon a boy that looks about her age. She then follows him into the dark, and finds another girl, Isabelle, who was waiting for him. The couple then goes into a forbidden room, with Clary right behind them, stalking. Isabelle then beats up the young boy in the room, along with two other men: Jace and Alec. She then calls Simon up to see the fight, but he cannot see them. He only sees Clary, in the room alone without any other people. The next day Clary finds her mom packing her things because she needs to “get away, or escape” for a while. Clary is angered and then goes out to the coffee shop with Simon to get away from all this stress. She then finds Jace, one of the boys from last night, and then confronts him. He then reveals that he is a different type of person called a Shadowhunter. After that, something happens to her mother while she is away and she has no idea what. During, her quest to find her mom, she teams up with the Shadowhunters and finds out a lot of dark secrets and rumors about her mom, her dad (who passed away when she was a very, very young child), and even herself.
This book was very nice, and it had a bit of everything. At times, it can be very funny, like when the Shadowhunters call the humans Mudanes. The art by Cassandra Jean is also very outstanding and beautiful. I dream of drawing like her someday. One more thing that I liked was all of the characters very much. Although I was a bit disappointed in Simon; he has to be my least favorite character in this book (at least in my opinion). The last thing that I loved and cherished about this book was that in between each chapter, they give a little comic strip just for fun. The thing I hated the most is that is book ended in a major cliffhanger, and now I can’t stop checking the internet for when the second volume will come out!
I loved the part where Clary meets Jace, Alec, and Isabelle in the club. The drawings and the art style in that scene just builds up to an amazing and iconic scene in this book. The rest of the scenes in this book are memorable too, and they all build up to a great story!
Reviewed by Siri, Grade 7, Twin Hickory Library
HCPL TeenScene's Read + Review 