City Of Glass Review (The Mortal Instruments #3)

This was by far my favorite Mortal Instruments book. I felt that it was well paced throughout, there were no holes or questions that I felt were just left unanswered for no reason. Heck, if I put this book down and never read another book in the series, I would be fine. This seems like the end of a trilogy instead of the 3rd book in a 6 book long series. This rather frightens me as I worry what the next books will have to say, and if they will either be simply milking the plot or actually adding worthwhile storyline.

Clary has been alerted by a woman named Madeline that she must go to the city of Glass and speak to a man named Ragnor Fell to save her mother. She wanted to work with Jace and the Lightwoods again, but Jace forbids her from going with them. The Lightwoods go into the city alone with Madeline, but they are attacked at the portal. Madeline is killed, and Simon is injured so Jace brings him into the city, which is illegal because he is a Downworlder. After spending a few times with Aline and Sebastian, relatives in the city, the Inquisitor comes for Simon. He says that he was going to send Simon home but instead imprisons him.

Clary realizes that Jace didn’t know that Fell would probably only speak to her, and so she uses her rune drawing skills to create her own portal into the city. She goes through, Luke following after her, and almost drowns in the lake that they fall into. Luke saves her, but they aren’t out of the woods yet. The water of the lake is poisonous to Shadowhunters, so Luke has to rush Clary to his friend Amatis’s house to try and save her before the poison kills her.

This book showed the most growth in both Jace and Clary’s characters. I lost the feeling of Jace simply being an immature teenage character that was more of a burden than a help and started seeing him as a useful and mature character. Clary did a lot of sleuthing on her own and showed her usefulness as a Shadowhunter and not simply a girl who was born into it but doesn’t actually know how to do anything. Simon, although absent for most of the plot, presented loyalty even in the face of imprisonment by the Inquisitory to a family that wasn’t even his own. Even Alec grew in this story and stopped hurting the cause with his relationship issues.

I loved seeing the backstory of Luke’s character, and how he came to be where she was, the amazing leader of the werewolves.

The character I felt had some of the least growth in this story was Isabelle. She was nice throughout the story and did a lot of cool things, but I didn’t see her character really move past the “rebellious teen daughter” who just went from boy to boy. I wish I had seen more of her coming out of her shell more than the few scattered pieces.

Overall, I still feel how I felt at the beginning. I feel as if this was more of the end to a trilogy instead of the continuation of a series, but hopefully I will be pleasantly surprised by the rest of the Mortal Instruments series.

Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 books